The Before

For a long time now, I’ve looked at my life like it was a pie with four pieces—health, relationships, finances, community—and it has been a constant inner battle to balance all four to create the perfectly balanced pie. If any one piece gets larger, you fail to savour the others. It is a pipe dream, of course. Often, when I finally cracked one piece of the pie, everything else became smaller, naturally. However, during the last month, I looked at the pie and realised, it was balanced enough. A little skewness here and there, but balanced, more or less. As I walked around the city that day, I realised that the pie will obviously go to shit soon enough, and it did, but I moved forward with the knowledge that the pie was balanced for once, and it will be again. That is what I want to do now for the rest of my life—perfect my pie now that I’ve managed to bake it once.

I was talking to some friends the other day, and it does not matter which friends or what it was that we were talking about but what does matter is that all of us seemed to agree on this one thing that I said almost spontaneously and without intent. “I don’t care about anything anymore”, I said. “All I want is calm and civility”. That’s exactly where I am these days. I hate being pestered unnecessarily. My opinions, albeit strong, are usually kept to myself now. I find myself quieter and calmer in situations I would’ve completely lost myself earlier. Perhaps, I’m just tired. I may never know for how long this may last but I’ve been enjoying the calm. Often, if I can find a moment between the chores, errands, and other everyday shenanigans, I look up and I stay that way for some time, staring at whatever is directly above me, the same words rolling in my head, “I don’t care about anything anymore. All I want is calm and civility.”

If I ever had a chance to talk to my younger self, I’d tell him a lot of things I learned later in life but first and foremost, I’ll tell him this. You don’t have to defeat a monster in an epic battle; making someone smile is heroic too. You don’t need to be the ripped archetype in a spandex; hoodies look like capes too. You don’t have to swing off skyscrapers with style; heroes take the stairs too. You don’t have to do everything on your own; asking for help is courageous too. You don’t have to be flawless at everything; heroes make mistakes too. You don’t have to save the world; you just have to save someone’s day. On some days, that someone will be you. The ground rule still stands, kid, with great power comes great responsibility, but power can be understated too.

As someone who calls himself a writer, I find stories all around me. When there aren’t any around, go out and create some. Very rarely though, and trust me when I say this, stories happen to me on their own. There’s a story that happened to me a month ago. It’s this tale of comfort and warmth and mutual clumsiness. It’s a story of not grand gestures but simple things said and done. Sometimes, it’s a story of things that don’t require saying anything at all. This story made me realise how the clichés were wrong all along and how love isn’t a conquest but a simple feeling of home. It made me realise how easy it is to look at someone and just smile, knowing that they will be there for you, always, and that you’ll be there for them. Amongst stories of wild rewrites, drunken parties, epic travelogues, absolute brotherhood, and instant time-skips, I found something I never expected to find. I found a simple story of cupcakes and coffee. It’s my favourite one of them alI.

The last time I was here, I wasn’t. I say that because I didn’t feel like myself. I felt heavy, and heavy is the lightest word I can use to describe how I felt when I sat in a flight as the city disappeared behind the clouds. It was morning then, and the town greeted me with a sunset when I came back. In a way, it was a really long day. It felt like that, at least. A very long and fulfilling day between when I left the city and when I came back. Since then, I’ve gotten a hold of myself, and what I want to do. Since then, I’ve also learned to love again. As I said, it was a long day and yet, nothing changed. As I sit at the airport ready to leave, I have in my head the understanding that Dehradun still isn’t home although I don’t hate the city now. It is a good city, obviously imperfect like all of us. Home, however, is not in one place. It’s scattered all around the globe. It’s in the people we meet and the people we grow with. It’s in the cafés we miss sitting in, and it’s in the cafés that aren’t there anymore. It’s in the memories. Home is in pieces, spread all over in this very connected world. I leave the city with the important understanding that while my roots are important, the fixation on them is unfounded. After all, what good are strong roots if the tree fails to grow higher?

All my life I’ve heard platitudes about doors. Push them open, knock them down, and even make your own, if you’re so unfortunate to never come across one. True happiness, they said, lies beyond the figurative door. Yet, on a random day when I wasn’t feeling particularly peachy, I found my hand on the knob of a not-so-special door. For some reason, I stopped. Just then, I had an epiphany. I realised it was never about which side of the door I felt awry on rather, it was about the fact that something was amiss in the first place. I’ve never opened a door to escape how I felt ever since that day.

I was always scared of roller-coasters and rides that went too far up into the sky. I was scared of a lot of things, and yet I did them eventually. I’m still scared of a lot of things but I’m sure if I want to, I’ll manage to do them. I’ve learnt one thing over the years. It’s a really simple but convoluted lesson—lie to yourself. Your brain has spent years developing the mould you’re stuck in. It was to protect you, and it worked. It served its purpose. Now, you’re stuck and you want to break out of the mould but you can’t because of the same narrative. It is the same loop of the same things you’ve always told yourself. This is where you lie. You lie to yourself and tell yourself that you’ve never been scared of the thing you think scares you. It takes a little bit of convincing, a bit of a nudge and a leap of faith but it works, more or less. We’re always in flux and always growing, but only if we allow ourselves to grow. Sometimes, the stories we tell us about ourselves are our biggest obstacles, really. How do you lie to yourself though? A friend’s comment comes to mind, “Close your eyes, if you’re dead scared, but you have to try that coaster once. You’ll want to get on it again. Trust me.”

For a long while I can’t put a strict number on, I embraced grey. You could find grey in all I did and all I had. The colour, or the logical lack of it, dominated everything that went on in my life.

There was grey on the clothes I wore, and the shoes I kicked, and the bag I put my stuff in and yet, it did not stop there. For you know, grey was in my decisions and my experiences.

I made choices—ambiguous ones. I did things that did not fit well on either side. That was the worse kind of grey for someone who views life in binary, but I was stuck. You see, I was walking a fine line.

In everything I did, I walked the line. A misstep here and I’d get splashed in overwhelming colour; a slip there and I’d be covered in the nothingness of black. The line, however, was always coloured grey. The line started to feel like home.

On a random evening some weeks ago, I pulled open my closet door, and I ignored the stack of grey t-shirts sitting in the corner waiting for me to pick one of them up. Without thinking, I wore the most colourful of all my clothes that day; I wore maroon.

I met you that evening, and since then, grey doesn’t feel so attractive anymore, and since then, colour doesn’t feel so overwhelming anymore.

One morning, I woke up. I woke up only to look out the window at the sky which had not felt bright in a long while. I woke up to a kiss—an honest one. I opened my eyes but I decided to not get up immediately. Not out of laziness, no. On the contrary, I wanted to savour how peachy I felt, how inspired I was, and how happy I knew I could be now that I had felt it so clearly. One morning, I woke up to a sky that felt brighter and bluer than any I had seen before in my life. One morning, I woke up happy.

Perhaps, I dream too little or maybe, I know too much about how the world works but when I’m asked about the kind of writing that I want to pursue or do, the first answer that comes to my head is—an utterly selfish one. I don’t do things for others. I don’t write for others. My head is far too heavy to think about anyone else’s life. Any change someone ever attributed my words to have brought in their life, I strongly believe, would’ve occurred anyway. If not for the nudge of my words, then by someone else’s, and if not for that, then eventually, of their own accord. The clay’s virtue is to take form irrespective of whose hand is on the wheel as long as the wheel keeps spinning.

I looked at the sun, slowly turn from the morning pale to a bright yellow. I watched the sky, change colours about ten times in ten minutes. I watched a man, calling birds as he threw food in the river. I watched the birds, flocking and squeaking in unison. There was more to life, I thought, as I sat down to express it as best as could. There was more to life, I learned, as I failed to find words like I usually would.

I do not know what all of you talk about. I do not know much of bigger ideas. I am nothing but a small man who knows his coffee and hopefully, his words. To have an ambition, I do not know. All I know is I like doing things without thinking where they lead me. I am nothing but a small man who knows his coffee and hopefully, his words. To love someone, do not know. Despite my escapades, I am unaware and in my ignorance, I am learning. I am nothing but a small man who knows his coffee and hopefully, his words. To save the world, I do not know. On my best days, I can barely hold my head and myself up high. I am nothing but a small man who knows his coffee and hopefully, his words. To be happy, I do not know. I smile this second and I cry the next repeating endlessly the chore of everyone before. I am nothing but a small man who knows his coffee and hopefully, his words.

As exciting as eventfulness is, and as much of a learning experience the last few years have been, I found myself emotionally exhausted, and always en garde. If you’ve ever walked in a bustling city, you know how you’re always looking over your shoulder. That is how the last few years felt. Even today, I read older journal entries and can’t help but wonder how much was happening all the time. Maybe, it was all in my head. It is unimportant where the storm brewed. The important thing is that there was a storm, or at least, the uneasiness it brings. Perhaps, I’m too hopeful and this is exactly what the calm before the storm means but I like the calm. I like flowing freely through the day without a care about what will happen next. There are small ups and downs that keep coming but no existential war is waged and no larger chaos is handled. Even if this is a phase, I like it. I like knowing I’ll not be sitting on the floor on a random evening because everything seems too heavy and overwhelming. It’s just a mellow sort of feeling; you know, the way streamers flow wherever the breeze makes them go? That’s how I feel right now—not in control, not wanting to be in control—just flowing, calmly.

You’ll do good, kid. You’ll grow up just fine. I know going up to people and saying a simple Hi seems like the end of the world but you’ll make friends. You’ll make friends who stick by your side for years. I know you act all high and mighty as if you’re somehow better than them but you secretly wish they invited you just once. They will. You’ll go out and have fun and travel and go places and do things. You’ll do everything. Don’t be overwhelmed. Just keep doing what you’re doing. The idea is to be blatantly yourself. You’ll learn. You’ll be better. Then, better is all you’ll seek. Even if you don’t change at all, the bottom line is, you’ll do good. Everything that feels like the end of the world will eventually be a little stumble out of your comfort zone. Maybe you’ll fall, but you’ll get up. The world won’t end. One day, in what will feel like a hundred years from now, I hope you sit and look back on how difficult you thought it all was, and I hope at that moment you tell yourself what you should’ve said all those years ago, “You’ll do good, kid. You’ll grow up just fine.”

…and sometimes you never find closure. You can ask for it, demand for it or even beg for it. You can throw the largest tantrum in the history of tantrums only wishing to come full circle but it won’t be that way. Do you know what you will find though? You’ll find friends and a table filled with beer. You’ll find yourself meeting people you thought you’ll never meet from places you may never see. You’ll start to spend nights under the stars more often than you ever thought you would. You’ll find a good place to go to every day. You’ll find a life you never thought you could create, and you’ll find yourself lifting yourself up to maintain it now that it’s there. You’ll find a lot of things if only you take a good look at them. If you do that, you’ll have an epiphany. Sometimes you don’t need closure; sometimes, you need a great breakfast to start a better day among a series of extraordinary ones, and that is enough. One day, finally, as you listen to a song on your morning commute, you’ll realise—closure wasn’t something you asked for; closure was something you gave yourself.

Hello, friend. I’m a work-in-progress. I’m a canvas with some strokes on it. I’m the dollop of paint that happened to fall on a corner.

Hello, friend. I’m the odd note that makes the piece go wrong. I’m the sheet of music, marked all over like it was done by an amateur.

Hello, friend. I’m the bad prose and the hollow plot. I’m the bland characters and that extra adjective.

Hello, friend. I’m a lot of things, and I was a lot of things. Before a dollop of paint, I was a blank canvas. Before the odd notes, I was a blank sheet of paper. Before the bad prose, I was an idea.

Hello, friend. One fine day, I’ll be a terrific painting, I’ll be a breathtaking symphony, and I’ll be an epic manuscript. Until then, bear with me as I rid myself of my imperfections.

Hello, friend. I appreciate you sticking around. Thank you.

Recently, before I sat to write, I decided to make some coffee in the usual routine. I noticed a crack had appeared on my coffee-stained mug, stretching through the base, and almost touching the side. I didn’t remember dropping the mug. I’ve always been most careful with it. It is the mug I use while writing, and it has been so for years. It broke my heart for a second. I checked it for a second, rather carefully. To my surprise, the crack didn’t break it. The crack didn’t matter, as long as the mug did what it was meant to do. It may break eventually, I thought, perhaps, devastatingly so but today wasn’t that day. So, I poured some coffee into it, and I began to write.

I thought the trick with time was to never have too much of it on my hands. The idler my moments, I believed, the idler my thoughts. It was in jumping from one task to another, and from one place to another, where I found peace, momentarily so, until I lost it again. That was when I learnt that it was neither in the abundance of time nor in the absence of it. I learnt, it was in the transition. It was in the movement. It was in that little moment between still here and almost there. That moment right there was my moment of peace. That was where I wanted to stay, always.

I often catch myself looking out of windows but not at anything in particular. You know, that moment when someone is just looking outside; staring. They’re not looking at something, just outside. You know, that moment at the end of the day, with a cup of coffee or a glass of wine or a pint of beer in their hand, and they’re just looking outside from the porch or the window or the terrace. That little moment when they tell themselves, “Life’s good”. I often catch myself having one of those. I hope you do too.

I’ve learned that it’s my inherent nature to become dissatisfied with whatever goes on around and in my life eventually. So, I’ve learned how to embrace the phase where I am still in love with whatever goes on around in my life and create some record of how I felt so that I don’t forget when my nature kicks in. It’s been a week since I changed cities. It’s been a greatly challenging but epic week. I love this new phase, and I believe it is of utmost importance to share happiness. I’m happy. I may not be so tomorrow. I guess it’s with everyone. We often forget how we felt about something or how we felt on one particular day because of the phase, and in the end, we end up forgetting everything we really, truly cherished. It is my resolution, not a new years’ resolution but a personal quest to not just focus on but remember the good. It is important to remember it. You know what? We have it backwards. You focus too much on the good, you lose yourself when the good starts to disappear. You have to remember the good. It helps when it gets bad.