The Before

You’ll build homes where people were never meant to live. You’ll build homes in other people, on a particular table of a cosy café, on benches in parks no one visits anymore, and on streets you remember so well you could walk with your eyes closed. However, like all homes in the history of homes, you’ll leave them behind, and you’ll go further. Sometimes, the home will outlive you, and sometimes, you’ll outlive the home. It doesn’t matter which way it goes. If you come back and find the home isn’t there, a part of it will always stay in you, and if the home stands the test of time, anyone else who calls it one would find a part of you in it. Even if you return and the home still exists, somehow, it won’t feel the same. It won’t matter which one of you changed because home isn’t a place, a feeling, or a person; home is a moment in time.

There was a little boy. The little boy was digging. The shovel in his hand seemed a little too big for him, and the weather was cold, and there was a little sore right where the little boy’s little hand met the handle. The boy was digging.

A man passed him by, a slightly older man. This man believed the boy’s digging was hard work. He started clapping as he saw the boy dig further.

A couple of students were returning from their classes. They saw the old man clapping so they rushed to see what it was all about. They peeked and saw that there was a boy digging below, and so they started cheering for him.

The boy heard them and stopped for a second but then, he continued toiling. He dug further, and deeper. It wasn’t long before there was a crowd but the boy was so deep down below that he could only hear a faint echo of applause. That, and his constant striking of the Earth. He kept going deeper.

Until the boy got tired. He was exhausted. He dropped the shovel, and he sat on the soil below him. The ditch was dark, and it was only now he started to realise how the time had passed.

The boy looked up. “”Hey!”” He shouted. No one could hear him, and he still couldn’t remember why he was digging. He started climbing up. As he climbed, the crowd started to feel an err. The constant clinking of the shovel had stopped.

The little boy kept climbing out, and for a while, his world-view became that of the vertical tunnel. He could only see the circular top, and through it, he saw the urge to get out. After a long climb, he came out.

He huffed and puffed and looked around. Those who waited gave the boy some food, and water, and wrapped him in a blanket. A while later, they asked him why he was digging. “”I do not remember. I think I started on a whim, but that was years ago. Now, I am tired, and I want to sleep,”” the boy said.

The little boy went to his house, and climbed into his bed, and slept throughout the month. As he slept, the only thing he saw in his dreams was him in the ditch, digging.

One day, when he felt rested enough, he woke up. Then, on a whim, he picked the shovel up. He walked out of the door, and without a word to anyone, he started digging.

You know what? Sometimes life throws a curveball and there’s no other purpose besides one thing—to make you feel the worst gut-wrenching in the entire history of gut-wrenching. You’d be sitting at an arm’s length with someone you know like the back of your hand, and you’d not say a single word. You’ll sit there, both of you, pretending to be strangers. At that moment, nothing comes to mind—no self-help article, no psychobabble bullshit, no epic mantra for positivity, and surely not a verse of poetry. There comes only one thing, in that one hour, and that is one large cup of disappointment. Call it fate, if that helps you sleep at night but remember this, you’re only kidding yourself because this is your life—a banal ballad of baseless probabilities and numbers you can’t see. There’s no grand meaning; there’s just that day when life decides to throw a curveball, and nothing else matters.

So you know why you feel what you feel. So you understand why people do what they do. You’ve spent years, inside your own head, truly trying to develop a sense for it. You know now; you understand now.

But sometimes, you want to just let out a sigh or tear of cluelessness but you know yourself too well now. You may be clueless about everything but not about what goes on inside you.

And sometimes, you want to just let out a fit of anger because someone did something and something happened but you understand all of them well enough to let it slide. You may not understand everything yet but you understand people.

The problem is, you still feel what you feel and people still do what they do, and there’s not a damn you can do about it. So, you let out a sigh, and you keep walking. I’m sorry no one ever told you, buster, empathy is a double-edged sword.

I wish you a love like a chilly winter night where warm conversation in a warm blanket won’t let you let out as much as a sneeze. A love, like the first ray of sun on the otherwise misty and hazy hill which leaves its lifelessness in a second as it sees the yellow warmth over it. A love like the puppy who walks in that sunlight, feeling a plethora of feelings all of a sudden. I wish you a love like the one that makes him jump with joy as the morning sets in.

I wish you a love like the stormy sea. A love so passionate that it is ready to destroy even the hardest of rocks in its way. A love that feels so cold and often, so salty but is not afraid to splash around and make its mark on everything it touches. I wish you a love which doesn’t get calmer with the rain and only becomes more enticed to grow and consume everything within it. A love so fierce and free nothing compares to it.

I wish you a love like the little town where nothing ever happens. A love that is deceitful and cunning as the narrow alleys you enter to steal a moment of embrace. A love that makes you run away from the prying eyes of your friends who are all over town. I wish you a love like the warm cup of coffee in a fancy café and a love like sizzling street food. I wish you a love like the very life you have, eventful and spontaneous.

I wish you a love like the dry desert. A love where even when you’re alone and left behind, the feeling stays with you. A love like the last drop of water on a shrub which is never consumed rather protected. I wish you a love so fiery it turns everything bland and colourless, and which brings cracks to your life as it slowly leaves like that last drop on the shrub which despite all protection and shade, evaporates away under the blazing sun.

When all of it is said and done, I wish you a love that makes you get out of your bed and look at yourself in the mirror. A love so personal and strong it rushes straight into your heart as you stare at your reflection. A love for yourself so infinite, all those phoney infinities are put to shame.

I adore winters. Although, I’m always sick and unwell for most of them. I love the chill in the air, interrupted by gradual sips of tea, coffee, booze, and warm conversation. I love how ruthless the cold can get at times as you’re out and about, sitting with your friends, feeling the cold slowly spread around your entire body. Winters in the hills is another experience altogether. The misty roads in the morning and evenings. The slight hazy filter over the entire city. The feeling when you wake up in the morning and want to snuggle in the blanket for a while longer. The feeling when you finally hit the bed at night, and snuggle into the blanket yet again. All of that, and an over-abundance of extra warmth all around you. Everything slows down, and then just stays like that for a lot of months. That’s what I used to think earlier. It has come to my realisation lately that calm and cozy winters won’t make as much sense if the summers weren’t passionate and crazy. As I took yet another walk around town, embracing what is allegedly my favourite time of the year, I realised that you need to be spiraling for slowing down to make sense. With that epiphany, I appreciated summer which is something I had never done before, and maybe, just maybe, I missed the hyperactive energy and eventfulness that had disappeared as the chill began to set in around me.

I don’t have a grand goal. I really don’t. I used to think to have more money than I can spend was a good goal. Then, I wanted to save the world. Then, it was something else. The cycle kept going on. Now, I just want to fine tune my life, and figure out the music of it. I want to see how best can it sound when everything comes together. All elements – the people, the things, the habits, the lessons – coming together to play one perfect song; all elements coming together to play my song. There’s no grand goal. There is only a vision plus a little hope that somewhere along the line, as the wheels keep turning and as the clock keeps ticking, I keep finding the right notes and I keep changing the odd ones. Until one day, someone listens to that final piece, and no matter how it sounds, their heart skips a beat.

Timmy was a little boy. Everyone thought they knew Timmy. Timmy went away for a while. Timmy did it for the first time. Timmy wanted to tell everyone he did it but they were too busy doing other things. Timmy did it again. Then, Timmy did it every day. Everyone met Timmy when he was back. Timmy did it as they watched. “You’ve changed, Timmy,” everyone sighed.

Timmy’s story sounds familiar because it happens every day. Humans, we’re always influencing those immediately around us, and I don’t mean this in a bad sense. However, the problem arises when you and the Timmy in the story start doing different things and no longer have an influence over each other.

It is at this point that you start to grow differently, for better or for worse, and it isn’t until your paths cross again that you learn how large the gap has become. Whether you take it like everyone and declare it as Timmy’s fault or not is up to you though, and I hope you understand enough to choose the latter.

You know what? Some things never get old. A random kid walking down the street to catch a balloon. The moment you realise you’re back home after a long while. A friend sitting across the table with some coffee and food between you. Irrespective of how your life is going, a little puppy will be as cute as it was when you first saw it. No matter how you’re feeling today, a baby’s laughter will sure make you smile for a second. Maybe, it gets aggravating after but when it starts, you smile. You know what? There’s a part of being human that forces us to enjoy the little things. You can be a cynic and refuse to laugh all you want for you’ve seen the worst of life. You can miss out on the little things if you’re willing to do so but you know it too. You know that those little things never get old because those little things aren’t little at all. They’re the biggest part of what makes you human. You know that, right? I know you do.

Yesterday was a really good day. As much as I dislike societal norms, I think we ought to give a day or two to ourselves. Birthdays are just an excuse, like New Years’ or any other day that happens every year, for us to put our progress into perspective. I don’t think they serve any other purpose besides that.

There has been a lot of learning, unlearning and relearning in the last one year. The time between I turned twenty-one and twenty-two has been a rollercoaster, personally. I’ve talked to so many people and all of them agree that it’s the age. It’s extremely eventful and things change really fast.

A new friend I made while travelling told me that I’ll be twenty-nine in a blink, and I won’t even realise how time passed. I think I have a feel of what she meant when she said that. That said, irrespective of how much time had passed, some conflicts in my life have stayed the same… or at least, they had until yesterday.

I have come to realise that life goes on not because of certain people or events but despite them. In that sense, all we can do is try and stop controlling situations and take charge of that one thing that we can control–ourselves.

Despite how much chaos brewed in the little things, and despite the few major losses that happened between the twenty-fourth of October last year and yesterday, I’ve also realised that I have a blessed life in most respects, especially when it comes to the people I have in my life–all of them. I am extremely grateful for that and more.

That gratefulness is why I want to move forward setting even better examples for myself and improving continually as a person. To be honest, I’ve really done a lot that I had wanted to do this year but I don’t think I’m done yet.

I don’t think I’ll be done ever. I hope I can keep looking at myself every year and always see myself progressing in what feels like the right direction. Lastly, if I ever look back and notice a misstep, I hope I can correct my course quickly.

It was an eventful year. Thank you for sending in your wishes yesterday, and I’m extremely sorry if I missed your call. Here’s to being twenty-two-years-old!

I’ll leave Rajasthan today. I can take the route everyone takes after an eventful journey and say that it changed me but, it didn’t. Nothing happened in the last month which changed me as a person. This trip, if it did anything in the grand scheme of things, only made me clearly see the things I already knew about myself. It didn’t change me; it showed me who I was, and it did so extremely well. I’ve met so many people and collected so many stories. I think doing this was worth it just for those two things. In the end, there’s no larger clarity and there’s no profound wisdom. I guess, there’s only another notch of understanding myself. I guess that’s fine. I can’t wait to go back home again. I just have one detour and one last stop to make first.

We went to bed at eleven; our bodies were tired and our bellies were full. We lay in bed and looked at the sky without a shelter above us. The moon shone brightly and the sky had some stars. It wasn’t as breathtaking as we had heard, and in a way, it felt boring so I dozed off. A dog, from the pack of six or seven which kept wandering around us in the desert, started barking all of a sudden at three in the morning. I guess all of us had dozed off and the barking woke all of us up. There wasn’t any talk that happened, and it was only in the morning that we learned all of us were awake. No one said a word as everybody looked at the sky. The moon had disappeared. The sky was full of stars, and there was nothing else. There were just stars spread evenly on a wide dark sheet that covered everything. As I lay there, for I can only speak for myself, I looked at the sky and kept gazing at a star, moving to the next a while later, until my attention was stolen by a shooting star, and then another. I stopped counting shooting stars at twelve. I guess there was no point counting my wishes or blessings. I’m not a believer but for a few hours, I believed in it alright. I don’t remember when I dozed off, remembering things and counting shooting stars, thinking I’ll never see something as beautiful as that night sky. Then, I woke up, almost instantly, to a sunrise, and just in a few hours the universe had proved me wrong yet again.

How do you remember what has already happened? Do you remember it clearly or does it feel like a fuzzy recollection of things? Think clearly and be honest. You don’t remember it. You remember bits and pieces. Maybe you remember how you felt in a certain moment and the memory of that feeling dictates how you remember the event. Our memories aren’t how we thought they worked. It’s a trick; it’s a trap. The only way to look at things is to look at how they are now. Maybe, preserve a good memory to feel good when you remember it, to serve as dessert after you savour good experiences or to serve as a shot of booze for the bad ones. Maybe, let a good memory help you escape occasionally. However, never trust it. The past is always hidden behind the veil of time, and time blurs even the largest of monuments. How strong is your memory then?

I lost myself more than once in narrow alleys of the blue city. I lost myself more than once this year. I’d stop walking for a second, look around, and I’d just see blue confusion all around. Sometimes I figured it out on my own, sometimes I saw a familiar place, and sometimes I asked for directions from those around. Eventually, I found my way out. I guess, finding your way out works the same whether it’s a blue alley or a blue day. All we really need to do is try, remember, and if push comes to shove, ask.

You know, I don’t want a lot; not anymore. I just want to walk amongst crowds, losing myself in them. I want to sit in parks, play with squirrels, and sip a cheap cup of tea. I don’t care about anything that everybody values anymore. I just want to live my life, calmly and without large expectations. In a world where no one shuts up about how legendary their life is, I want to look up at a clock tower under the dark night sky just to bump into a stranger who would laugh and tell me it is easier to look at the time on the watch I’m wearing. That is all I really want now—to have an extraordinarily ordinary life.

The Blue City has really blue skies, not to mention the now decreasing blue houses and buildings. As I sat on a rock at Singhoria Hill this evening, something amazing happened. The entire city started to shower itself in lights, one by one. First, Mehrangarh Fort lit up as the dark brown fort turned bright orange under the navy blue sky. Then, one by one, lights started flickering on in different houses and streets. I think it was the overview effect, of sorts, that sitting on the hill gave me but it was really nice to watch the sudden shift from blue to yellow and orange. As soon as the blue city got engulfed in the evening darkness, one rock lit up, and then so did all of them, one by one. I guess, you could take that as an analogy for a lot of things or you could just let it be what it is, a city defeating the evening. At the end of the day, how you look at things will always be how you look at things, and I guess, however you do it is fine as long as you remember to turn the light on when the day gets dark.

In a world where everyone wants to get things done as quickly as possible and where data and information travels faster than people can, the word “waiting” has an extremely negative connotation. Tell someone you’re waiting for something in life and be sure to be under fire for wasting your life away over something petty. The problem is how people interpret the word though. The way I see it, whatever has to happen, happens anyway. If that’s true, and it is, then waiting isn’t sitting with your hands idle, one over the other, doing nothing. Waiting is to constantly work on yourself, and to do things, and learn, and be better every day. It is an active attempt to being ready so that when whatever you’re waiting for comes around, you’re in a position to make the most of it. Waiting, in its truest sense, is nothing but an exemplary display of patience, which if you didn’t know, is the most celebrated virtue in history.

Maybe, I’m not old enough to be preaching about life but I think I have one thing down clearly. I think there’s only one concrete rule here, and everything else is just up to us. The rule is simple – be alive. To be as excited of kicking a pebble down the street as you would watch a breathtaking view. It’s never going to be a perfect day or a perfect week or a perfect month or a perfect year. The very nature of life means it goes from zero to shit really quickly, and I think it is in those moments that we should remember the single rule there is – be alive. Don’t waste moments worth smiling with half-hearted smiles. It is all-in or nothing. It’s always been that way. The very nature of life is that it goes from being there to just stopping in a flash. I think it’s up to us to choose what we count until it does – our losses or times we were truly alive, even if those times have passed. The very nature of life is to go forward, and we can’t do that unless we learn to be alive.

A day in Mount Abu almost felt like being home. The sunlit trails, the trees, the casual attire, and the chilly evening were all reminders of home. The trail to the famed sunset point had me walk amidst people in carts pushed by other people, people on horses, and other walkers like me to reach very noisy spots to see what was an otherwise beautiful sunset. The crowd and the cacophony were so aggravating and in such contrast with how it felt in Pushkar that the first thought which entered my head, unfortunately so, was that people from my country just can’t appreciate beautiful things. They will always be busy buying the mundane snack, haggling with the vendors selling the snacks, judging other families who are on vacation, cursing the government even as the sun sets right in front of their eyes. You get the idea. So, I sat there, earphones in, as Bon Iver played but that wasn’t enough too for this lady couldn’t stop staring at an anomaly in the crowd who watched the sky silently. So, I decided to head back and watched the sunset from a faraway corner. There I met three people, slightly younger than me, who too wanted to enjoy a sunset, click a few photos of it and do nothing else. We talked, got to know a bit about each other, and became friends as we watched the sunset together. Too bad I’ll never enjoy the cheapest corn-on-the-cob like all those people at the sunset point though. It was a sad day indeed.

After roaming about the markets of Udaipur, I came and sat at the Gangaur Ghat to watch the sunset when a little kid caught my eye. He sat right between me and the sun, and he had taken his wristwatch off which to me was peculiar. Then, I watched the boy for over an hour. He was there alone and something about the way he sat there made me believe he came there regularly. This little boy complete with his tiny earrings and cropped hair stared at the sun in awe. Then he looked around at the people and the flocks of pigeons flying above us regularly. He played with the water at regular intervals. When the sun had set and the sky turned pink, followed by navy blue, he got up and left as casually as he sat there. He wasn’t there to miss someone or think about his life. He really was there to watch the sunset. It was inspiring to watch him just be himself. It was a reminder to never forget the little boy who wanted to sit by himself, play a bit, and watch beautiful things.