2020 : Serve Chilled
6 months of lockdown, I was in an emotional cocktail.
I stared on at the window in my room in my Bangalore nest. The window which had
shown me all the beautiful sunsets, as every evening, I would sit on my bed,
and do nothing but watch the sky change colours from this window. A friendly
banter ongoing from the stranger who lived across my balcony, in the adjacent
building. Every evening, for me in Bangalore, was a concoction of the sunset
colours and his chatter, loud, cacky and bubbly. Like bubbles in a soda, as the
evening sun set, his chatter would fade off, parallel with the sunset sky. It’s
been 6 months of this stranger’s presence in my vicinity. No, we never
addressed each other. But somehow, subconsciously, his loud, irritating chatter
had become part of my auditory routine. The night falls were however the most
challenging times for me.
It felt like, I was missing the sun. Why did the sun
have to set? What do I look at, for hope, in the night? Why did the night have
to come, oh so frequently? I miss that window. I took numerous pictures of my
window on my smart phone, as each day passed, I realized, I was in fact, in
love with Bangalore. It had grown on me, over the past 7 years, like a creeper,
wild and beautiful.
They say any place, becomes memorable, not by its
beauty, but by the people who love you, support you. Maybe it wasn’t just
Bangalore that had grown on me. It was my long due realization of my eternal
attachment and supreme love for my family, which I had been turning a blind eye
to, all these years. I took family for granted. But 6 months of close
interaction, full time, no movement, pure lockdown, changed my whole
perspective of family.
Earlier when I was in college, I always thought of
family as over-protective and nagging, but a concerned entity. I barely spoke
to them, with as much depth as this time of the year.
Every time I had a turtle shell moment, when I locked
myself in my room for hours, turning off the lights and soaking in my uncertain
paths of life, that one knock on my door, either by Papa or Mummy, whispering
on my door, “ Bittu, khana khalo “ , made a world of difference in my life. For
however strong a person may be in the exterior, all of us, somewhere deep down,
love to be asked if we are okay. We all love to be asked if we have eaten
something or have slept well. These are questions which will always matter to
those who love you, and those you love.
Every morning, I used to wake up, look out of my dear
window, take a long look at the foliage, breezing by, with the winds of my
city. It gave me peace. I had never felt so much at peace, like I did, when I
merely gazed on at the sky from my favorite window, uninterrupted.
My baby niece one day asked me, “ Mausi, why do you have to leave , stay na “ I did not know how to answer that to an innocent 6 year old, who would probably never understand the complexities of human desire and ambition. Was she right? She had a point.
As I bleed my thoughts right here, I wish life was not such a complex mix of
dilemmas and decisions. Who said life was easy? Life is basically a hop and
skip journey, a trail of rocks placed on the brook, which we have to cross, oh
so simply. Sometimes, there will be water overflowing, sometimes, we won’t find
the trails. Sometimes, the river itself will seem to flow us away. But that
doesn’t mean we stop taking chances.
Dear Life, please be gentle with me, I love you and hope that you love me back, too.
Dear Life, hope you give me the courage and strength to face the complexities of people and places.
Love,
Struggler from 2020
Snehal Shrivastava
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