I don’t really know if i believe in the existance of an external force that governs our lives… but strange things happen to me, Synchronicity, Destiny? don’t really know… i’ve been meaning to blog for a long time now, once i decided for sure to leave London, once i got my tickets, once i started packing, but it just didn’t happen… i would start writing and something would come up and i ended up with a whole lot of drafts that began talking about London and Chennai and me… i thought i’d come back open up one of the drafts, continue from where i left and post it, that never happens, does it? you can never go back to somethin you left unfinished, or is it safer to say you can never go back to the exact same point with the hope that you can start off where you left… you have to start again… from the very beginning, i feel different now… those words feel outdated, stale… like i never could have thought of them… happens to me all the time… i can never associate with the emotions of a post when i re read it…. feels like reading someone elses blog… that’s precisely why i re read it sometimes , just to amuse myself. to remind myself how hard it is to live with me… to cope up with my constant shifts from one state to another…
what state am i in now? well, Tamil Nadu, yes… i have a sense of humour you see. I’m in a state of change, i’m always quite there. so how hard can a change in geography be? I’m back in Chennai, in India and i complete a month of being back. i shouldn’t really keep track of it, should i? i had to come back, i had decided i would even brfore i left. yes… i had my moments of wanting to stay back but home was a much stronger call. i thought i’d have a lot to say, about my friends there, how i miss each one of them, how i wake up in my bed and forget where i am, how i’ve forgotten my routes in Chennai and how home feels… but honestly, i don’t feel the urge to, if i had tried hard enough to continue one of my other drafts that’s exactly what my post would be about, but no… hmmm…
there is one strong feeling though… fear of some sort… fear of this city, the people… i can’t really express it too well coz i don’t think i understand this feeling myself. what do i have to fear? i mean… i’ve just walked back into familiarity, to a place where i know half the city, to a place where i can never get lost and i’ll always be taken care of, but there is a strange discomfort that has been haunting me. not the kind of discomfort that comes out of hating a place, it more like loud silence, you know this irony of too much familiarity making me gag. i feel claustrophobic sometimes; although i know i would complain more in anyother city but my own. Then what is that i’m looking for? maybe its not the city, its just me… how i’ve defined the space around me in my head.
I find myself craving for the anonymity i enjoyed in London. it was beautiful… just walking down the streets un- noticed, sitting at a cafe and watching people and being alone… i think i had become so comfortable being alone that I was the only familiar space i wanted to be at, I was the only thing that could coz me to choke… Chennai affects me too much, it makes me feel vulnerable… London made me feel vulnerable too, but in a different way, in a way that i felt empowered, but here i’m afraid of standing bare…
i am too harsh on the city, i know… i don’t hate the people, although it might appear asthough i believe they are a bunch of jobless, judgemental people who are sitting with a writing pad, pen and a microscope, assessing me. i assume too much importance. reminds me of someone who recently asked me not to take myself so seriously… true… very true… i live in a different world, where i am the princess, i know you all live in similar worlds, where all eyes are on you, but you are smart, you know how to hide it, don’t you? i admire you, you can look so chilled out so effortlessly, that’s why i don’t try, so what if i look like an idiot? that’s what i am… an idiot!!!
my parents sometimes ask me why i came back, they can sense my discomfort, there was no pressure whatsoever from their side. it was my choice to come back so i can’t really blame anyone else, sigh!!! not that i want to go back, i know when i’m there i was thinking of here. you know where i want to be? in the air, in the 10 hour flight… why couldn’t those ten hours be endless, i’d be filled with hope… with curiosity… with anticipation…. with want… my flight back home… hmmm… that’s where i want to be… i want to go home… where ever it is… it is where no one else shares it with me… it is where i would never search for it… it is in the journey that i believe takes me home… yes… that’s where home is… that’s where i live… a post code that exits and doesn’t… and whether it does or not… its only mine…
“When life offers you a dream so far beyond any of your expectations, its not reasonale to grieve when it comes to an end” – Twilight
mine is an endless dream… i have no time to grieve… its a little bit magic and a lot of me…
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I can completely understand what you mean. Welcome back to Chennai, btw. But Prateeksha, all good things must come to an end. Some experiences beg to become our way of life and the comfort of un-settled-ness is very very addictive. I would say, take it in your stride, move on, but I know how this feels- the pressure of living up to your conscious choice, a point you prove only to yourself.. at least you aren’t hurting anybody else!
Life is good. You now that. But now, if only for now, it is completely okay to grieve.
I meant.. you Know* that
i agree… “the comfort of un-settled-ness is very very addictive”… so freaking true…
exactly my feelings
i never wanted the flight to come down in bombay. just keep hovering. that’s what we all want i guess. to hover around all the things we love. the comfort of un-settling as you say.
but i guess when the flight does land finally, what hits you more than the smell and the air and the people, is the fact that this is real. this is so removed from the niceness of the plane and the little things u see below. THIS is what we have to, will have to face. and i guess the ability to face it makes us stronger. and more real.