17th May, 2017.
I have been thinking of writing this particular blog for a quite time now. In all fairness, one can say that this one is a planned one; a lot of thought process has gone through this. As I see it, this one might will be the toughest one to write. Not emotionally, I am quite certain about that. Rather, it will be hard expression wise. A lot of things happened too fast and I still am reeling under the hangover.
2 years ago, under the direst circumstances, I opted for AUD for my higher studies. When I say direst, I should point it out that I really didn’t have much of a choice; it was either this or nothing.
So there I was, in Ambedkar University, Delhi, looking forward to a lot of things and trying to leave a lot of things behind.
2 years later, tonight, as I write this, I find it extremely hard to believe that the time has passed without any prior notice. I was just getting the hang of things and suddenly I am bidding farewell to friends and places which unmade me and then made me again in a new person, saying goodbyes to those intricacies and minute nuances that seems mundane on the surface but are as important as it gets. So I said goodbye to a life I started to like.
In between these two years, a lot of things had happened, things I saw coming and things I didn’t saw coming, things that I wanted to happen and things from which I tried to divorce myself. You really cannot choose what’s coming to you, you just accept it and work around it. You may like it, you may not like it, and you may even despise it for hell, but it is what it is. And essentially I did the same thing. Accepting and embracing whatever made sense and even more which didn’t made sense, all of which made a core sum up of attachments and unattachments that I have to carry for the rest of my life. All in all, it tried to make sense.
It was the strangest of years, when I vehemently believed that I would not be associating myself with any sort of human attachments, especially the concepts of love and friendship were rendered null and void for the easement of the journey. But that’s one great misconception that everything will go exactly as planned and the devices that we make for ourselves will follow. What really happens is that all these machinations are eventually condemned to a chaotic disorder and then we are left to work with the aftermath of this chaos. That’s what happens with everyone and it happened to me too, no exception. So all those ideas of solitariness and reclusion from human contact went outside the window the moment I met some people, who were to change my life, for the betterment of it. I embraced what was given and I accepted what was denied.
It has been said that time heals the gravest of the wounds. But that is not entirely correct. Time doesn’t heal anything; time is just a catalyst in the larger paradigm here. It is not time that heals us, it is the people who choose to be around and see your pain and wound. People hurt people and people heal people, it is not that difficult to understand.
I was wounded once, gravely. Every concept of trust and faith and love were put to test and were rendered moot and to be frank, I was at fault to believe that this was the worst part of my life and such things never happen. Sooner or later we all feel the pain and we think we will not survive it. But that’s the human nature is all about, we survive and move. So when I thought that I was wounded and in pain, it was just one of the many that will be there. And it is okay. Pain is necessary to understand people, especially those who suffer and those who inflict. And more importantly, pain is necessary in contrast to happiness. Without pain one cannot understand what it feels to be happy or comfortable, I just took it a bit too much. So as I was in pain and was hurt, it wasn’t the time that healed me, it was the people who came to my life at that point of time and stayed, the best people who defined love and friendship and care. Things changed for me, which I can assuringly associate with the fact that all of this happened in AUD.
When I said that it was the strangest of years, I meant it sincerely, just as like I mean it that there were things that I wanted to leave behind, and for good reason. But the funny thing with our past is, it will catch up eventually. No matter how far you go, unless you die, everything or something or even a someone from the yesteryears will one day be standing in front of you.
Two years of silence was greeted by an old smile and some cigarettes, some unsaid things and some more silence. I hold no disregard for it anymore, neither do I hold any resentment, we cannot change what has happened. We can stay and wait for a self induced destruction, or, we learn and we move. People always seem to miss the point, which ultimately leads to uncalled resentments and grudges. I know this because I did that, but I learned. Resentment is natural, but one must also learn to let go and more importantly, one must learn to forgive, especially forgiving oneself. Forgiving someone else is easy and irrelevant because it doesn’t really matter. Introspection is more important because all the while we were busy in basing in the wrongness of others, we didn’t notice that we surely too are hurting someone, possibly them whom we promised to do nothing but care and adore.
I was talking about pain, and I needed someone to blame for that, but even that grows stale and it is vitriolic for self. It only is a matter of time when we finally starting to hate someone, and to me, the word is too easy to apply but too heavy to carry. The promise that I made was never to hate, it is too cruel because it destroys the last vestige of everything we hold dear and it is too cowardly because hatred at times is easier than everything. And it makes it more important to follow the rules of never being cruel or cowardly. It took an immense amount of courage to even acknowledge that it was about time that I take a chance with forgiveness. I cannot forget whatever happened, but that shouldn’t provide me reasons to hate anyone, especially someone from the memories. It is not worth a memory if it holds hatred and regret. It is never too late. Surely, I must admit that presently I am too far to go back the bright days, I can only but visit the museum of memories where everything is now on display, I am too far and too lost to find my way back, but I have no regrets and that’s more important to me.
At some certain moments of time, the stroll down the amnesia lane seems a good idea. And that’s why I guess it is called amnesia lane, because we keep forgetting the person we used to be, it is important not to. No matter how much these 2 years has changed me, I mustn’t and wouldn’t forget one line of this, of who I was, what I was and all that happened that made me what I am right now.
2 years of adventure came to an end, eventually it had to. Everything ends, and that is sad. Indeed I am sad that there would be things that will just be an imprint that will stay, if my memory serves me right in the years to come. Everything must come to an end because there needs to be an ending. And as much as I hate to say goodbye to anyone or anything, I must fare these two years well. Thank you, you have been a good teacher and a friend.
I will always remember.
