Unforeseen Melancholia : 46-B5, Golden Temple Mail

8 June 2016

Dear Papachu, 

Sitting in this train, I had a sudden urge to write to you. There is something about travel that fills me with overwhelming emotion. I concentrate better on a berth than in a study room and airports are my classrooms where I learn how to read people. I truly feel alive when I am being true to myself, when I am being a nomad. I like to be completely free, I like to be my impulsive self. Go wherever I want, stay however long I want. That way I do not invest in people, I invest in places. I invest in memories. My destructive impulsiveness becomes interestingly constructive. I meet beautiful people and I really look forward to that but since I know from the beginning that I am moving on in a while, it is easier to part from them. 

I’ve never really stayed at one place, even when I was a child. When I think of home, I think of Aai Baba and Gogo. I think of friends and neighbours and love, lot of love. I think of embarrassing childhood pet names and being treated like a child, of bickering in the kitchen and sibling rivalry, of my bookshelves and the smell of Aai’s Upma and Baba’s tea early in the morning. And just when I feel that I have found this place of happiness, I struggle to feel a sense of belonging anywhere. There are times when I feel I haven’t found it, my home. I long for a place I can call home, a place where I will feel peaceful and calm. A place where I don’t have to hide or pretend. A place where I can indulge in small pleasures of life and bring back memories from all my travels. A tiny abode that mirrors me. Ah, I dream so much about this little house of mine. It’ll have trees and murals everywhere and a dance studio and a small pond and vegetable patches. And a swing. No one ever lets me swing on a public swing. I am always afraid of sitting on swings, continuously looking over my shoulder. Checking if a guard or some nosy uncle is going to tell me that I am too overweight to sit on a swing. But I love swings so much. To and fro. To and fro. They always remind me of life, the past, the present and the future. We’re either busy planning for the future or looking behind in the past. We really enjoy it, don’t we? It is more exciting than staying in the present. Romanticising the past, fantasising about the future and somehow completely forgetting about the present. I don’t know why I am slightly melancholic today. When I opened my computer to write to you, I wanted to write about my upcoming backpacking trip this summer but I am writing about everything but that. I feel so heavy for some reason. 

I am in a train to Amritsar right now. We boarded the train yesterday from Mumbai and will reach tomorrow morning. And then we are off to Kashmir! Yay! Now see, I’ve never been to Kashmir but I feel like I know that place. I miss it at times. Is that weird? And after years of dreaming about it, I get to live there for a month. The journey is already turning out to be interesting. A Punjabi father-son are sitting next to us, amusing people they are. I can’t stop staring at them. Their camaraderie is quite entertaining. They have tons and tons of food, almost three bags full of this and that for a two day journey. I also like how they are extremely organised with their packing.  Such warm people, they’ve already shared a lot of food with us including a bitter gourd pakoda that I really enjoyed. I asked the son how it was cooked but he said that he didn’t know, the cooking being handled by the women of the house. 

This is the first time I am traveling with my siblings. It is weird, exciting and discomforting. I wish to bond with them and at the same time, I feel caught. I have my limitations when it comes to dealing with family. I become a person I don’t like, you know how some people bring out hidden qualities of you that you hate? I become a standoffish, passive aggressive snob. And I never let my guards down. Where does the carefree Prachi disappear, Paapi? I’ve decided to put in a lot of efforts this time and I hope this doesn’t end up making me more cynical than I already am. I feel extremely guilty about this cynicism. How can I be so cynical about family? I see how much they struggle with it too. And how despite being so  dysfunctional, we are always there for each other. Then why are the first thoughts always of disappointment, anger and fear? A huge puzzle, a one that I have no energy to solve. Although I am being pessimistic here, I still have a lot of hope. One day we’ll find our balance. 

I have to go now, my computer battery is about to die. I’ll write to you again as soon as I can. I’ll have more to write after Amritsar. I am looking forward to visiting the Golden Temple and Jallianwallah Bagh.  Jallianwallah Bagh is a reminder of a painful past to many. For me it is a place that can teach us a lot and ask us to re-evaluate our values. I look forward to going there and finding something. I am not sure what but I feel like that place will mean something to me. My father has an old photo album with pictures from when he was in his twenties. It has black and white square photos taken from a polaroid camera, one of which is him and my grandma at the Golden Temple. I like going to places where my family has been before I was born and I enjoy visiting places of worship.

I was going to stay at a couch surfing friend’s place earlier but now that it is the three of us, my father has booked us quarters in a government rest house. I hope it is not too hot. 

I miss you. I wish you were. 

Huge hug,

Prachi

Death Notice

A white hazy wall between us.

Unable to see each other, we weave a narrative that suits us.

I assume. You assume.

While we fight with our volatile self, we forget to notice that the wall is getting darker, stronger and concrete.

Extremely afraid to be the loser in the battle, we choose our egos over our love, pretence of indifference over our vulnerabilities.

I blame you, although I know I am at fault too. You blame me, although you know you are at fault too.

Or maybe Papi, we both didn't do anything wrong, we were just on different planes.

Trying very hard to protect ourselves, trying hard not to get hurt, we hurt ourselves again and again.

I wish it wasn't this way.

I wish we both would let each other see our bleeding hearts.

Our pain, our fears, our anger, our flaws, and our hostility. I wish we would give some space to ourselves to feel the unpredictabilities of our volatile emotions.

I wish we would grieve together for the loss of our beautiful relationship.

Let's be kind to one another. Let's be kind to our own selves.

This pain, my love?

It is going to fade away one day.

I am going to be left with your laughter ringing in my ears.

I am going to be left with the memory of those long walks when we walked with our hands entwined, without words but truly connected.

I am going to be left with the memory of that day on the balcony when the past or the future did not matter, that day when we discovered happiness in each other.

When the pain fades away, every painful memory is going to turn into an evocative nostalgia ride that will fill me with nothing but joy.

I wish we didn't built these walls, love.

I wish we knew how to just let go.

Finding Me. Finding You.

Freeze. Run. Stop. Turn around and face you. 
Love you. Hurt you. Scream at you. Hold you. Cry for help. 
Suffocated in a maze, confused and lost. The lights keep flickering. 
Falling down again and getting up. Getting up and Falling down again. 
Following the unsteady flicker, searching for balance. 
Embracing darkness to make space for hope.
Courage and Cowardice. Cowardice and Courage. 

Why Mumbai? Here's why!

You wake up to scenarios that you had imagined way ahead in the future, and with a pop you realize that this is it, you are an adult. (You actually start worrying about your age! Or is it just me?!)  Everything and everyone starts changing suddenly. Or maybe your perspective does?

As person who has a habit of romanticizing the past, I find changes like these very difficult to accept. 

Have you ever noticed how we start becoming cautious about people that we meet? We think ten times before becoming friends with someone and start shying away from people who are different than us. Even if we don't want to, we think about how they look, where they come from and if they are going to be useful to us sometime in the future. We hesitate to invest in people financially, psychologically and emotionally. There is also the danger of us wanting to surround ourselves with people who make us feel good about ourselves. We start making connections or contacts or networks or whatever you want to call it instead of real long lasting friendships. May be it is the fear of getting hurt, maybe it is an attempt to stay away from the truth that we might not want to hear or maybe it is just the pressure of today’s hard-to-break financial lifestyle. 

A revelation hit me when I met an old friend two months ago. I was meeting her after a very long time. I was very excited to meet her as she had been recently engaged. Sitting there in that cafe, talking to her, I had one of the most unbearable experiences I've ever had. She had changed so much. When I asked her about her fiancé I was provided with a balance sheet of his family. They had x number of flats in x number of cities, they x sources of income, they had a lot of shiny cars and they were going to spend sacks of money on the wedding, etc etc. I could hardly relate to her anymore. We spoke on many more topics and all it did was make me very agitated. This stranger was not the girl who brought me Tiffin from home every day because I missed home cooked food. I could hardly stand to see her like that. After an agonizingly long, squirmy hour, I made some excuse and literally ran home.  

I had a wake-up call. I asked myself, had I stopped being an organic friend? All relationships transition with time but was I too looking at people like assets and liabilities now? Was I becoming hard- hearted, wanting to discard people who did not fit in the script I had written for my life? How do I decide what is the right balance, what to let go of and what to clutch onto?

Adulthood is going to change you, but how much?

These questions only added to the ideological fluctuations I was having at that time. I felt extremely lonely. It was a suffocating loneliness that did not let me cry, did not let me talk to anyone and that made me feel like that child who had finally discovered that parents do not have the answer to everything in life. For the first time in my life I felt that heaviness you feel so many times as an adult. 

What do you in times like this? You talk to people who might not always tell you what you want to hear but give you their honest opinions when you ask them to. And who are these people?

Your friends!

I had a totally different itinerary, one that did not include Mumbai. I had a lot of people in Mumbai that I knew I could talk to. Old friends, new friends, people that I admired, many that I had strong bonds with. Also I had never really spent time exploring Mumbai on my own in all my visits. Two days before I left my house I impulsively decided to ditch Khajuraho and spend a few days in this city instead. 

I might disappoint you, but in the very beginning of my journey I did not do anything that I had set out to do. Instead I met and reconnected with some of the coolest people I know. 

I wandered aimlessly in the city with these friends. I got to do the whole tourist bit, visiting Gateway of India and the Chowpatty beaches. We sat for hours and had long conversations about various topics, some extremely meaningful talks and some not so much. We giggled and cried together, sharing our worst fears. Older people that I bumped into shared their experiences and how they had handled such dilemmas in their lives. I lost count of the times I squealed ‘exactly!’ with relief when someone said something that I could relate to completely.

Also what I did was that I recorded as many conversations I could on my phone. I replayed these again and again on my phone while traveling and kind of scrutinized them and thought a lot. I will come back to these conversations and the places I visited in Mumbai in another post.

Although I am still indecisive, going to Mumbai was definitely better than going to counsellor!

Open Skies

Why do you want to travel?

Why are you traveling so much?

Is all this traveling going to enhance your CV?

Traveling alone??

Is anyone paying you to travel?

You should take your brother along, no?

Oh man, you are becoming a hippie, aren't you?

A girl? Traveling alone??

How did your parents allow this?

Is it safe?

What will you gain by doing this?

Is this a part of your Master's Program?

Traveling alone??

Questions, curiosity, disapproval, jealousy, lots of blessings and some awe came my way and so did  some chirpy 'I-wish-I-could-join-you' shrieks and some sullen 'her-parents-are-going-to-regret-this' frowns. When I decided to backpack on my own, I got a variety of reactions from different people. They included some amusing reactions, some distressing, some frustrating and many that only made my resolution stronger. As I started traveling, I realized that answering these questions is a wonderful learning experience. Along with trying to convey my thoughts to the person questioning me, they give my thoughts a certain clarity. 

I've tried to find the Marathi/Hindi equivalent of backpacking but I haven't been able to find any suitable word. It is a new concept in our culture and something that is attracting many youngsters in the country now days. So for those of you who aren't familiar with the term, let me tell you the basics of it. Backpacking, which is very common in students in western countries, is different than a conventional holiday. Backpackers usually travel for  a longer time, for longer distances and keep their budget low. Many travelers prefer this way of traveling because it is much more a vacation. Getting introduced to new cultures and exploring diverse places, it is an important experience in a student's life. Getting out of your comfort zone and searching for something that even you are not sure about, sound interesting, doesn't it? For me, backpacking is an excellent way to break conventional barriers and to question the patterns that we follow without ever questioning them. 

The first time I realized I loved traveling was a few years ago. I and my cousin had decided to travel for a few days just for the sake of it. Just us two girls visiting a few relatives, a few tourist attractions and roaming around these towns on a bike while clicking pictures, talking about nothing and everything. It was nothing out of the ordinary but something that aroused in me a fondness for traveling independently. Over the years, my love for traveling grew although I hardly paid any particular attention to it. 

However, after completing my BA in Psychology and exploring the education system for a few months in Rajasthan, I started looking at traveling from a totally different perspective. It was so much more than just something that I enjoyed. It was a way of understanding how the world works, how people think, a way in which I could decide for myself, without any prejudices gifted by the society. Mark Twain puts it very aptly, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”

I realized that traveling was education. It was an unadulterated form of education that not only gave me immense freedom but also an opportunity to understand who I am.

I kept reading about inspiring world leaders who had traveled around the world and had explored their own countries to unravel the mysteries of their land. Many times in these journeys, they had stumbled upon simple solutions that had helped the world in difficult times. Gondavalekar Maharaj, the saint my town is famous for, had traveled the entire Indian subcontinent on foot. And so had many other spiritual and social reformers in India, I realized.

And so, I decided to embark on a backpacking trip on my own!

 I spent days fantasizing about my journey. I spoke obsessively to people about it, I read a lot of blogs and books, I collected maps and travelling gear. While I was confined to my home due to my ligament surgeries, I got a lot of time to plan my trip and to decide what exactly I wanted to do. I kept planning a lot of tiny details and I worked hard to save money. I also made some rules for my trip.

I was going to travel only with the money that I had earned. 

I was not going to stay in hotels. I sat for days sending mails to people I didn't even know, asking them whether I could stay at their house, digging up old contacts and calling some friend of my mother's friend's sister's daughter's friend and  the likes. 

I was going to document my trip well, take a lot of pictures, write regularly in my diary and make voice recordings/video clippings whenever I could.

I was going to use public transport as much as possible.

I was going to listen more and talk less. Ask a lot of questions to anyone who would be willing to answer! (I thoroughly enjoyed being a nosy, over inquisitive pursuer!) 

I was not going to carry a smart phone.

I was going to keep my ears and eyes open, not get lost in thoughts and ignore my surroundings completely. 

I was not going to let my rules and my schedule restrict me. 

I had more than 6 months of time to travel and to develop meaningful relationships with people I hadn't even met yet. I was going to make valuable friends, I was going to visit beautiful places, I was going to learn about new cultures, I was going to meet dancers, musicians, painters and artists! I was going to meet educators and change makers, people that had worked hard towards things that they cared about!

It was a exciting dream that looked within my grasp. And I started working towards it. 

I got the chance to turn a disadvantage into a wonderful opportunity and I took it. At the end of September this year, I left my house with a backpack, a handbag and a knee brace. It felt extraordinary. I had made my dream come true! I suddenly felt so powerful. Taking that bus to Mumbai with my money and my backpack ( that I had packed and repacked like a thousand times!)  was very unshackling.

Plus the joy that I had not forgotten a single thing at home was unbeatable. Sigh. :P

I've been traveling for the past one month and intend to keep traveling till June next year. I've spend a week in the intriguing Mumbai, 15 days exploring the marvelous state of Goa and a week in the breathtaking but volatile Konkan. 

Beaches, Churches, Temples, Restaurants, Bars, Cruises, Casinos, Cafes, Bookstores, Schools, Factories. Konkani, Marathi, Hindi, Portuguese, Kannada, French. Dance, Drama, Music, Architecture. A literature festival. A Fado performance. An art festival. Culture, Heritage, Religious exchanges, People, Conflicts. The migrants, the locals.

I spent much of the last year planning this trip. And honestly after completing part of it, I have come to realize that this is just a tiny little start to what is going to be an exceptional adventure.