Typing out loud

 I recall missing the train to Puri nine years ago; the Duronto Express leaves the station sharply at eight o'clock. The memory feels fresh, as if it happened just yesterday. This distinct feeling of missing a train, watching it leave the station ever so slowly, has stayed intact with me. Nine years ago, Baba could still run with a suitcase over his head. This bittersweet memory returns to me as the train leaves the stinking city behind. Watching your parents grow old, aging slowly before your eyes, feels like missing a train. This terribly helpless feeling clings to me as the train passes, leaving the stinking city behind. As the train passes, it also leaves my ukulele at yours and your harmonica at mine.

  There is so much that happens in a year, oh, so much that changes over the course of a few months. It feels as if each night brings a change and each day is a new life. Yet, it is the same old life in so many ways. You get up on the same old bed, brush your same old teeth or don't, eat the same old breakfast or miss it, wear the same old clothes. Now, you might contradict me here, saying you wear new clothes at times, but you have already experienced wearing new clothes for the first time at some point in your life. The rest is a repetition of that experience, just like the rest of your life is a repetition of a repetition of a repetition that means nothing. Monotonous and meaningless. There's so much that changes every year, and yet so much remains the same. I lost someone this year. Someone I held dear. Someone I spent too many nights with. Nights are special. Nights are somehow more intimate. As if it takes nights to trust each other and open up. The night unfolds convers...

 What it is like to know a place.  To know the momo guy who will give you a little extra of your favourite chutney, to know the shop that provides the cheapest photocopies, to know which route to take to avoid waterlogged roads during the monsoon, to know the nearest stationary shop that sells all the unnecessary things to cater to your obsession, to know familiar faces of shop owners, beggars, or people you would find in the same metro compartment every day, to know the correct switch to the washroom or the exhaust fan, to know the correct key among a bunch of keys, or to know which corner of the balcony gets more sunlight.  After all this, you get to know the streets; the streets that smell of cigarettes, specific flowers, turpentine or the streets that smell of deep-fried food. In a city like this, streets get crowded with people and vehicles, and crossing them alone in a crowd, gets lonely from time to time. These are the times, I resonate with how Joe felt about lone...

 Another year has passed - in unfinished novels, in unfinished canvases, in unfinished syllabus, in pink sunsets, in rainy afternoons, in virtual friendships, in online dating, in watching random interviews, in reading random articles on the internet, in Hemant afternoons, in horror movie nights, in Ruskin Bond monsoons, in greens, in longing for mountains, in newfound love for ghazals, in Moheen, in dim-lit rooms, in cooking for dear ones, in white sauce pastas and jhal muris, in stalking unknown Instagram profiles, in unwritten paragraphs, in Facebook fan groups, in love for The Office, in struggles with technology, in meaningless zoom calls, in making PDFs, in last-minute submissions, in suffocating masks, in love for blacks and whites, in messy hairs, in scratched glasses, in long afternoon walks, in window seat of public buses, in getting lost, in amateur photography, in amateur strumming, in lamest of jokes, in inexplicable love for films, in a love-hate relationship with wri...

 What did you lose in order to gain political correctness? And what all did you lose in order into gain that moral high ground ? Exactly how much did feminism offer you and how much did it take away in return? What box you were taken out of and what box you were put into? How much did you sell yourself for? Or how little did you sell yourself for? What did you pick up when you gave up smoking? Are you familiar with the comfort and the disappointment that follows when you put someone on a pedestal ? What all do you go on losing, as a price for your hunger for knowledge ? How much does stardom take away? What price do you pay for your narcissism at the end of the day? What cost do you pay for your privileges ? Did your privilege also allow you to follow your passion only to make you realise that you have fallen out of love with it ? Do you also feel guilty knowing that there is a little girl out there, too young to have her first period, being raped, just while you rant about the poc...

 Last weekend, I traveled back in time, to a city where you would find Johnson babies, ceiling fans that still change voltage from time to time, wooden almirahs, yellow lights that attract insects, whistles at midnight, desserts that are served in a Cerelac bowl, tube lights that switch on with a flicker, restaurants that receive phone calls to take orders, and a father who can still handle spicy food.  It's still a city, but just a little less of it.  As nostalgia slowly hits you, you realize you are old enough to be nostalgic. You realize with a snap that there was a pre-COVID. You witnessed a time when Snapdeal was a thing, 9Xm was a thing, and Imran Khan was a thing. And the fact that it is not just post-Jio, but also post Shahid's chocolate boy phase. You realize every generation will have their own Don, and you have already had yours.  Maybe this time you too experienced an unknown Durgapur, not the one you packed in a suitcase when you left for Kolkata.