Day 22
I am glad to be writing this post.
The time between the last post and two hours before was the worst. I nearly went deaf because perfect time, opportunity, phlegm and air pressure met in my ears while in the plane. Stark and literal deaf. All of which felt like a treat after the weird popping sounds started coming from my ears.
This was followed by a bad train journey.
Which was followed by hating the people I am traveling with. Who hates Kolkata? Who says weird shit about people’s lifestyles and their food? Stupid people, that’s who.
But reaching the hills made me realise why they came up with the ‘there is no easy road to a nice place’ jazz.
The hills are beautiful. They have cold and fog and momos.
I have decided 4 things here.
1. The spot for my wildflower tattoo
2. That I want to live in the hills every once in a while and introduce myself forever as “amateur writer, seasonal vagabond”
3. Jitendra decade dance-moves take a lot more energy and pizzaz than they look like. I shall take offence if anyone hates on those dance-moves or Kolkata.
4. Bengali is a fine language, but buying food from every person who talks in Bengali is not. So cute omg! I overheard a couple fight about from what I could make out, mineral water, babies and stupidity. All I wanted to do was give them a pappie if they didn’t mind.
Honestly, I am in a frenzy, going from extremely sad to dancing to ‘dhal gaya din’ on the bed. I cried over the fact that I will never be able to read Hitchhickers guide to the galaxy for the first time ever again. Next moment I was socialising with stupid co-travellers in spirit if co-existing. Thankfully, Bollywood is stabelly bae so you can say “life barbad hogai hai meri” and laugh. So is snuck-in-alcohol. And people who believe in you, remind you to not let anything ruin your adveture.
These trips also help my ‘do it for the story’ moto. I should write a book called ‘Pantless in hotel rooms’ and make a sequel called ‘By-stander at parties’, next can be ‘No place on my body for more tattoos’ which will be an anthropological study of FOMO and the triology can end with ‘No mom, I am not asexual’ which will talk about weird things families do.
Darjeeling is a poor town, like most towns that survive off tourism are.
It is infested with tourists like pest. The local people hate tourists. The dogs hate tourists. And the tourists hate tourists.
People tell me to not go to Darjeeling. “It’s too crowded” they say.
And it’s true. I stood by the side of a road, my eyes closed. I could hear Marathi, Bengali, Gujrati, Punjabi. Which is not a good thing unless you are in Maharashtra, Kolkata, Gujarat or Canada. I cannot guess what the language of the locals is. I don’t know who they are.
I walk around looking for them. I know by experience to look for taxi drivers, shop owners. No one from outside want those jobs.
As I walk on the streets, I imagine them without the pest. How it would be if people had not discovered Darjeeling. Then I subtract the CCDs, KFCs, Pizza huts. I take out the traffic jams, so I refuse to hear the horn barking at me to get off the road of no footpath. I ignore the educated suggestions of tourists from metro cities “They should just embed the railway track into the road” “They will have to redo the whole city, look at these low looming wires”
People have saturated it, with bodies, languages, opinions. You cant stand on the street without being pushed. People go back and tell other people to not go. People still go.
When I go back, I will tell people to hurry, see the tourist places first. Darjeeling is this wonderful place of steam rail along the road, of people who return lost bags, wallets, camera lenses. The muse for “khwabo ke tinko se chal banaye aashiya”. The land of wonderful momos, sensational tea, breath taking views. Of the kindest people, of whom I will not be able to say enough. Their touching music. The clouds they have for air. Go there before the tourists opine the roads wider, rail embedded, wiring redone. Go there before Paneer butter masala takes over Thupka. Go there while you can still catch students walking on the railroads followed by fluffy dog. Forget everything else, go there for the wildflowers.
Some things change you like most things can’t, I always say. Life changes from a straight line to look like a constellation, all stars not equally bright.
A class you took that changed the course of your career, the day you tied your hair in a messy bun and realised you have become one of the women you wanted to be, the day you realised you are malleable. When you bought a book in a second hand book store not knowing it will be your favourite.
My mother tells this story fondly. And she laughs at the end of it. Each time.
When I was 2, she took me to a swimming pool. The only one in Yewatmal. 9ft. I walked into the campus already wearing my costume. When I saw the pool, I walked very close to it and asked “Mummy, jump?”
Here, she laughs. Each time.
They taught me to swim as I grew up. Don’t bend knees. Cup your hands. Don’t jump.
I have never been scared of heights. I have always thought of falling from them as flying. Water not so much. I cannot bear the idea of suffocating to death.
Today we sailed over the Teesta river. It separates West Bengal from Sikkim. We were in the middle of the stream, under a vast blue sky interrupted by hills lush green on both sides. As we rowed forward I realised I wasn’t breathing quite the same. I wasn’t blinking at all. I had never seen anything so beautiful. Some beauty demands to be done something of.
I looked at the rower and I asked “jump?”
He said “sure”
I did.
I flowed in the river. The cold of water like it belonged on my skin. Waves splashing on my face like an angry pet after missing his human the whole day. Heart threatening to burst. I flowed away from the raft. Unable to stand still. Still not scared. Still very scared. Then another boat got me.
I sat with strangers wishing ‘ek baat hai hooton tak jo aai hai’ would start playing in Farhan Akhtar’s voice to drown what of the world that had not drowned yet. But it drizzled instead. From the brightly lit sky, like it is not supposed to. But like it wanted to anyway. And it washed me away or what of me wasn’t washed away yet.
I will never be the same person again. I picked up a stone as keepsake. It has a golden glint. The constellation of my life got another star today.
This feeling I assumed so unique to me. Like my particular conditions met my peculiar spirit in the right time and just the specific set of people placed in their roles in my life to conjure it.
But the more I talked to people, the more I found that everyone feels it in one form or the other. I have talked to people about it, noticed it in their impulsiveness, their selfies and writings. So sorry the parties we missed, the skills we did not develop as children, the places we did not go. So evident, we even formulated an acronym for it.
I laughed. It was like the day I decided that my nose is not ugly. That we humans are raised to hate our respective noses. And with giant forces like capatilism and globalisation backing it, what chance did we stand?
I have been lighter since.
I shed more bagage everyday. Priorities are key. You know you won’t mind missing a blockbuster hit for a quiet night at home.
So stupid was the finality I lived my life with. Things happened for the last time so often. So when they happened again I felt cheated.
Now everytime I do something for the second time I laugh at the sadness of the young Prachi. But I secretly also take note, that, life waits for you, stays in you, no one is running. That life is your making.
I paraglided for the second time today. And here is a small list to take care of the residual FOMO in me
1) I found a bakery and ate cupcakes soft as sponge in Kalimpong
2) I ate wild berries from the road side
3) I bought a yellow sweater for tea mugs
4) I did not bathe
5) I have hill station cheeks
6) I feel like part Ruskin Bond for the mere fact of staying in the hills
7) I ate so many momos, my blood is 87% momo
I was taught regret very early on in life. Before I was taught to say no, before I was taught worth, malleability, acceptance. It was passed on to me by my mother, who got it from her’s.
A common dialogue around the house was “I wish I could give you good education in a city but your father won’t let it happen. Your life is wasted” Replace education with: travel, clothes, hair, etc.
My father gave me gratefulness. Not thankfulness, still not acceptance; but greatfulness that is unaccomodating of anger, anatomy, choice.
He says “We never had this when we were growing up. You got things too easy, so you don’t value it”
He taught me to be grateful for a bruise for you still have an arm.
So our view was always zoomed in on the clouds. We were either heavy under their weight or looking for a silver line. We never saw the sun.
They left me on my own one day. I was so uprooted, shaken, even dizzy, I walked all weird, spun and by sheer mistake saw the sun.
But the clouds have always felt familiar to me, more like home than the sun. I feel the ownership of my sadness, am aware of it’s rightfulness to be there, belong to me. Rainbows feel alien. Good, but borrowed.
So happiness, joy, peace have only happened to me, they never came from within. Like a ring that you put on, not like your toungue, rooted inside you. I am always aware of its potential to be snatched.
So I made a habit of staring instead of looking. Of making a list in my head of good things so I can atleast remember the top 3 and bottom 2. And click lot of pictures. Document things, in detail.
This external happiness is a sister of internal happiness. So similar in features yet so unlike each other. Sometimes I get very overwhelmed by the weight of this external happiness, so big, my being so small. I cried in Varanasi and in Leh. And one day when I felt very happy with P in our home. So aware of my inablitity to go back to my hole in case it gets taken away, and put where it really belongs.
We are stuck in a traffic jam on our way to a lake, or another place to see the valley from, if we are lucky not a temple. They let me get out of the car and sit by the side, which leads me to believe that we are stuck for hours. I like the idea of that. If in a touristy trip with your restless father, you get some hours to look at the clouds, you are lucky.
So I sit aimlessly without a book or a friend. I track my thoughts, noticing where they go when not directed places consciously. I notice they go to hindi songs a lot and get stuck like an old tape-recorder. When they are done they go home, and quite often.
My reaction is to look around to thank something/someone who I owe this gratitude to.
To think that just 3 months ago I had no place to call home. I lived at P’s and kept my belongings in the house I paid rent for.
But now I have a home to miss. P on the floor, cat in my bed. An ambitious study table on the side. Ambient sound of whatever tv show P is addicted to at that point in time. Ocassional upsurge of health improving acts, waking up late, rushing to office half asleep.
I am trying to figure what home is. And it is important that I do, for I will never want to be homeless again. The privilege of having a home has spoilt me. Till now I have: home is a feeling, it is a routine, and furniture, or a place that permits alternatives, a person who lies on the floor.
All of which I love as much as I love jumping into rivers, spotting ice, having clouds under my doormatt, wildflowers in my hair. As much as I loved finding the best dressed yak or buying lipbalms in Nepal.
But heart is exerting here, wants to go home now. I remember when my therapist had insisted on getting a place with a friend. She told me Home is a epicentre. The pole you are tied to even when you wander, it keeps you un-lost. Where your mind goes for comfort, even in a beautiful place. Where someone waits for you. It’s where you are rooted. That which allows you to grow beyond your physiological needs, what does earthing.
I am glad we made a home together, P.
I am coming home soon. And I am brings a lot of tea.
I will never know how to think of school. I hated every bit of it, except a few days here and there. People say nostalgia is a sweet liar but I would still hate to go back to school. Unless you let me go back with abilities of sailor of own’s ship, the knowledge of what competition does to us, the idea that we go to school for more than textbooks, then I may go. Maybe. And only for the joy of first crushes, the coy behaviour of standing in lines with a clear view of them and playing truth or dare, chalk fight in class.
These thoughts were triggered by being dragged to an old school to see the architecture or the view or the joy of ticking things off tourists-spot-chapter-1.
The school was celebrating what they call the ‘May fair’ and it had little girls dressed in pink princess dresses and bad makeup that they will joke about when they grow up. Tiny humans were performing what looked like King Lear on stage as parents watched with pride.
As I walked around the campus I spotted a church. On my way there, I crossed a suited man getting a photo clicked with his pink princess like dressed daughter. Would he be too shocked if she cut her hair and became punk in her teens?
Uphill, I saw 2 girls in a uniform with a monk their age. I heard their laugher before I saw them. I did not understand what they were saying but I knew they were happy, in a secret spot. Hitting, sharing, teasing.
I walked around the church, followed closely by 2 girls calling dibbs on spots to get pictures clicked at. The one wearing white got the ‘against the grey stonned wall’ spot and other one got ‘the stairs leading to a pine forest’.
Then I noticed, I had wandered away and like Cinderella was going to be late on my tourists-have-to-cover-more-spots deadline.
So I ran, like Cinderella, but smarter for wearing sneakers. Past the teasing and laugher of the friends. Past the auditorim that was at the climax of the play, playing happy songs and cheering. I laughed and ran across the photographers, the trees showering flowers, past the tourists clicking selfies,
down the curvey road to the cab that had 5 annoyed co-travellers waiting for an explanation to why the car had turned into a pumpkin.
I think in my head I am halfway home already. I just completed making a list of things I need to get done before the weekend. And I can almost taste the pizza and burger I am going to eat as soon as I land. All of this while I still have a city to tour.
I have had this problem for long, this running ahead of time. So I am trying to sit and calmly ‘be here now’. I can swear time slows down when I do that.
In this slowly passing time I am sitting at a table in a balcony of a cafe. I am drinking lemon tea and ‘brown eyed girl’ is playing over the the murmur of people talking, pages turning, spoons cluttering. The sun is setting infront of me, the table next to me is not a loud marathi family. I am sitting next to a girl of foreign origin who is talking about her travel and where she plans to go next to with a boy also of foreign origin. I like that. The second time I was in Goa, I stayed at a place mostly inhabitited my Nirvana seeking yoga doing European and Russian people. I used to sit at a table in the evening and listen to people talk of their experiences. Sometimes in languages I did not understand. One time a middle aged man was explaining to other the concept of Karma and Kama, lust. I was studying Religion in college that year.
A lot has changed since then. Selfie sticks were invented for one. Money became a bigger part of life, romantic love became less important, more remixes of old songs were made, I discovered Badshah rap.
Through all of these life altering changes, I have always managed to find a corner that can hold me and my book in some good music to sheild us from the selfie stick weilding tourists.