What is this life even, we ask ourselves.
There is no ceremony of parting. Nothing to mark the milestone of surviving 12 years in a city that I didn't like too much. As my parents struggle, back at home, packing up 12 years of living and aspiring, here we are, two able-bodied children, both suddenly jobless, breathing like one organic ecosystem in the lazy heat of a Hyderabad summer, with our grandmother.
The last week at work (somewhere in June) was where I managed to calibrate myself with everything outside of me. I finally felt at peace. I'd look at these people I was working with, bemused at how little all of this meant to me, now that I knew I was leaving. That limbo of having put in your notice period and serving out a month, a gesture of goodwill on both sides. But by the time the last day comes, you're already a ghost. You've been exorcised.
I left Delhi suddenly. I left it with a truckload of letter coming in from the most unexpected places. Dependable, solid people, they told me, were hard to come by. 10 days in Pune, living like a nomad, and another week in Hyderabad, still suchlike.
Somewhere in the middle of waking up dehydrated due to alcohol and figuring out what the day looked like, the hours turned into nights, and the nights into days and the days into a dream. I sat there, in the midst of pitchers of beer, the one time I did not drink in the week because he wasn't there and things just didn't make sense.
We missed our train, but I felt like I finally got into the right cracks, the right openings. I fell through the cracks, even though I'd spend the last couple of years refurnishing everything and repairing everything. Between the dreamless sleep in his arms at 4 am and the panic in my throat as I left his disappearing visage in an auto, I fell in love.
***
"I think we should definitely meet", someone else texted me in between, from another world I have long forgotten.
No, we won't.
***
I could always tell at the first instance who would be the one to leave, when things came down to it. I love you, I'd say, but it was only the first half of the sentiment. I love you, and you'll leave me. I love you, but I'll leave you.
Because ultimately, two illusions broke. One, that this would not be done to me and two, I could not do this to anyone.
***
I'm turning 26 in a month. I feel so happy I want to die. Bursting at the seams, completely winded. I love you, I told him.
I love you, come back.
There is no ceremony of parting. Nothing to mark the milestone of surviving 12 years in a city that I didn't like too much. As my parents struggle, back at home, packing up 12 years of living and aspiring, here we are, two able-bodied children, both suddenly jobless, breathing like one organic ecosystem in the lazy heat of a Hyderabad summer, with our grandmother.
The last week at work (somewhere in June) was where I managed to calibrate myself with everything outside of me. I finally felt at peace. I'd look at these people I was working with, bemused at how little all of this meant to me, now that I knew I was leaving. That limbo of having put in your notice period and serving out a month, a gesture of goodwill on both sides. But by the time the last day comes, you're already a ghost. You've been exorcised.
I left Delhi suddenly. I left it with a truckload of letter coming in from the most unexpected places. Dependable, solid people, they told me, were hard to come by. 10 days in Pune, living like a nomad, and another week in Hyderabad, still suchlike.
Somewhere in the middle of waking up dehydrated due to alcohol and figuring out what the day looked like, the hours turned into nights, and the nights into days and the days into a dream. I sat there, in the midst of pitchers of beer, the one time I did not drink in the week because he wasn't there and things just didn't make sense.
We missed our train, but I felt like I finally got into the right cracks, the right openings. I fell through the cracks, even though I'd spend the last couple of years refurnishing everything and repairing everything. Between the dreamless sleep in his arms at 4 am and the panic in my throat as I left his disappearing visage in an auto, I fell in love.
***
"I think we should definitely meet", someone else texted me in between, from another world I have long forgotten.
No, we won't.
***
I could always tell at the first instance who would be the one to leave, when things came down to it. I love you, I'd say, but it was only the first half of the sentiment. I love you, and you'll leave me. I love you, but I'll leave you.
Because ultimately, two illusions broke. One, that this would not be done to me and two, I could not do this to anyone.
***
I'm turning 26 in a month. I feel so happy I want to die. Bursting at the seams, completely winded. I love you, I told him.
I love you, come back.
No comments:
Post a Comment