After a Month

“How is Bangalore?”

Over the phone, in the mails, on the communicator- I’ve been asked this question. And, I’ve not really known what to answer.

It’s been one month and two days since I came to Bangalore.

How has it been?

It was a total change in my settings- the city, the work, the environment, the people- an absolute migration.

And yet, there was nothing dramatic about it.

Life just went on.

We landed here at 9:25 am on 9th Dec. It was my first flight, both literally and metaphorically. I was sitting in the middle seat, and Jyoti with me towards the aisle. The way we were looking out of the window as the plane took off, the guy sitting by the window seat asked me if we wanted the window seat. I said if we could, please. He smiled and shifted on to Jyoti’s seat.

We looked out of the window. It felt just so glorious- the sea of clouds resplendent in the golden sunlight. Our seat was just above the left wing of the plane. The wing seemed absolutely still. The plane hardly seemed to be moving.

I was thinking that when I called up at home, they would all ask me how I’d felt in the plane? Excited? Probably, that’s how I was supposed to feel. That’s how I would have supposed anyone on their first flight to feel.

But, I felt no excitement. After the first two minutes, the plane had become a matter-of-fact. Yawn.

There’s just so much one can look out of the window. Soon, we were both asleep.

By around 11 am, we were in our room. The room was a disappointment. We were under the impression that we would be booked into a five star or something. What we had was just a simple, fully functional and comfortable, but not plush room.

The disappointment too however was superficial, just like the excitement of the plane. It failed to rouse any strong emotion.

I just accepted my new room, and all my new settings.

Perhaps it is because I am not too perky today that I am sounding so dull in this post, but I’m not sure. I’m trying to narrate as I remember, and not let my present moods colour my past days into a needless gray.

Why am I not perky today?

I don’t know.

Even when I am, it doesn’t really mean I am happy.

I was about to write that I feel like a leaf, flitted by the wind, from one place to another, with no will, no purpose of its own. I was about to write that, when I admonished myself, stop such wordy talk! All I do is talk. I do nothing. Nothing, of what I say. I am all words. “Words are all I have.” But even words, do I accept them? The only thing I currently know I can do is writing. And yet, have I given myself to writing?

No.

When I am at my most intense, I don’t write. I cannot.I think. I think, and I sleep. I am so swayed by the powerful images, by the thoughts that I fear I won’t be able to express them accurately. This is not even a conscious fear. But so many times has it happened that I’ve picked up my pen, opened my register, and begun to write, and then, almost immediately, started reading something I’d written before, and then, something before that, and then it starts a chain of thoughts, and I just shut down my register, and lie down or sit up, and think. I think. And soon, I fall asleep.

I don’t know how many unwritten stories lie in those slept-away-hours.

Yesterday, I picked up Ernest Hemingway’s autobiography of his early youth- his early days as a writer. The age he was writing about was the age I am of, 22-23. He would work in a small room on his stories, and would go to that room on the top floor of a hotel daily, and write the whole day, and leave only when he felt proud of what he had written, and when he knew what he would write the next day, so that he was sure he would be coming back there the following day.

I underlined many of the lines in that chapter. I’ve read only the first three till now.

And, I thought of my story, the book I’m working on. How that book, that dream is suffering!

I am suffering too. I am restless.

And yet, I am going on.

Nothing’s changing.

Nothing’s changed.

I’ve just moved from Chandigarh to Bangalore.

That’s all.

There are times when I feel just so remote and distant from everyone. Like now, when I just want to sit by myself, and think, and write whatever comes to my mind.

I so love it when I do that, this freedom, being able to put into words my thoughts.

Earlier, I used to be conscious of what I posted on my blog. Whether a thing was not too personal to be put up on a public space like that. But now, no such consideration. It hardly matters.

When I am asked, “How is Bangalore?” I don’t know what I am supposed to answer. It’s a city like any other. It has a few famous roads, shopping malls, just like any other city. We’ve been to some of those.

It felt just as novel as it would have felt to go to a restaurant in Chandigarh I’d not been to before.

I’ve not yet seen the ‘soul’ of the city. It must have one- some special quality that makes all her people passionately proud of it.

I’ve just walked on her roads as one of the crowds, and oh, what oceanic crowds they are! So many people!

How does life away from home feel?

Again, I was going to write, “Nothing dramatic about it.” And that’s the truth too.

Life has just gone on, just assumed a different routine, but now, set as that routine is, it’s going on.

Sometimes a silly sentimentality takes over. Things that I realize are silly even as I say them- silly, hollow, and devoid of any meaning- and yet, I say them. Like, a half hour back, I was chatting with Vineeta on the communicator, and I asked her what time the bus left now, OUR bus, I wrote with emphasis. She said, it still left at 6. “It’ll go from near my home.” I replied wistfully.

Or, like just now, Sim called in briefly, and she told me she was going to “aapne des” today.

Silly sentimentality.

Silly, because I know that staying away from home has nothing to do with the void I feel. Did I not feel just as restless when I was there?

There used to be days there when I would feel alone, dark, ponderous.

There are the same days here.

The city has changed, the work has changed, the environment has changed, the people have changed, but…I remain the same.

And, that is why, all that change has had no effect.

Life continues like before.

Life, searching for its meaning.

Life, so restlessly searching.