Looking back, looking ahead

As I sit here today, in the wrong side of my 20s, I think about where I thought I would be and where I actually am.

I did not ever think about exactly how life would be at 26, but there were some places I thought I would have been to, some milestones passed, some boxes checked. I had always assumed I would be married by this time, and I am not. I had thought I would somehow be serving my country in some way, now I don’t even pay taxes to her. I had thought I would live in Bombay only, now I almost don’t care about ever going back for good. I had thought I would be an active ex-student of my school, now I pass by sometimes without 5 minutes to enter the gates and look for familiar faces. I had thought I would have life figured out completely; I am now more thirsty than I have ever been. I thought that if I made a decent living, lived in Bombay, somehow had a job that contributes to making India better & was married to a good guy, my life would be perfect. But today I want so much more. Yes I want more than a ‘decent living’, but more importantly I want to live in many of the great cities of the world; yes I want to contribute to my country but much more fundamentally than by being a civil servant; I want to find happiness with someone special but even more, I want to find happiness within myself.

If a chemical reaction completely & irreversibly transforms the object, I wonder how many of those one goes through. And I realize how grey life my life would have been without them. Just like the innocence of a toddler’s eyes, the colour of the twilight sky, the feel of a summer breeze cannot be replicated by the most sophisticated of man’s interventions, I wonder if a life totally under my own control & direction could be ever as fulfilling as that which unfolds by itself. I feel no disturbance by the ever shifting sands of my own aspirations, how can one who belongs in a desert?

I have come a long way but have only just begun. I have many dreams for the future, but a stronger love for the here & now. I am far away but yet completely at home.

Standing on the threshold of tomorrow, I have never been more in the today.

Home is where the heart is...

Someone asked me recently, “Are you homesick?” I made all the right noises, “Yes ofcourse I miss India, but this place is very nice too”. But it set me thinking. Am I homesick? Am I even sure where home is anymore? Till a couple of years back, I was very clear. Home is Bombay. Not even Mumbai, I wasn’t going to let anyone change the name of my city. It's Bombay. Where I was born. Where my parents & my little sis live. Where my school is. Where most of my old friends are. Ofcourse my home is Bombay, no question. It was almost a loyalty issue, I wasn’t going to abandon what brought me up. Bombay, yes, that was always home.

Clarity is a funny thing I guess. It can abandon you sometimes. But all for the good; not for nothing it’s said – wise (wo)men change their minds, fools never.

So what has changed over the past year, and especially over the past month? Ofcourse the obvious changes. I lived in Gurgaon and eventually grew to like it. I took to Finland better and quicker. Having a place of my own, living the independent life, doing what I want when I want. But I think there is more than just the movement. It’s about having met people who have moved often and are better for it. They have the opportunity to develop perspectives; the world is their oyster, they are students of change and variety. I had only imagined their lives. In my mind, their lives were uncertain, their friends were temporary, their roots were not deep, and they were drifters, rolling stones gathering no moss. But now I see them with my own eyes. They as as successful (or not) as those who live in one place always. They have as many friends (or not), they are as happy with their lives (or not) as the ones who don’t move. They are people… as varied as any other group, with as much a chance to be happy as anyone else. But they have what I did not so far – their own eyes to look at a new sky, not the third hand view in a magazine. Their own ears to hear new accents, not those on a television. Their own minds to understand a new culture, not a precooked version from a culture studies book. I want it. At the cost of the growing pains.

This clarity might abandon me again. I might pine for the heat, the chillies, the crowds, the affection. I might want to eat mum cooked food and be 2 minutes away from a friend’s house who I have know all my life. I might want the luxury of someone else doing my dishes and ironing my shirts. I might want to dance all night at a friend’s wedding or celebrate my favourite festivals with my favourite people. I might want my old life back. But not just as yet :)…