“I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
As i stumbled upon this quote once more, i realized that this quote gives me a certain calculated amount of gloom and a measured amount of happiness too. Gloom, because each day i fight to prove myself and happiness because i survived.
The new city has embraced me with all its might, but have i been able to embrace this city as my own ? I cannot say for sure, with each passing moment, and each new face, i miss Manipal life more.
People ask me to move on, but is it that easy ?
I realized that at times, its okay not to embrace the place where you are living, but we shouldn't negate and deny it either, the midway is adjustment. The peace, the aesthetics of this city of Lakes, at times is suffocating.
As much as slow pace irritates me to the core, i embrace it with equal delight too.
The department is new, the students are new, students still look upto me and are perhaps comfortable with me. Yet, things have changed. The faces are changed. Even though i have a lot of fun, the question here to ask is, is one fully capable of filling that small vacuum inside one's heart ?
One lifetimes will not be enough.
Yet we live on, carry on, day after day and night after night. Boredom is inevitable.
Carnatic practices although are a boon, and in a way helps keep me alive, but it comes with its own dose of inevitable irritation as well. Often when its difficult to adjust to a pitch of C-Sharp from A-Sharp and so on.
In my cabin, behind my chair, i have put up a paper with the words "This too shall Pass" printed in bold. Something which i live by. This too shall Pass and there will be a change soon. Well...hopefully.
I really have no answer to people who ask me: Don't you like Bhopal ?
Well, liking depends on how much you engage yourself and what you are looking for.
And as i move on from city to city, faces will change, rented accommodations will change.
Maybe its happening inside my head.
I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.
I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"
