I don’t really know why but it all feels different. Different in a not-so-good way. As if I don’t have the best metaphors to make it vague enough, or facts sufficient enough to define it. It’s in the grey area where I can’t reach. Where I’ve never been able to reach and I’m afraid that I never will.
And I don’t even know what I must be talking about.
Well, at least that hasn’t changed 😛
Sometimes I really thank myself for having written a lot of these notes and stories in this blog over the years, because every time I go back and read my words, I find things that I’d forgotten, like the details and specifics to important memories that no doubt remain all the very fresh in my memory, maybe a few words from the thesaurus that I’d forgotten how to use, maybe a few dreams that I’d forgotten I’d lived and maybe a few realities I’d forgotten how I wished to live.
I see how my writing style has evolved over the stories, how I’ve been trying to hide meanings behind words all these years and sometimes when I read them back, I find it difficult to recall what they were meant to mean and I find it quite amusing that I have to struggle to understand myself… now I know what most people in my life go through *ba dum tss* 😎
But then as I struggle to understand my own words, I also come to realize that things.. are different. I.. am different. And for once, I don’t know how and what.
Sometimes the worst changes are the ones that go unnoticed until it is too late.
But then if you ask anyone, change is good. It is supposed to be, right? It’s one of those concepts that will always remain the same, ironically. And every time I think of change, I can’t help but remember what the 11th doctor (Doctor Who) once said –
“We all change, when you think about it, we’re all different people; all through our lives, and that’s okay, that’s good, you’ve gotta keep moving, so long as you remember all the people that you used to be.” – The Doctor, Doctor Who
Some time back, I got the opportunity to visit my birthplace; a (very) small town in West Bengal; after 16 long years. I was with my family attending a wedding in a nearby city and we were planning to visit this place on our way back, to see the house we lived in and mine and my sister’s first schools.
Unfortunately it was late in the evening and we couldn’t find the area we lived in in Google maps, ah well, probably that area now qualifies as a part of the long forgotten history 😛
Anyways, we were able to find our schools, that was good.
I was only 7 when I left that town and I’d only done my first 3 years of schooling there so obviously I didn’t have any proper memories of how the roads went or how big my school actually was but I guess as a child, as a very small child, everything looks big and so did that school from whatever faint memories I had of its campus. And while we were driving through the roads, following Google maps, part of me was just looking for the large tree I remembered, or the entrance which would have the school’s name on it and the long road that followed from that entrance to the building I used to study, a building which was supposed to be large enough coz I remember I had never entirely explored it from east to west. I was imagining we might pass along the side road and catch a glimpse of the large football ground it had, which used to take at least 5 minutes of running to cross for us kids.
Yea, for a child’s eyes, it was all nearly the size of a cricket stadium 😀
I didn’t have any great memories of studying there, no actual good memories of my friends there, i.e. if I even had any, since I didn’t speak Bangla and I doubt kids that age could speak Hindi in that small town, except for a bunch of kids who were with me in Hindi class as a second language subject starting in 2nd standard I believe. But I don’t really remember anyone for all that matters.
So I didn’t really know what I should be feeling about visiting a place I have no good memories from..
And then.. there it was.
An old rusted gate that wasn’t so tall, walls that didn’t look so wide anymore, the small buildings inside weren’t actually any far from the entrance and the tree wasn’t as huge as I’d remembered.. but the very least, it was still there 
And its very existence was enough to make me smile and appreciate my memory.
It was a catholic school so it had a statue of Christ on the pathway between the entrance and the school buildings. I tried remembering if I’d seen that before.. but I didn’t know, though I must have. My mother showed me the classroom where I did my kindergarten (nursery if you prefer) because I clearly didn’t remember that 😛 Too young, remember? That classroom is now being used for class 9, I still took a photo of it though
As I found myself stand there, looking at the noticeboard, I remembered one of our annual day celebrations, probably in my 1st standard, when I was given some card/token for best conduct or something I don’t really remember. I remember we used to have these tokens as awards and each token was worth some points and we had names of people with the most points/awards on that noticeboard.
I wonder if any of that has changed since then.
I still have all my tokens from that school with me. And every few years I somehow stumble upon them, while going through my other old belongings, and wonder how far I’ve come since those innocent days. How far we’ve all come in our lives.
I remember we had music classes in that school where we used to sing ‘Do-Re-Mi’ while our teacher played the guitar. I think we just had one or two classes and then we were told that we’ll have a full subject from the following year but I moved out the same year. But that was still more than sufficient to leave an impression on me. I guess I’ll always remember that at least. And maybe if I have to pick one thing, one memory from that school that I could keep with me, it would surely be this inspiration-of-sorts towards music.
As I looked around my school, trying to remember the last time I was there, I realized how different my life is, how different all of my family’s lives is, all because we didn’t stay in that town. And there’s no real way of knowing what our lives would have been if we did.
There will always be changes we don’t understand, changes we don’t get to identify or define. And maybe some of them will make the worst out of us.
As we were leaving that town, I kept wondering if I will ever get to see this place again and will it still look the same if I ever do. Or will my memories paint a different picture for this day.. hopefully a better one?
And will I.. will I be nostalgic enough to visit this place again if I ever get the chance or will I just end up losing my love of nostalgia like all the other things I’ve lost over the years?
Sometimes I’m afraid I don’t know.
Maybe all of life is losing all the good you once were and not realizing it as you lose it. And maybe even if you knew, you couldn’t stop losing it. And maybe you’d just throw it all away yourself.
It doesn’t always have to be good and it doesn’t always have to be requited.
After all, loss has no obligation to give us reasons to exist, it just does. And maybe it’s okay to not be okay about it.
And still continue to live..
Knowing there must be more left to live for