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| The flight of freedom |
Roughly 1800 kilometers away, what dawned on me was a sense of newness. A new city, new faces, a new language (read lofty barrier), new type of food, new job (insert laughter) and a new campus (insert laughter multiple decibels higher). I was soaked in this novelty, but this newness was as ephemeral as joys of childhood. What my myopic-self had failed to realize was how a self-proclaimed non-conformist always wanting to stay independent and take charge had grown so homesick. Believe me you, there was nothing, yes nothing, newer than THIS sinking feeling.
You know how some people eloquently express the high they feel living in the heart of the city! Pocharam Village is where I have to spend at least two years now and following suit, it perhaps lies somewhere around the genitals of Hyderabad. A place it takes two hours of ordeal to reach from the main city; two hours that include changing at least 3 buses or auto-rickshaws (can be more if you are new and clueless). The strongest argument to content my weary heart for finding an abode here is that my office is a 10 minute walk. Less pollution is another bonus, allows my eyes to absorb the greenery from my 8th floor room window.
Talking about room, finding a decent house without having a tiny heart attack each time after hearing the rent was a big deal. Somehow we managed to get a fully furnished spacious duplex at a moderate price on Day 1 itself. Now realizing how expensive apartments in the 'heart' of Hyderabad are, I am happier.
Settling-in included haggling with shopkeepers and housemaids like sickening skinflints. It made me realize how easy life was, how facile it was made by parents and how I'll now have to stand tall against it all. Thankfully, I have my first-cousin living in the city too, so the first weekend was delightful, a far cry from what the impending days were going to bring about. But it takes only one hundred and twenty minutes to reach him, a feat that seems never-ending when your only Apple earphones have been wrecked by your flat-mate a night before you leave for your cousin's. Shed a tear here!
The city feels alive. Uncountable vehicles plying on the road, smoke up in the air and deafening horns only worsening my migraine. It all a sharp contrast to the calmness of my village. Eating outlets are what my village is devoid of and as I crossed every Subway or KFC, I re-ran in my mind the ‘Serenity Prayer’. I was dodging the thoughts of tonsuring the chap who christened our township “Singapore Township”. There's nobody who even delivers anything here. All we have are two below-mediocre canteens that are minting money off the crowd's sad situation.
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| Hussainsagar Lake |
a) The much vaunted Hyderabad Biryani (from Paradise) didn't quite please my taste buds. I prefer my mother’s Pulaav anyday.
b) After loitering at the super-busy Uppal Crossroads like lost lambs, when we finally hopped in the APSTRC bus I saw a female conductor equally gruff as the ones I remember from PRTC. Oh I had a vision of the agility with which I would catch PRTC buses to college every morning without fail.
c) And once I found myself in an auto whose driver was hell bent on spreading Islam (he asked me to do Namaaz five times and find all the answers to Life in The Quran), who was convinced with Osama's contrivance for blowing up WTC. His logic was as inane as Bipasha's necromancy attempts in the ludicrous Raaz3. All I remember doing (as told) was not to disagree to anything he had got to say until the ride is over! To never cut hair off my chin, to never wear gold and to not revere Churches and Temples- I acceded to everything.
On the job front, our anchor's dumbfounded-look on seeing a good 200 of us crowding the tiny hall he summoned us all in for induction gave away how deep in hot water we were, on the first day itself! Can you blame him? The campus is as big as a rodent's burrow that only has five already jam-packed buildings with no more space to accommodate! I begin to appreciate the infrastructure the Mysore DC had, that being the only thing I miss about that place honestly!
Being on bench and knowing that each passing day is adding a giant naught to your work experience never begins to get daunting. Not for one moment! Because 1) the hope for work to magically crop up remains alive even after your corpulent manager has shaken all the responsibility off his shoulder in a speech filled with candor 2) the bliss you feel on the payday when you know your brain's fluids have not been churned at all.
I know the ups and do realize the downs. I’m losing out on the real work experience. I know, give it a rest! To forget about the downs, I extracted the most advantage out of Gandhi Jayanti. A short trip to Mumbai refilled the energy that had drained out in the first month I spent in the village. Only a 12 hour bus ride to the closest heaven to unwind me. The urge to have home-cooked food was assuaged by my sister's delicacies. My wish to catch Barfi! again with the kids was also granted. Barfi was just as fun as it was the first time with friends. Priyanka's act is unassailable. She brightened up the screen each time. She just stole the show, so much so that we were in fits of mirth trying to enact the “Susu” scene more than once in an over-crowded mall.
Barfi!'s charm makes you fall in love, its subtlety allures you, its exuberance imbues you with reminiscences, it just swallows you whole. It's impossible for it to not unsettle someone, for its music to not cause unrest. I wonder how some music can be so ruthless. And why do some songs first enlivening the clinical heart with feelings then maim it so bad? What pleasure to leave someone like fish out of water?
This heart that had assuaged itself by calling it all a wicked scheme of destiny, had taken being ridiculed for its marred state in its stride and had forcibly forged a seal of completion on those incomplete distanced stories awakes to rekindle that flame. Such is a good composition's power. There's no way you can not let your heart talk in its own way to that song. So much it can bring about, who would have thought?
The only thing I disliked was how Barfi! was so eulogized until it was sent for Oscars. The janus-faced janta forgets the sweetness Barfi! had infused in the hearts of a crowd used to monstrosities like Housefull2 and Joker!
Solitude is a gift, loneliness a curse. I revel in my solitude, I play with words, they assist me in concocting another world, they act transcendental camouflaging me from negativities. I sometimes am a maudlin writer; other times a mean opinionated middle-finger. But I find an inexplicable pleasure in vomiting out words, untrammeled thoughts, my hybrid reflections! I feel like giving it my all, body and soul. My flat-mates seem to understand my forlorn ways well. They do say some exceptionally funny things sometimes and cook amazing food. They sometimes say things that just engulfs me in hilarity. They are extremely fun loving.
They are really nice blokes barring some habits that throw me in fits of petulance! I blame myself. For I've never lived in a hostel so I'm a noob at learning the disgusting ways boys usually live in. Turning a blind eye to cleanliness perhaps is a trait too macho nowadays. The messier, the merrier seems to be the new mantra.
It's not the fickleness that controls his attempts to be a teetotaler, or his locking horns with the maid when she does as good a job as Kim Kardashian does in containing her curves in skimpy dresses. It's not the other's indecisiveness about the course of career, his being so naked to influence, or being so very derivative and a bigtime pervert. Because anyone can put up with that! What I can't stomach is the pride with which some men disrespect the opposite sex. I ascribe its cause to their lack of female siblings or female friends. But often they get too deep in the vortex to change that or befriend someone! I wonder why they do it; it hardly makes them any cooler or any more virile. But there's not always an answer to something so ingrained in one's psyche. It's like love- blind, mindless and hard to phase out.
I may learn well to vegetate in the village someday, but the yen to fly back home with every phone call I make pulls me stronger. The very thought of them and violins begin to play! Each morning I sink deeper in my rotten futon missing that warmth. But it's worth the wait. My transports of joy are long overdue, and won't be snatched away. Soon all that has kept me from them will get lost somewhere and I'll witness those aging smiles again, that sparkle I bring in those tired eyes will twinkle again. Then all my trifling brooding will cease, my worries will evaporate, those clouds of feeling homesick will dissolve by just that one warm embrace that they'll extend as they welcome me home this Diwali.
PS: Crooning 'Fly me to the moon' envisioning the wee hours of November 2 that will transport me to heaven.
