Deja vu of the worst kind

 It's a bright, quiet weekend morning. One can hear birds chirping, and for once their sound isn't drowned out by the cacophony of vehicles and people. It is, however, interspersed with ambulance sires, every 5-7 minutes or so. 

Apocalypse isn't an imaginary future anymore. It is here.

I try to lock myself in an imaginary bubble, of normalcy, at home. I try to keep my routine as normal as possible.  When my family members (and I) became infected, I pray and hope that it passes with as little damage as possible. For the most part, it seems that it will. But the worry remains... since one doesn't know when this virus will suddenly rear its ugly head and engulf everything in its wake. 

Of course, it is doing that already. It is taking lives by the scores. Social media is full of well-intentioned volunteers trying to do their best in helping their communities. I find myself unable to do that, either. I find myself going numb to the happenings around me, I find myself only able to care about my immediate family. I find myself truly unable to care for the greater community. 

These feelings - of despair, of guilt, of selfishness - run through my mind. I try to numb these feelings by binge-watching one or another inane series on Netflix. Yes - I am privileged, that even as my family and I became infected and now recover, I can afford to do indulge in such luxuries such as binge-watching. So I do that, over and over again, until I am successful in numbing all those unpleasant feelings for a while. 

Until I'm not. I feel trapped. I feel a desperate need to run away from .. all this. Everywhere I look for any escape, the stories stare at me. It's not just about numbers anymore. It's about parents losing their children, minors losing their entire families. Toddlers not able to hug their mother one last time. It's about waiting for your turn at crematoriums. It's about doctors and medical staff working relentlessly to save lives, often not succeeding. 

This is the background of our lives right now. It's that part in a movie when everything is dark and hopeless with ominous music in the background. Of course, a movie always has a hero we know and trust will come and save us. Perhaps, we will too. Or perhaps, we are our own heroes. Or perhaps, this is real life and that may not happen at all. Because in real life, bad things just happen... and one is left with no choice but to accept it all and move forward in life. 

Who knew that living is meant to be so difficult? Yet, historical events throughout the world have shown us that, again and again, and again. But I think that we, as a generation, have so far been living in abundance. Communal sufferings seemed to be a thing of the past... those events happened because the world was too poor/too capitalist/too socialist/too underdeveloped/too fascist/too Marxist/too unregulated...  

We believed that we had found a solution to all of those. And that we were the fortunate ones to now enjoy all the pleasures of life. But this pandemic is like a rude shock. We are struggling to understand where life since 2020 is going. As put in a New York Times article, we are 'languishing'. Our lives, accelerated towards personal goals, are suddenly at a pace we don't feel comfortable with. 

I personally, do not know what to do. I'm not able to cope with this. I see people working towards their careers and life, even as helping out those in need, despite these feelings. I, on the other hand, can't seem to shake myself from the numbness of it all. I can't seem to stop being a passive observer of everything that is happening. It's a deja vu of 2020, but only of the worst kind. 

Because despite the bright blue skies outside, my mind seems to be in a dense fog that I just can't seem to get out of. 

Past and Present

These days, I find myself reminiscing a lot about my teenage years. Perhaps its the isolation and the time I'm forced to spend with myself - and so my brain is finding new (old) memories to keep me occupied. Or perhaps, it's just me, almost on the verge of the big THREE O (still a couple of years left, folks!) - that I find myself wondering - how am I now living in the same city I wanted so hard to get away from? 

I moved back to this city - perhaps it would be apt to call it a hometown since it definitely feels like that - a few months ago. The last time I was living here was as a 14-15-year-old awkward teen - and barring some occasional visits to meet relatives after that; I genuinely believed I was out of this city forever; given that my parents weren't living here either. 

Well, my parents decided to move back to their own house, their home recently - thanks to my father's retirement last year. It's not as if I didn't see it coming - but I had assumed (quite arrogantly, may I add) that I'd have found a way out of my parents' house by the time that (shudder!) happened. 

Ah, well, as you may have guessed, that didn't happen.  To the long list of  'Reasons Why That Didn't Happen', I can maybe add the "This Great Year - 2020" (and beyond?) to the list. And so, I'm back in this city - to my hometown. 

This may seem strange, but for the first time in my life, I am comfortable calling a city my hometown. All my life, I have moved to multiple cities, to more houses than I can count, to various schools, even to a different country for a brief stint - and I never knew which one felt most like home. Everywhere felt like one and nothing felt like one.  

Now that I'm back in this city, I think I finally understand the meaning of 'hometown'. It's where I grew up, where I spent a part of my teenage. Where I made my first friends, had my first crush, had the first taste of independence. It's a place where I still have people I know from 15 years ago, where I have memories from the earliest years of my life. It's a place where I don't know the routes anymore because of all the 'development' - but I can still find my way. It's a place where an insignificant wall graffiti/advertisement about 'Bookland'  - a stationary shop - takes me back to my primary school; where this would be the urgent late-night destination because I would have forgotten that I needed a protractor/map/drawing book in school the next day. It's a place where the neighborhood grocery store still has the same name (and perhaps, even the board) - and if I look hard enough, perhaps, it's the same 'uncle' manning the shop. 

This city is familiar, and after a long time in my life, I don't feel afraid to come back to the familiar. I have been one always trying to run away from familiarity - didn't like staying in one place too long lest the neighborhood shopkeeper starts recognizing me as a 'local'. I've liked the anonymity when I've stayed in places for a short period of time - no one knew me, therefore I could be a new me to everyone. 

But here, the semblance of the past is heartwarming. I pass my old school(s) - and I remember the friends I made, the friends I wish I'd made, the people who I just thought of as 'classmates' but would love to run into them again. And I wonder about them, about myself - what were we when we were 15, what dreams and aspirations did we have? Did we fulfill that? Are some on the path to achieving that? Have some found new paths? Have some given up on dreams altogether? 

I haven't kept in touch with a lot of people from my high school - in my quest to run away from everything 'familiar'; I stopped keeping in touch with people who I once spent my days with. I always wanted to run forward to bigger, better, greater things - old people and places had no place in my plans. Ironical now, that I'm back in this old city and wanting a reunion with those old friends. 

I miss my 15-year-old self. She was hopeful, and aspirational, and dreamy. She was not cynical, she was unencumbered, she always pushed herself to become a better version of herself. She believed in the goodness of people and in the fairness of the world. Some may call that naive now, but I think, that's the way to truly be happy - without letting your experiences rob you of your positive outlook of the world. 

Being back in my hometown, and living here, as an adult is a bitter-sweet experience. I feel grounded with the familiarity, yet that itch to run away to 'something bigger' is still there. And perhaps, one day I will move away again - but this time, I will not be afraid to come back - because, this, after all, is home, in the truest sense of the word. 

PS. 'This City' is Noida - and having spent the better part of the past 10-12 years in Delhi, I never expected to feel such ... but how life changes and surprises you!