Where we lived once

It has so happened that I have lived in few places, houses, cities. The longest of course was where I was born, birth to 19 years. Then to pursue further studies and then where the jobs took me. I counted seven cities fourteen houses.

Then I looked up nostalgia. Just so that I can check if that’s what I feel.

Nostalgia: a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition. (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nostalgia)

No, that’s not how I feel.

In the past few months, actually few years, I have realised that I want to spend time with my women friends. Friends who have lasted and friendships that has flourished beyond the workplace. So I make travel plans to only, specifically, meet and spend time with these friends.  We talk, about the present and the past, the good, bad and ugly of what we have lived through, not in any necessary order, but as we recall them, as that time connects with the now. Few things we don’t indulge in; they are not important anymore.

So in the recent past, I went to meet two friends who continue to be in those cities, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad.

There is lot of excitement in anticipation. Shared familiarity around food, clothes, places leading to a plan, what all to do. As I land, the first reaction is of happiness, that I have missed this place. Oh how many times I passed this airport, this train station, this road, this lane, this shop. A stampede of events in my mind, bringing back a picture from the past and laying it on the passing sight. To go back to where one lived in turbulent times, personal and communal. This very earth that was once bloodied, the horrible nightmarish times.  

And then it happened, both times. The absolute loss of my bearings. An once meandering road through agricultural land on both sides, is now, may be, a straight line? A deserted outskirt where nothing was available on walking distance is now made invisible by all kinds of buildings and shops. Am not joking. I just don’t know where is what I saw day after day, every day, twenty years ago!

Yes, it’s been a long long time. Urban landscape is always changing. Forget the trees, you cannot even use building names and boards as landmarks. They have all changed, moved, closed, renamed. And with that, sets in a new unfamiliarity. You think you knew, but you don’t anymore.

The friendships though, have flourished, despite the distance. Despite that we do not share the same office space, assignments, travels and lunches anymore, and do not meet on a regular basis. Many things continue to happen in our individual lives, through the grief, loss, achievements, troubles, each one of us finding our calling at our own pace, aging, our routines, idiosyncrasies, OCDs, there is a bonding that has stayed.

There is a certain kind of empathy for the life that was then. An equanimity that comes with time and in hindsight. We are kind to what we were then, and realise that we have evolved. We have replaced much of our judgmental, opinionated selves to make room for things that really matter. Fun, camaraderie, to just talk, to just listen, to just be.