Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Rootless!

Idyllic. The word sums up the childhood. Books on ideal parenting may have missed out on something, but my parents never did. I was happy, I was cherished and I was brimming with life. Yet by the time I turned 18, I could hardly wait to leave home.

Fates chose to listen to me, instead of my family, a part that had always added to the 'idyllic' state of affairs and I left home all of 18 to educate and sharpen the brain. It has been those many years now, now that I look back.

The world of hostels and shared bathrooms wasn't what you would describe as exactly my comfort zone. Nor was the word cold so often a part of my sentences (from water to breakfast to weather and to people). Just when it felt like my room, the calendar turned pages and a new room, a new view and a new leak claimed acquintance.

From high school to college and a bigger college, change and cold seemed to be the constants in a never settling life. Sure there were friends!

Newer and bigger cities have beckoned to me since I started working. I have moved from one cramped house to another, trying to fit in my life. There are flatmates with no faces, colleagues with no interest and superiors with no compassion. There are those strangers with whom I go out, drink, dance and sleep, few with a face and voice I remember.

Everytime I visit my birth city, I am transformed to being a question mark. Where do I belong to now? If not here, then where? If elsewhere, then where? My existence is that of a rootless, floating water weed.

Can I go back to my roots now? To where I did belong.

NO. The word sums it up. Through the days of ragging and missing my mother, to being the bully who cries while leaving the school, the college, the bigger college. Through days of being the junior most employee to turning into the experienced, cold shouldering superior, I have felt ALIVE!

And one day, when the time is right, I shall grow roots too. But for now, this life of a wanderer, the jerk of insecurity, the haze of confusion and the empty pockets at the end of the month feel just so right.

P.S. - Leaving the security of your family home is never easy and you suffer more than you probably enjoy. But it is this phase that teaches you to live, to move on and to embrace yourself and your life. It is in true sense a journey of self realisation!

 

3 comments:

  1. You just keep getting better! :) Loved it! Especially wen one can relate to it! :)

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  2. Very nicely written!! There is one thing though, where I think we differ in opinion. As I understand from this blog, u have taken growing roots as a metaphor for settling in lyf. I think our culture, beliefs and morals form roots of our lives. They grow as we grow. This is a phase where our roots will gain strength and shape depending upon the experiences we go through.

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  3. manja strangely i left home and found roots here where i met u first and then darshan...My hardships were lessened bcoz of u after leaving nagpur!

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