The cartons with all my stuff from Chennai arrived yesterday. While I was nervous, I was also excited to open and get back to all the things that I didn’t even know were missing from my life. Every day I would wait for my package to arrive so that I could change my bedsheet. I have been waiting for this day for a long time. I wanted to see my stuff so bad, whether in the exact same place where I left them or in the place that I call ‘home’ now. So, when they arrived, I had to unpack them immediately because my house is too small to be accommodating all those cartons along with the out-of-proportion furniture that we already have. Not going to lie, it was quite a job. Everything was in a mess inside the carton and I had expected that my clothes or my blanket would smell something like my room in Chennai. I don’t think I got that smell. Instead I had come to the realization that I have been very frequently sick, evident from this huge pack of medicines and my suitcase full of prescriptions for my eyes, skin and throat that I found. Luckily, everything had reached me safe, even my trash. The trash made me wonder if I really am a hoarder or not. I guess I just have a hard time letting things go, let alone people. I have a hard time letting go of even a perfume bottle that would remind me of a certain phase in life. I had like a huge bundle of clothes on my bed and my floor was covered with little souvenirs from my friends or from the places I visited. There was, infact, even the pamphlet of Farmer’s, the restaurant we frequented back there and a tiny packet of refreshers from Thalapakatti, another restaurant which was our go-to place for Chicken 65. I had all these thoughts crossing my head while I was putting all my tiny and big souvenirs into a folder. By 8 PM I was done with rearranging my room and I felt quite satisfied with the job I did, with the use of my house-help. I video-called Ramitha and she asked me if I was sweating. I was sweating from all that struggle of folding each of my article back into my Almirah and deciding what to keep where. But I think I was also sweating from all the struggle with revisiting each memory associated with every single article that came in the cartons. Every little thing reminded me of million other memories. I found the cup Naaga gifted me and the note inside it and got reminded of our field work days. I found my fairy lights and got reminded of that night in Pondicherry when we were riding aimlessly on the road by the beach. Even the trash that came with the package was a token of something meaningful. All this was okay until I had to throw most of my stuff. It wasn’t that hard, if I were to be true to self, because goodbye or no goodbye, I have mastered the art of letting things go in the past few months. I will cry for a day or two and everything will be back to square one. Yesterday was honestly not as hard as I anticipated it to be. I kept everything in their designated place in the room and I hoped that I could decorate my room with all the posters and lights too. Some good out of all this storm of memories. I had my dinner and I finished my work for the day. At night, I prepared to sleep but I wasn’t as tired as I expected myself to be, considering that I hadn’t even slept properly in the afternoon. I talked to Shivam to help him through something he was facing. Back and forth, I was Instagramming and I swear to god, I hadn’t wanted to fall asleep more because I have a really long day today, with all the classes, interviews and the sessions. I was listening to songs and I felt a thud on my bed, I thought it was the fan but I turned on my flash only to see Mishti wanting to come to my bed. My heart melted and I brought her up and she slept on my shoulder (something that she hasn’t done in months). She cuddled with me almost all night long. It was beautiful, only if I could also fall asleep on her too. I kept my phone aside and tried sleeping, but in vain. I think it was 4 AM and I wasn’t asleep yet. I checked my phone, responded to some texts and tried falling asleep again, thinking I still have 5 hours. It was 7:30 and I felt the temptation to listen to The Yellow Diary (an Indie band I have taken a liking to very recently). As I was looking at my window blind, I teared up. My entire body was aching and I hadn’t felt nostalgia this painfully. I realized how yesterday was an official end to the life I had struggled for months, to call my own. With all my stuff back to where it belonged, I realized this is it. There is no going back from here, there is no room ‘back there’ that I will be entering. Love, I am fine, okay? I am hanging in there and I am not dysfunctional yet and I am coping better than I thought I could and I am so proud of myself. I have been finding multiple ways of coping with all this closure. I made this montage of our life in Chennai and I think I did a pretty good job. I made one separate montage for Ramitha because she has been the most valuable takeaway from my life there. I crafted this photo album for Sehrish’s birthday and I have been writing all about it, okay? Whenever I get time. I keep going back to the pictures and the videos and I know I always have my friends I can fall back to. But, for some reason, everything seems to fall short. That is not to say that everything I am doing is not helpful, it is. But somedays when the summer wind feels a little familiar or when there’s water running in the washroom, the memories knock the wind out of me. Like this morning when I started thinking about how I used to lie down for an extra half an hour on my bed there and plan my day ahead. I keep thinking of the things I would do if I could get that life back. I don’t reassure myself with anything, I don’t tell myself “This will happen, you’ll get back to Chennai, don’t worry.” I mean, ofcourse I’ll get to go to Chennai but it’s this life that is never coming back. If I could, I would have one last supper at Sangeetha (even if it was a pure Vegetarian restaurant). If I could, I would buy one last cigarette from the shopkeeper downstairs who called himself “Aashiq” in an attempt to flirt with me. If I could, I would have one last Chai at that stall at T-nagar, with that cute Chaiwala giggling at me as I botched up my Tamil. If I could, I would walk from Pothy’s to Raju Hospital with Ramitha and talk over literally anything she would be ready to talk about, because nothing like the breeze of cool air coming from that one Jewelry shop that would come in our way. If I could, I would smoke one last time in that balcony overlooking the sea and think of how I could jump from the 21st floor. Not in the suicidal way but I did consider jumping off the balcony just to experience flying. If I could, I would go to Kelambakkam Bus depot and walk over all that cowshit that used to disgust me at 7 in the morning. If I could, I would go to Marina once again and have my favourite Nutella toast at Chai Gully and shop for cute household stuff from M. Maybe I’d drop by at “Build-a-bear” and build myself that bear which I had been delaying for so long. I could really wait for our college van one last time and listen to all that loud music that Prabhu Anna would play for us. We used to love our ride to college because I remember learning so much from that guy: of how fearless, quick and risk-taking he was (with his driving haha). If I could, I would have fun last ice-cream at the Amelie’s and savor it atleast till the time I get better. If I could, I would travel in the bus one last time on the OMR stretch and watch all the busy roads while listening to Local Train or Twenty One Pilots. If I could, I would go to Besant Nagar beach and have goli-soda as the waves touch my feet. I could really meet everyone I have ever met (including that annoying bus conductor who refused to give me my change back) in Chennai and tell them that your presence did something to me. Sometimes, I can’t believe I won’t be seeing Glowy anymore or I won’t have that Aloo Parantha at the juice-corner outside TVH anymore. I could really go to Spar or Shri Krishna one last time to get tampons or that deodorant that I used to run out of. As materialistic and privileged as it sounds, I don’t want to feel small for attaching meaning to the littlest of things. Yesterday, when I saw my bus tickets or the ‘let it go’ poster from my room, it dawned on me that so much can happen in just 10 months. Everyday has been something. I started cursing the virus for the first time in 6 months because that one life that I fought so hard for, has gone for a toss for nothing. Even with all those months of home-sickness, insomnia, throat infections, eczema, adjustment issues, unsuccessful Hinge experiments, early morning melancholia, cigarette dependence and whatnot, I don’t think I have been this attached to a memory of something this much. When I woke up this morning, tears rolled down my eyes wetting my pillow and the only song that came to my mind was Oceans by Seafret after which I listened to the entire album. As I write this, I have SYML, Sleeping at Last, Daughter playing in the background. I am tempted to think that my insomnia from last night and my body ache is perhaps my body’s reaction to what’s been happening. I am confident I’ll get through the day and I am glad that I know this language enough to be venting out like this but I think the void all this has created in me and the thought that the room I had worked so hard to make beautiful doesn’t exist anymore, will keep hurting me a little every day. I am doing everything I can to let go of this but I hate, absolutely fucking hate the fact that out of all the beautiful ways of giving closure, this is how it’s turning out to be for me and others like me. Maybe if I could start over, I would.
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