Written by : Vinayak Nagesh
CHAPTER 1: A COUPLE OF YEARS BACK
A couple of years back,
school was an extended time slot that you somehow managed to fit amongst all
your other meaningless plans for the day. You had to worry about exams only in
March; by some strange stroke of obedience, homework was always complete and you
could top your class by reading a couple of pages from your 'class-work'
notebooks and by pretending to pay attention in class. Holi was perpetually falling on a day before my Mathematics exam
and the Air Force Junta used to
celebrate it with complete enthusiasm-coke, ice cream and mud in hair et al in
the Officer's Mess. I tried half-heartedly each time to resisa temptation but I
always ended up sitting at the dining table, late into the night with my dad,
trying to comprehend the life-moulding concepts of Seventh Grade Geometry,
hours before the session ending exam.
Late night was of course, 10.30 p.m.
The afternoons constituted an optimum range; when going to school the next day
still seemed ages away and the world of entertainment had just begun to unfold
itself with a hundred T.V shows that melted your heart and 'Tinkle Comics' that
you spent eons on. You even used to read the 'Anu Clubs', which you found
terribly boring but had too much time to kill so you read them anyway. And
enveloping this overwhelming Neverland of comfort, forming the basis of all the
personality development that you were unconsciously inflicting upon yourself,
was music.
Listening to music was this well planned, perfectly timed, awe inspiring
activity that you pursued when you weren't discussing high school gossip with
your friends or designing an imaginary request for all the request shows that
you watched on every music channel possible; the one request that would win
request of the month and then you could get that Bryan Adams goodie bag that
would make you the most envied kid in the entire neighbourhood. But since those
requests were never really sent, there were no goodie bags and all the kids
satisfied themselves by fighting about who had a bigger cassette collection.
Buying a cassette was an extremely big deal. Starting from all the effort that
I put into collecting those 125 bucks, to that one trip to the small shop near
Dollar's Colony where the Telugu-speaking man would make it out like he had
been saving the tape just for me. I would come back home, head to the living
room where our old deck was placed, spend about forty five minutes on carefully
removing the plastic sheet covering the tape, spend another half an hour
studying the tape cover, dance around if it had lyrics and finally put the tape
inside and listen to it at a stretch. Simultaneously, I would also be making
mental notes of the songs that I liked so by the time the tape went through its
fourth listening I knew how much to fast forward or rewind.
I was completely unfamiliar with the concept of having multiple favourites so I
spent all my energy, time and imagination worshipping one band. I made it my
life's purpose to collect all the cassettes that had ever been brought out by
the favourite-band-of-the-moment. Bryan Adams had some twelve albums, most of
which were those hideous- plastic boxes with a picture of the artist for a
cover so it took me a lot of time to find them. But I eventually found them
rotting away in some corner of Music World, in Indira Nagar, with the help of
an attendant who couldn't understand how any teenager in his senses such as
myself could not be even remotely interested in Iron Maiden. I made sure I
bought all of Metallica's tapes and was half way through Floyd, Maiden,
Megadeth and Sepultra when I guess the one thing that had been threatening to
happen for months, happened. I grew up.
The old deck is long gone, replaced by an awesome Sony music system that just
collects dust till an odd Sunday when one of us feels a little guilty and
hurriedly digs out a cassette from the cupboard-below-the-table. And then,
there are mp3 players. I would spend most of my free time planning out the
number of folders that the 1 gb on my mp3 player could accommodate, about the
sequence that they should be in and making sure that the music is recycled on a
weekly basis. "Music is constantly in my ears and in my eyes, everywhere
beneath the blue suburban skies." – Penny Lane, The Beatles
Mp3 players drown out unwanted conversations on busy-rides home, from clubbing
nights and unpleasant dialogues by shady looking hooligans in K.R Market. You
can listen to 'Blood' by Just Jack any time you want, look extremely unbothered
while you walk the long walk to the Market Bus Stand, taking long strides just
like Richard Ashcroft in 'Bittersweet Symphony's' music video. You can even
sport huge grins on your face when you listen to 'These Boots Are Made for
Walkin' by Nancy Sinatra while looking resolutely out of the jammed window in
the G9; a convenient bus ride.
I think about the biting, inexplicable disappointment that I felt when my
father recently told me, had I paid more attention to my writing skills at an
earlier age, my writing would be tenfold better. I think about the aching
realization that he was right, that I had only let my hopes rise because a lot
of people fancied my way of expressing subjective emotions. I know for certain
that storming about with livid expressions on my face in the college campus,
while my batch mates just think I'm pissed off because we aren't fulfilling our
respective visions of 'growing-out of adolescence' is one of the highest
rated things on the 'Juvenile Behavior' list. I know it doesn't matter, that we
get over all the unpleasantness that life has to offer in due time, whether we
want to or not and that I should be a little more graceful when it comes to
accepting reality. But despite all the experience, it still takes one listening
of the 'heavy' folder on the player to lift my spirits up. After all the
growing up that I pride myself on having done, enveloping my entire world,
forming the basis of most of the personality development that I now consciously
inflict upon myself, is still music.
Written by : Vinayak Nagesh
CHAPTER 1: A COUPLE OF YEARS BACK
A couple of years back,
school was an extended time slot that you somehow managed to fit amongst all
your other meaningless plans for the day. You had to worry about exams only in
March; by some strange stroke of obedience, homework was always complete and
you could top your class by reading a couple of pages from your 'class-work'
notebooks and by pretending to pay attention in class. Holi was perpetually falling on a day before my Mathematics exam
and the Air Force Junta used to
celebrate it with complete enthusiasm-coke, ice cream and mud in hair et al in
the Officer's Mess. I tried half-heartedly each time to resisa temptation but I
always ended up sitting at the dining table, late into the night with my dad,
trying to comprehend the life-moulding concepts of Seventh Grade Geometry,
hours before the session ending exam.
Late night was of course, 10.30 p.m.
The afternoons constituted an optimum range; when going to school the next day
still seemed ages away and the world of entertainment had just begun to unfold
itself with a hundred T.V shows that melted your heart and 'Tinkle Comics' that
you spent eons on. You even used to read the 'Anu Clubs', which you found
terribly boring but had too much time to kill so you read them anyway. And
enveloping this overwhelming Neverland of comfort, forming the basis of all the
personality development that you were unconsciously inflicting upon yourself,
was music.
Listening to music was this well planned, perfectly timed, awe inspiring
activity that you pursued when you weren't discussing high school gossip with
your friends or designing an imaginary request for all the request shows that
you watched on every music channel possible; the one request that would win
request of the month and then you could get that Bryan Adams goodie bag that
would make you the most envied kid in the entire neighbourhood. But since those
requests were never really sent, there were no goodie bags and all the kids
satisfied themselves by fighting about who had a bigger cassette collection.
Buying a cassette was an extremely big deal. Starting from all the effort that
I put into collecting those 125 bucks, to that one trip to the small shop near
Dollar's Colony where the Telugu-speaking man would make it out like he had
been saving the tape just for me. I would come back home, head to the living
room where our old deck was placed, spend about forty five minutes on carefully
removing the plastic sheet covering the tape, spend another half an hour
studying the tape cover, dance around if it had lyrics and finally put the tape
inside and listen to it at a stretch. Simultaneously, I would also be making
mental notes of the songs that I liked so by the time the tape went through its
fourth listening I knew how much to fast forward or rewind.
I was completely unfamiliar with the concept of having multiple favourites so I
spent all my energy, time and imagination worshipping one band. I made it my
life's purpose to collect all the cassettes that had ever been brought out by
the favourite-band-of-the-moment. Bryan Adams had some twelve albums, most of
which were those hideous- plastic boxes with a picture of the artist for a cover
so it took me a lot of time to find them. But I eventually found them rotting
away in some corner of Music World, in Indira Nagar, with the help of an
attendant who couldn't understand how any teenager in his senses such as myself
could not be even remotely interested in Iron Maiden. I made sure I bought all
of Metallica's tapes and was half way through Floyd, Maiden, Megadeth and
Sepultra when I guess the one thing that had been threatening to happen for
months, happened. I grew up.
The old deck is long gone, replaced by an awesome Sony music system that just
collects dust till an odd Sunday when one of us feels a little guilty and
hurriedly digs out a cassette from the cupboard-below-the-table. And then,
there are mp3 players. I would spend most of my free time planning out the
number of folders that the 1 gb on my mp3 player could accommodate, about the
sequence that they should be in and making sure that the music is recycled on a
weekly basis. "Music is constantly in my ears and in my eyes, everywhere beneath
the blue suburban skies." – Penny Lane, The Beatles
Mp3 players drown out unwanted conversations on busy-rides home, from clubbing
nights and unpleasant dialogues by shady looking hooligans in K.R Market. You
can listen to 'Blood' by Just Jack any time you want, look extremely unbothered
while you walk the long walk to the Market Bus Stand, taking long strides just
like Richard Ashcroft in 'Bittersweet Symphony's' music video. You can even
sport huge grins on your face when you listen to 'These Boots Are Made for
Walkin' by Nancy Sinatra while looking resolutely out of the jammed window in
the G9; a convenient bus ride.
I think about the biting, inexplicable disappointment that I felt when my
father recently told me, had I paid more attention to my writing skills at an
earlier age, my writing would be tenfold better. I think about the aching
realization that he was right, that I had only let my hopes rise because a lot
of people fancied my way of expressing subjective emotions. I know for certain
that storming about with livid expressions on my face in the college campus,
while my batch mates just think I'm pissed off because we aren't fulfilling our
respective visions of 'growing-out of adolescence' is one of the highest
rated things on the 'Juvenile Behavior' list. I know it doesn't matter, that we
get over all the unpleasantness that life has to offer in due time, whether we
want to or not and that I should be a little more graceful when it comes to
accepting reality. But despite all the experience, it still takes one listening
of the 'heavy' folder on the player to lift my spirits up. After all the
growing up that I pride myself on having done, enveloping my entire world,
forming the basis of most of the personality development that I now consciously
inflict upon myself, is still music.
My parents occasionally narrate the stories of their lives to us and there
comes a point when I can almost smell the Jasmine Flowers in the garden of my
mum's house or the petrol leaking from the first scooter that my dad ever drove
after sneaking it out in someone's marriage. There never really is a wistful
look in their eyes, a saddening realization that those times are not going to
come back. They merely tell us their tales, hoping that we would derive some
sort of pleasure from their narratives, the way they were, just by remembering
those incidents.
I opened the cupboard-below-the-table today and looked at all the cassettes
that were once-upon-a- time, arranged lovingly in alphabetical order. Amongst
the Metallica collection (I think we threw out Backstreet Boys and Bryan Adams
– two artists, my sister had the greatest affiliation towards) I found a
recorded cassette- an assorted tape full of dance-tracks and remixes. I
remember listening to it in the living room, prancing around the room, bursting
with happiness and I listened to it today, feeling the exact, same sequence of
emotions. I think for once, Kevin Arnold, from "The Wonder years" got
it wrong. Growing up never does happen in a heartbeat.
My parents occasionally
narrate the stories of their lives to us and there comes a point when I can
almost smell the Jasmine Flowers in the garden of my mum's house or the petrol
leaking from the first scooter that my dad ever drove after sneaking it out in
someone's marriage. There never really is a wistful look in their eyes, a
saddening realization that those times are not going to come back. They merely
tell us their tales, hoping that we would derive some sort of pleasure from
their narratives, the way they were, just by remembering those incidents.
I opened the cupboard-below-the-table today and looked at all the cassettes
that were once-upon-a- time, arranged lovingly in alphabetical order. Amongst
the Metallica collection (I think we threw out Backstreet Boys and Bryan Adams
– two artists, my sister had the greatest affiliation towards) I found a
recorded cassette- an assorted tape full of dance-tracks and remixes. I
remember listening to it in the living room, prancing around the room, bursting
with happiness and I listened to it today, feeling the exact, same sequence of
emotions. I think for once, Kevin Arnold, from "The Wonder years" got
it wrong. Growing up never does happen in a heartbeat.
CHAPTER 2: HOW MUCH DOES THE TRUTH MATTER?
(Paris, France)
A year ago, on a
reflective-walk-session through the rue de l'egalite,
Paris, I
was on a street full of unusual shops - wedding dresses for very tall women,
personalized tailors for very rich men, exotic Indian instruments for very
bored Europeans. Walking past all these with the glazed-over-curious-eye that I
reserve for such occasions, I came across a small saxophone shop. The streets
of Paris have always overwhelmed me.
It was a particularly
windy day with post-autumn-fallen leaves flying around everywhere. A strong
whirring sound was muffling all other sounds. Amidst this chaotic environment,
the shop stood still and shiny, almost as though it was placed there in
defiance to the weather. Behind a large glass window were several saxophones
hung on display in ascending order of size. Behind these, perched on a tall
stool, was a young man with a beard, playing the sax for a small audience that
was assembled around him. He seemed to be showcasing his wares to his
customers.
Standing outside in the
blustering wind with discarded worlds around me, I couldn't hear a single note.
Instead, I found myself developing a small pang at the thought that the young
shopkeeper would probably never have to impress me with his instruments. As
much as I enjoy jazz, a venture into the world of saxophones seemed to be a
highly unlikely one for me.
This thought provoked a
familiar feeling - that of being slightly alienated from every club I ever
belonged to from my childhood into adulthood. I have always been interested in
many things and I seem to have found a certain level of happiness in just
dipping in and out of stamp/stone/pencil/pen/coin collections, drawing,
guitars, basketball, tennis, graphic novels, French, Football, writing,
song-writing, hiking, trekking... etcetera.
Being in the school
football team was great for a few months and then I found that the team was
full of veterans, who all seemed to love everything that came with playing for
the school like missed classes and team-gossip. I had no inclination towards
such things and then it was time to try something else.
Each of my interests
still gives me some amount of pleasure but rarely in a strong, consuming way
that will make me want to get really good at it.
Living in a place like
Paris only catalyzes this process of going around broadening one's horizons.
The city itself is a confused one, each area almost separate from the other,
constantly strengthening its own culture, shape, and voice. It overflows with
several different kinds of people who come and go as they please, and several
different kinds of experiences, both sets of which spark several different
kinds of thought processes.
Most of the times, I
tell myself that I'm growing as a person, gaining - all - this - diverse- knowledge.
What I find increasingly difficult, however, is to absorb and make sense of all
this information. I seem to have developed a sort of wide-eyed fascination for
everything everyone has to say just because it might be different to what I
know and because being interested in many things makes conversations more fun,
and because every unique experience feels necessary if I were to die tomorrow
and all that sort of thing and now I feel like a very convincing and glowing
amateur.
My sister used to work
at an online advertising centre. Working in online advertising with reams of
readily available information has elucidated some valuable and at times,
difficult things. One of the things I have come to learn is that although we
have access to such huge amounts of data, ultimately, all that matters is what
we choose to present from that data and how we choose to do it. Even with that
selected, special data, each person interprets it quite differently and there
are hardly ever any discrete truths.
I think it's going to be
difficult for me to stop dipping in and out of things because at the moment at
least, I have to accept that it makes me who I am. But for whatever
unfathomable reason, the truth is important to me and sitting in a lovely room
full of books in the French countryside over Christmas, reading some Zen
poetry, I came to the conclusion that in order to stay a little more focused, I
would devote at least an hour every day to pursuing something that gave me some
serious, true, happiness. Perhaps if I'm lucky, that will lead me to a
singular, all-encompassing passion that always leaves me craving more,
something like the theory of hybridisation or the production of beer or the
promotion of children's books. Or not. But it wouldn't have ever been for the
lack of trying.
I also decided that as a
small experiment for whatever duration of time, I would also try to keep a
small encyclopaedia of sorts, detailing the answers to all the burning
questions I have and discuss with others, then Wikipedia it and remember the
answer in a very vague, false way. A world I always wanted to belong to but
never did, was to understand things right from the basics and I'm finally going
to attempt this in my own random, meandering way. At least the method will be
my very own and just the prospect of that is very, very, very exciting.
CHAPTER 3:
LESSONS IN THE FLUIDITY OF THOUGHT (ON A RAINY DAY IN BANGALORE, KARNATAKA,
INDIA)
It rained today. Not the sort of
constant semi-drizzle that Bangalore normally receives but large, big slanting
rain that makes a homogeneous 'whooooshhh' sound, combines forces with the wind
and gives everything a good, strong, rinse.
I sat by my window for half an hour to
enjoy this rare spectacle. As I watched, the rain got heavier till a sort of
hazy layer of mist settled down on top of all the trees around my house and I
could only just about spot the freight train that passes by in the distance
every day.
The train normally has a muddy
appearance but today it looked the tiniest amount of shiny and this compelled
me to channel the forces outside to my own private space.
I started with the bed sheets.
Credits:
Videocon Washing Machine, Surf Excel
Detergent Powder +Ecover Fabric softener, 40 degrees, short wash + drying, 2h
03 minutes.
Next I cleaned my bathroom.
Credits:
Special rainy day playlist - a
combination of Elliott Smith, Nick Drake and Badly Drawn Boy with background
vocals by the 'whooooshhh' outside that crept in through my open window.
Harpic, toilet brush, Dettol
Multi-action Cleaning Spray, Scotch-brite sponge cloth, Mr Muscle Bathroom
Cleaner.
Then I had a shower.
Credits:
Palmolive Almond flavoured Body Wash,
Turkey towel, Vaseline Aloe Vera Moisturizing Lotion.
All of the above (except the shower
which I try and indulge in every day without fail), normally stowed away to the
lower most rung of my things-I-must-do list, put me in a meditative state of
pleasure today.
There is an indescribable peace in the
thought of your head touching a clean pillow cover that night, in seeing a clear
reflection of yourself (post-shower) in a sparkling mirror, and in your room
smelling almost like the freshness outside.
When I came out of the shower, the rain
had stopped, the mist had cleared and the sky had turned a bright shade of
blue. As a reward to myself for having been so good, I went for a small walk in
the park next to my house.
The sun had set and my mouth (for no
fault or conscious decision on my part) hung slightly open. The park was empty
except for a couple, holding hands, conversing softly. Our paths crossed and
the three of us gave each other a brief glance, then continued to walk without
changing our previous states – them continuing to hold hands and converse
softly, me continuing to walk with my mouth open in wonder at the colour of the
sky.
The sky turned from blue to orange to
purple to purple-orange to dark blue and I walked without really thinking about
anything at all, tracing the shapes of the trees around, noticing the dark
outline of the couple, now stationary on top of the highest point of the path
they chose with the almost-pretentious-BDA lake-Old Madras Road-skyline as
their backdrop.
I looked away as they started to
cuddle, then continued walking, stopping only to listen to a blackbird sing,
watch stars become visible to my eye and then try and distinguish between them
and passing aeroplanes.
Content and calm, I started walking
back home, when the hoot of an owl sliced up the air. For the next quarter of
an hour, he continued to call out again and again. My immediate thought was
that he sounded lonely and was aching for the company of another owl. But then
I had another thought - perhaps he was just announcing himself so that no one
else came near him. Can owls get lonely in the way humans do? I don't know, do
you?
If today's exercise of cleaning and how
pleasurable it can be has taught me anything, it is that I need to be a little
more open about how I define and connect things and emotive states.
'Lonely' is now a part of my
'strong-words-that-I-need-to-be-careful-about-using' list.
Thank you, Saturday Rain and Goodnight,
dear Owl. I hope we meet again.
Written by Vinayak Nagesh
CHAPTER 4: RED LIGHTS ARE NICE IF THEY DON'T ANGER YOU
Driving a scooter is a lot like watching a bad play. Scenes of moderate brilliance are placed carelessly among piles of rubbish and overdone coolness. You don't get to play the cynical but hermit-like-faceless-audience that you used to with such reckless pleasure in your blessed public bus anymore.
Now, you actually have to be in the goddamn play.
I have been using a beautiful, silver-grey Honda Activa to commute for the last couple of months now; (my parents' grandest, most expensive birthday gift to me, till date. My parents are so cool, you wish they were yours so bad I can taste it and all that) albeit rather sneakily because apparently, people with LLs aren't supposed to ride without an accompanying D.L holder and I have already been caught by the cops twice (Or maybe a thousand times, but for reasons beyond comprehension).
I actually failed the learner's license test four times, till the attendant at the ghastly R.T.O felt sorry for me and sent me for the oral test. My LL expired a few days ago and I went to take the D.L, where I promptly failed again. What can I say? So much failure in one so young; I'm scarred for life.
Motorcycles are like ants on the road. They move in long lines. No other vehicle moves so easily and sinuously. "Put whatever obstacles you want in our way", cry the triumphant motorcyclists, "footpaths, pedestrians, cows, stray dogs, rats, BMTC buses, cops, college buses, autos-without-fucking-brake-lights, indicators or horns, whatever you want, man. But whatever you do, we have got to and will keep-on-moving."
And so we move; worm-like, through sluggishly slow traffic. Even if it means a gain of one centimetre, we celebrate because we are that much closer to the traffic light. 'Nananana'-stupid-vehicles-that-aren't-motorcycles or scooters. Especially autos. We hate you. Honk honk.
Initially, I failed to understand this nerve wrecking rulebook that I was supposed to adhere to. Why in the world was everyone, eternally, in such a bleeding hurry? Like my Dad says, you have to stop at the next red light anyway. But with Bangalore traffic being as insufferable as it is (and me being scared of being run over by angry lorry drivers, honking at me with their piercing, shrill, multi-tone horns when I refuse to budge from my spot at a red light) I found myself being a part of the same herd.
Of course all the heavy braking and avoiding-stupid-autos ends up giving you, what my friend David and I, refer to as an ass-fracture. But, you know, you win some and you get an ass-fracture. It's almost the same thing.
Unfortunately, owners of other vehicles feel like they have been left out of this massively fun game and seem to harbour the same, impractical feeling of compulsively wanting to be on-the-move and so we have blood pressure rising, horns being sounded till kingdom come, extremely frustrating traffic jams that last forever and bucketfuls of intense, road-rage. So, obviously when the signal turns green, it is as if we are in the Beat-the-traffic 400m dash at the Olympics and we have just heard the gun shot.
On October 25th, a cloudy, gloomy day, Alanah (A friend from Italy who'd come over to do a study visit to Bangalore) and I were heading one such race, (we had spent two hours in traffic jams on Mysore road and were in a hurry to go home and clean my horribly unkept place at least superficially because my folks were arriving from Paris that night) when we actually overheard an exchange between two typical maapleys.
((Must-resist-temptation-to-write-a-note-within-a-note because oh! what a gloriously life-changing topic but you must allow me a parenthesis because only a slightly longwinded explanation could do this any justice.) While Vachan has happily been dividing the higher classes of our society into nasty segments-apparently the middle class and upper class are all full of : -
"lalas, yuppies, and hippies"- some of my cousins and me have a nomenclature for the 'poorer' classes; viz maapleys(bridegrooms in Tamil), heroes, and MPs (mattuponnes-brides in Tam. We grudgingly admit that they might be considered as a subset of the species behenjis). Maapleys are the kings of this tiny clique. They are basically Tamil-type-rowdies-found-in-Government-buses whose life's purpose is to eve tease. They proceed to do so, on most occasions, in Tamil. They are always found in groups of three or four. My sister and I were once frightened out of our wits in a Government bus in Goa by a bunch of maaps from some Arts college in Coimbatore who thought we didn't know Tamil and kept asking each other, "Eeeenaa maapley, kalyanon pannikriya?" (whaaattt bridegroom, want to marry?) The Heroes are mostly harmless-general-Indian-wannabemaapleys. Mostly because they are too chicken to actually do anything rowdy like eve tease and restrict themselves to wide-gaping and making out secretly with the MPs in public parks like Lal Bagh.)
So, Alanah and I are on my lovely Honda Activa, speeding away, when we see a maapley trying to stop another maapley from crossing the road in a hurry and then he says to him, "Parva ilai, udu da, iva alla rombo konathala irruka." (Never mind, leave it da, these people and all are in too much anger.)
I can't decide which the memorable event was; this (who knew maapleys were capable of such depth) or my folks coming back from Paris.
Alanah and I are waiting at the Indiranagar Volvo bus stop at ten in the night. We have already been here an hour. The Volvo bus which is supposed to take us to the airport is nowhere in sight.
We are a strange sight; a very beautiful Italian girl and a very dark-skinned-'tambrahm'-boy, standing around on a deserted road at night, extremely sombre one moment and clutching their stomachs as they break into peals of laughter, the next. We are lost in our conversation, completely overwhelmed by the occasional profundity and the regular immaturity of our own thoughts and I have almost forgotten why we were here in the first place, when the bright, red Volvo, finally arrives.
I have been anticipating this day for over a month now. My Dad had plans for coming in October even before they left. The October page in my calendar, with a pleasant painting called Villas à Bordighera(Monet), looks diseased with my impulsively drawn crosses. But now, when the day is finally upon me, I feel oddly detached. What can I say to them that I haven't already explained in great detail on 'gtalk' or the phone, aided by slow photo transfers?
I do a quick recap of the last couple of months.
My brain screams at me to stop. Nope. This won't do at all. The memories melt away in my head before I can even begin to prod them. They start seeming unimportant and irrelevant. I didn't document these memories when I should have and I have probably missed the chance to give them the honest, fair chance they deserve outside my head forever. I am disgusted at myself.
This recapitulating business is depressing the shit out of me and I am suddenly afraid to dishonour my pride at having had one of the most eventful, emotional, and fun-filled semesters ever so I shut my thoughts out and lose myself in conversation with Alanah once again.
We finally arrive at the airport. It's almost eleven thirty now. Air France is scheduled to arrive at 12:30 a.m.
For Alanah and I this is an adventure, something we have never even imagined doing before. We roam around the airport, looking at everything with wonder. She's been here before so she shows me around the airport like it was a tourist spot. We walk around a little and the charm begins to fade away slowly. The food is ridiculously overpriced. The toilets are dirty. The hilly mound that you can stand on and gape at the odd aeroplane landing or taking off turns out to be a big bore.
So we end up standing at the railing near the arrival gate and indulging in people-watching.
The excitement finally begins to sink in. I tell Alanah and she congratulates me on showing signs of being human. We stand there, passing silly but funny comments on all the people passing by. We spare no one. The sweet little girl with her mother, a bouquet of flowers in her tiny hands, the noisy brat in the corner, strutting around like a queen to get her doting mum's attention, the large groups of Muslims on their way back from Mecca, the heart-aching goodbyes, the joyful reunions. At this point, I lose interest in all the metaphors and start getting incredibly jumpy. A little, private orchestra starts playing soothingly in my head. My jumpiness is so infectious that Alanah catches it too and we are soon being subjected to odd looks by the old couple next to us who are, from what we gather, awaiting the arrival of their son from France. The orchestra is getting louder. We cackle, we scream, we go crazy and now the old couple have given up on us and are doing their own version of our hysterical fit. "My parents don't know I'm going to be here!!!!!!". I scream joyfully and Alanah nods like mad. And then in the middle of a film-style slow-run practice, when the crescendo is at its highest in my head, I see them.
Alanah and I run to the taxi counter and stand there. My parents rush outside and there are hugs everywhere. The music in my head finally slows down and turns into a background score. No one says anything for a long time. We walk, as though in a trance, to the taxi. We actually make small talk. We actually talk about the fucking weather, standing close, feeling the kind of warmth I have never, ever, felt before.
Then we get into the taxi, tired, unbelievably happy, and full of small talk because there is simply so much to say that we don't know where to start. My parents and I remain silent. We have heard these stories before many, many times. But we are grateful. The conversation will flow in the days to come, as my Dad and I go on our morning walks and have our beautiful conversations, as my mum and I talk in the kitchen making copious amounts of filter-coffee, as my sister and I talk late into the night. We will even fit in a full-fledged family fight over something as silly as music in the car just to feel normal again.
But right now, we are silent and I beat myself mentally, feeling sheer disbelief at how I even dared to think that I won't have anything to say.
I begin asking myself if I overdid the anticipation of this day, this one breathtaking moment of intense happiness, and my brain tells me to get a life and stop asking it questions I knew the answer to a couple of months ago.
