Change was inevitable, and it arrived, just as it always does. Where should I embark on this tale? Should I begin with the true origin, the distant past, or the recent ending, mere days ago as I pen these words? Does it matter now? Perhaps it does, but the majority of what I’m jotting down here will be buried in my journal, while the rest, rather superficial, will find its way onto Medium, so it hardly matters. Alright, let’s dive into it now.
The year 2019 was a year of ambition. After earning a somewhat decent reputation in my high school exams, it was time for university. It seemed straightforward, didn’t it? After traversing various colleges, both private and public, through running, crawling, and colliding, I found myself at Delhi University’s DSC. It was love at first sight. The serene, plum surroundings, the picturesque pathways, and the nearby gardens made it a perfect match for aesthetics. And aesthetics it was, primarily, for various reasons, or simply for a lot of fun. The crowd was a blend of Delhi natives and out-of-towners. Alright, perhaps not out-of-towners, but the wind had a habit of stealing you away from your notes and depositing you on a nearby bench, disrupting everything around you. Days passed like seasons, DSC transformed its ambiance, and the clouds above suggested taking a break when your classes had taken enough of your time. The loneliest souls sat as awkwardly as the trees within the campus shivered when a Delhi storm rumbled in the skies. Leaving my home, which was exactly thirty kilometers away, and venturing into those imposing concrete structures added a new rhythm to ‘freedom,’ the beat of someone’s existence, even when there was none.
Winter held both delicacy and grandeur in my mind simultaneously. Taking the bus and metro to the university and back exposed me to all sorts of winds, and the laughter of people around me in the metro felt like a family gathering, as well as a sense of novelty and abandonment. Every day, taking the metro to the university carried with it the feeling that you had to be visible, and just be there. Change was brewing, and it came. Perhaps you had your fill of classes, courses, and lectures, or perhaps the weather needed healing, or maybe the environment disapproved of your work ethic, or perhaps it was a combination of it all. February arrived, and so did Covid. You were content, or rather, I was content, with the amount of seeing and being seen I had, so staying at home seemed like the right thing to do. Online classes brought a certain peace, and you hesitated to step into the fresh air. You craved a little breeze then, and now, however, everything suited you perfectly, until it no longer did.
Two years of lockdown left me feeling both invigorated and dead at the same time. I longed to be seen again, to feel myself, to sense the air around my head. Come February 2022, you were ready to rejoin society. The university beckoned. Although you hadn’t met your peers, you were drained, weary, and too heavy to interact with anyone. You were tired of idleness, and it felt pointless to spend just two more months until you could finally call yourself a graduate. There was both a need and a desire to return to the university in February 2022. The need because the university called you back, and the desire because you feared losing your mind. The fear of leaving the campus and your peers ultimately outweighed the despair that clung to you like a shadow.
I attended a few classes from February to March, and as April approached, the urgency of being there for just one more month, doing everything that pleased you, weighed heavily on me. I had to be there, I told myself. And I truly was there. I had to make peace with things, many things, even if I wasn’t particularly invested in them, in those people, or my classmates. Saying ‘No’ felt incredibly exhausting, and senseless when you were better off enjoying meaningful moments with your peers. Foolishness. The library provided the solitude you craved; the campus was too chaotic and overwhelming, but the library? The library, you loved even more. When you sat in a corner, alone, no one approached you, and you were right about aesthetics. That’s why you only attended classes and roamed with your presence; you wanted to be seen, and you wanted others to be there too.
I found fleeting moments where I fell in love with everything around me — the weather, the people, the birds, the skies, the flowers pushing through cracked concrete. Taking pictures of those blossoms and sunsets made me truly see them. The playlist on my phone came to life when, every day, I took the bus or the metro to the university. In between the routes — Janakpuri, Delhi Cantonment, South Campus, and Jor Bagh — they revealed themselves and made me feel their damp mornings, their atmosphere, redolent of birds, trees, and people. The hushed whispers and laughter in the metro made me feel alive, made me feel rational while they seemed irrational, and made me relish gazing outside, observing their movements, their scramble for an empty seat, their books and notes, their office bags, and their hurried steps, countless trivial activities, each with its significance, if only a bit.
Reading a book or two, and syncing it with music, on the bus or in the metro, lent things an abstraction, a certain feel, to feel their presence, to merge your emotions with their elusive touch, to ignore your surroundings, and to cherish things as they are, rather than as others insisted they should be. You began making friends, succeeding, gradually but surely, and appreciating your peers’ delightful, engaging conversations. You spoke a little less, but they seemed nice nonetheless. And then came May, and you were done with everything. The university was done with you. Change was needed, and it arrived. You were on your own now.
