Shades of Hue

Yesterday, I attended a friend’s wedding. For the first time at a close wedding, I was not a participant, I was a spectator. And being a spectator, gives you time to think through things, to speculate, to reflect about your own life and where it is headed.

So what’s the big story in my life right now? Well, I am in love, rather been in love for a good 3 years now. I am 25. And like almost every girl my age, my parents’ only concern in broad daylight and in their every night’s sleep is my marriage. They have been brooding over it for so long that they probably by now have everything planned out to the T, including the venue, the guest list and also what to do with the extra space in the house when am gone. The only thing they do not have finalized is the guy. I have that detail for them. Just that I can’t get them the surety they are looking for.

It’s not that I myself lack this surety. I have never doubted my decision to love and partner this guy all through my life since the day, I decided that ‘This is it’, almost two years back. I am as ready for marriage as I could ever be. For me it’s the next goal to achieve in life. It’s something I look forward to, something that excites me in my otherwise extremely boring life.

I have talked it out with him; I know I can trust him when he says he’d marry me. I know he would someday soon. He is finding his feet, getting steady on them before he can sweep me off mine. I totally agree there. I can definitely wait. I am in no hurry myself to be married. But in this picture perfect world that my parents and he have for me, there is a nightmare I live.

I have no dreams of my own.

Everyone has a picture of who they want to be, what they want to do with their life, where they want to reach in their career. I have now for so long in life lived each day as it comes that I’ve forgotten how to dream. I have forgotten what having a castle in the cloud feels like.

The wedding, the one I attended yesterday, made me think. It made me question myself. Being so close to that milestone in my life, do I have plans? Do I look forward to it? Do I envisage it in a certain way? Does it make me feel happy?

No, no, no and no.

The thought of marriage, at least today, makes me utterly uncomfortable and leaves me very confused. I don’t want to get married because that is something I want, but because I want to be wanted. I feel worthless when every day I ask the same questions, when I try and push him every day to agree to marry me sooner than later. I would have wanted him to propose marriage to me, like they show in the movies. Maybe not that elaborate, but at least ask me. I didn’t think then, but I repent it now. That moment is lost. Forever. I feel shitty when I think it’s only me who dreams of this marriage. I don’t want it rushed, I don’t want it forced. On either of us. I want him to be comfortable with this idea. I want him to feel happy and excited about the idea of spending the rest of his life with me. It’s not a decision we can change, I want both of us to have thought about it and be mentally prepared to tolerate each other for eternity before we take that leap. I wish my parents understood that. I wish I didn’t push him. But it’s done. The golden moment so lost that nothing in life can make up for it.

When I retrospect I feel it was only yesterday that I was drowned in the idea of getting married, I wanted to move on in life to a more beautiful place, to a new set of people who would make me family. It was all about starting my family anew, leaving behind a past I don’t really cherish, something I have never been proud of. But that was 3 years ago. Or was it more? I can’t remember, and I am glad I have no memories of that time.

I have matured too much for my liking. The love, the relationship is not bubbly. It’s not infectious. It’s not the typical teenage love everyone dreams of. Maybe I didn’t realize when I aged. It is age. It’s not the same anymore. The talking for hours at a stretch, walking hand in hand, mesmerizing in each other’s stare, thinking about him at all times and places don’t happen anymore. I feel scared that I have altogether stopped thinking with my heart. I fear that this decision is too rational.  So rational that it takes the essence out of itself. Maybe that is why I see it as a milestone, a goal. On the other hand, my heart scares me. It’s turmoil in itself. It doesn’t want to do, it wants to get. When I think with my heart, I am an emotional fool. A fool who wants everything for herself. The lavishness, the cheesiness, the teenage drama, the pampering. On a very conscious level, I hate it. I fringe at it when I see others doing it. But I am a girl after all. Does that explain all this?

I let my heart do the talking today. I let it speak to me today and tell me what it desires. It wants me to feel like a princess, it wants to see me pampered. Oh it so sounds like a mother!

It dreams of him getting down on his knee, in a crowd, and saying out those golden words to me. It dreams of the smile on his face that I miss today. It yearns for the reciprocation of the eagerness I radiate for this bond. It yearns for a fairytale wedding. A happily ever after.

My heart looks at me and pities my state. It begs of me today to stop my continuous pestering. It compels me today to stop trying and let it be. It tells me to stop fighting a battle I would eventually win. It tells me the war would only get me injured and hurt and broken. It might just make it all ugly. It compels me today to step back, to breathe, to take in all that I have for so long been avoiding, ignoring, side stepping.

I will listen to that oh-so-sweet heart of mine. I will sit back, wait, be patient and let the world around me surprise me. I would wait for the rest of my golden moments to happen, not preempting them and stealing away their charm. I will wait, as apprehensive as I might be, I will.

I hope this hope in my heart doesn’t take me crashing down with it. It’s been so capable of it in the past. 

Mumbai..

I had a problem accepting the fact that 'I' missed Mumbai!

Here, is my defence.

I have been born and brought up in Delhi, have loved the city for as long as remember. My entire family- first and extended is here. For 20 years of my life I hadn't thought of a new abode. And then Ahmedabad happened. The serene city let me be. It let me be who I was. It helped me go deeper into the shell that I move around with. It helped me become more reclusive. It helped me stay comfortable in the space that I had created for myself. It let me nurture my dreams. It just let me be.

Ahmedabad to Mumbai was a swift transition. Even more swift was how my life changed. From a city that helped me retrospect and think and take my time, I found myself in a place where people had to borrow time to even breathe.

Mumbai pushed me; it stretched me beyond my limits. It made me do things I had never done before. It roughly dragged me out of my shell and put me in the same line as thousands of other cut throat competitors. There was no end to how much I got pushed and jolted... and then came a day when i gave up. I couldn't run that rat race anymore. I couldn't be just another one in that crowd anymore.

I packed my bags and came back to the safer havens... Delhi. I knew everyone here. I knew my way.  I didn't feel like the nomadic crowd. This city never pushed me to the edge. I returned back to the shell that I thought I had misplaced in the crowded locals of the millennium city.

Isn't it strange that I now miss Mumbai? 

Indeed. I felt the same. One day I woke up missing Mumbai. No. not the people. not the weather. Not the roads. The entire city. The essence of the city, the feel. I missed the thought that is christened Mumbai.

I miss the freedom it gave me. In the way I dressed, in the way I spoke, in whom I met, in where I went, and most of all the freedom to be without being.

The city gave me the space to be an individual. Yet it didn't let me retrospect. It always kept me on my toes. It never let me be in my shell. It kept nudging me out of it. It kept pushing my boundaries a little further away every day. It helped me move out of that restrictive space around me and helped me grow. Mature. Learn. 

It helped me know new people without having to carry the baggage of judging them. It helped me experiment with my ways in life without feeling too guilty about the society. It helped me do things I always only dreamt of, it let me dream more every other day.

If Ahmedabad gave me feet, Mumbai gave them pace.