Tuesday 11 September 2018

I used to think that Elephants didnt have friends

I used to think, when I was really little, that the things that separated humans from elephants wasnt that humans walked on two legs and elephants walked on four, or that elephants had trunks while we had noses. Nope. What my brain came up with, when I was less than five year old, was "Humans have friends." Just that, a simple statement.
Now, of course, I know better. Elephants DO have friends, with friendships that are stronger than a lot of the human ones I've seen around me.
But that's not what I want to talk about today.

This is actually a weird one for me, because it simultaneously hits me right at home in a way that I can feel like my breath is coming out shallow when I think about it, and at the same time I feel next to nothing about this event, like I've become entirely disjointed and removed from the situation.
Not sure which is fine, and which one isn't.

Sometime in the month of September, 2008, I got off the plane that had brought me home. I had said goodbye to my friends, some of my teachers, and to all the places I'd lived and been. Coming back home, the first thing that hit me was the heat. It probably sounds like a Russell Peters joke, but it was incredibly hot (or it felt like it to me) in Chennai and the short walk from the plane to the lobby, and the airport to the car, was ridiculously sapping. Travelling for more than 12 hours probably didn't help either, but hey.

So, its been 10 years now since I left Australia, and came home to India. And somehow people still talk to me and confuse me for an NRI... Well done people, rolling 1 for a perception check...

As I mentioned earlier, it feels really weird. Not only to talk about it, to even acknowledge that its happened. 10 years ago, I was this 13 year old kid, who landed up in a place where I didn't even speak the language, despite it supposed* to being my mother tongue. (*I was born in the north, so the whole speaking tamil was limited to speaking to my grandmoms at home. We spoke English at home mostly... so yeah.)
Now... Its 10 years later, and it feels slightly surreal to even think about it.
Unlike my usual existential crisis that I face, alone and a few hours before my birthdays, where I'm feeling the effect of turning a year older, this one feels equal parts anxiety inducing and indifferent.

10 years ago, I was still writing my book. The one I mentioned in the first post on this page, and the same book of which, I keep sending extracts to various friends. The main thing that has changed in the last 10 years, is that its no longer the same story. Hell, its the 4th revision of the original story, that featured a boy with a magic sword that could slow down time, as he saved his village from a skeleton army, despite having been tossed out as an outcast.** It has changed from digital (Yeah, back then, I was using my dad's laptop and writing my book, when mom and me were awake late at night, watching the first IPL series, and I would be writing in the breaks or the moments I lost interest), to written (across three notebooks) and now back to digital (2... no, 3 laptops later. Only one died, relax people. My writing hasnt killed anything or anyone yet.).  (**Yes. That was the start of the first draft of the book).
10 years later, I'm back to writing the book in my breaks, and with a lot of things not having been changed at all.

(Quick side note here. Sometime in my college years, I came home and found a bunch of old backups on CDs, and in one of them was this copy of my book, which I thought I had lost to the ages since the old computer didnt work anymore at the time, and almost all data had since been lost.
Boy, was that a mistake to read... It was okay, from the viewpoint from a budding writer of the 8th grade, but it makes me cringe now, almost as much as Harry Potter and The Cursed Child. Of which, I shall be writing a ranting post about. S.O.O.N {Soon, or, otherwise, never})

10 years later, and I've made and lost a lot of friends. Some forever, some due to pointless fights and some just cos its "what happens" I've been told.
I've undergone a traumatic experience with a surgery (Crossing that off my bucket list), with the lead up, actual surgery and the post op "experience" (If you thought that I would be talking about events that happened in 10 years, and not mention the second... third worst thing to happen to me, You Were Mistaken.)
In the last few years, I've lost touch with my once-best-friend, and that still sucks majorly. But you push through. I've stopped swimming, and my college experience was, in general, depression and anxiety. I've lost a lot of relatives in the past ten years, and almost lost all my photos with them, when my laptop crashed (Note to all readers: Keep backups of all your important pictures and memories. You wont be able to recreate pictures with your puppy, your late grandma, or your old friends who live around the world)
All in all, its been harrowing.

I sent the message about it being 10 years to a friend of mine, and he said, "Hey, you did what you did. Do no underestimate what you've done." And he's right.

So, its not all bad news.
Through the most mind numbing and boring class of a particular semester, my brain (psyche) fractured to the point that I was able to start poetry. It sounds bizarre, but to combat the brain death I was experiencing, my brain decided to go into poetry. And I've posted a few poems since then, but the one poem that I started in class is still in the works.
Speaking of in the works, I've now written more than I've written in the past. And read. Which is great.
But.
The last 10 years haven't seen the release of a Harry Potter book, so... thats a negative (The cursed Child is not considered canon. There is no war in Ba Sing Se).
Through the magical means of the internet, I've managed to reconnect with a few of my old friends from Aus, and one guy even from before Aus, like holy crap. The internet is amazing (Yeah, I felt my age with that one...)
I survived depression. While the actual act of going into, and staying in depression wasnt ever fun (It was actually quite boring, just being unable to leave your bed, and staring at a single blank spot on the wall next to you as you couldnt fall asleep), it was... actually something that I'm glad happened cos when rebuilding, I was able to build stronger because of it.

College.
Now. I went into college bright, energetic, and excited and happy about it and that I was gonna learn so much, and it promptly wrecked me, day after day, night after night. My friend came to college once for a cultural fest in my first year, and somewhere in the lull of the conversation, she turned to me and said "You're not happy here, are you?", which should have been incredibly indicative, but I played it off to her, and myself, that it was cos I was probably subconsciously thinking about her leaving and going back. It was a simpler time when lying to yourself worked.
Why mention college now? Again I mean.
Cos at the end of the whole thing, I left... hopeful. Somewhere, sometime, I was hopeful when I left there, about the world, and about the rest of things.
I even left a message on the walls of the college that read "To all of you, good luck. Pass it on." Which, doesnt seem like much, but it can mean a lot to some panicked kid as he's pacing up and down, worried about a test or a lab.
Despite all the shit thats happened, there was enough of a spark left at the end to render me hopeful.
Mr cynical, mr "It can definitely get worse than this, but I'm gonna be fine".

There are three things that also happened to me in the last ten years that I dont wish to ever not have happened, even if I was given the chance to reshape history and make the bad things vanish.

I made friends with certain idiots, without whom the passage of time would have been entirely unbearable, pointless even.
Of them, three come to mind (as I write this in a frenzy, eager to finish and go have dinner soon). A friend most sweet, she like a thousand watt bulb, whom I have been the closest to once; An old roommate with whom I had an 18 hour AOE game against, and we had to call it a draw cos our heads were pounding; A friend whom I've known since the beginning of the 10 year period, who will one day make it to the stars, and a friend made more recently (relative to 10 years), who taught me that love can be more than what corny lines you write on birthday messages, and who kept me restrained from asking too many questions during the 8 o clock classes.

Secondly, my dog. Joey.
Now, Joey is someone who has been the cause of much grief, only because I had to say goodbye to him when I came back to college. He is an asshole, who refused to acknowledge me when I tried to video call him from campus, but hes also the person who sat on me, post surgery, protecting me from the guy who came every day to change my dressing.

Lastly...
This one is slightly complicated, but bear with me please. I know its been a bit of a long read, but its worth it, I promise.
I've been through a lot. Some of it my fault, a lot of it deserved, but all of it survived. I know I said already that depression isn't fun, but what I didnt mention is that there are "bad" days post "recovery"(as in its not entirely over).
Why do I say that then?
Cos I'm thankful that I got through it. Plain and simple.
Quoting my friend once more, "Dont underestimate what you've done."
And that is my point of this entire post.

We learn from stuff thats happened to us in our past. We lose people, we gain new ones.
We cry, we break, and we fall. But we get back up.
Not cos of some moral reason, or some religious one.
We get up simply cos we have to. For ourselves.
Cos we can.
Cos we have done for the past ten years.
Cos we can for the next ten again.

So, here's me hoping that whatever happened to you these past ten years, you've learnt from it all, and that the next decade that comes along become stories that you tell your family in the future, filled with tales of epicness, stupidity, and outright nerve.
That the next ten years have another ten seasons of Doctor Who, another season of Sherlock, and a movie franchise about the Marauders (If they can do Fantastic Beasts as a series, then theres no reason they cant do Marauders.)

 Cos if theres something that you learn in the next ten years, it can at least be that elephants not only have friends, but that they have best friends even (link).





But for real. The whole going down memory lane has been so surreal like you wont believe it... its been... Insane to say the least.
But, as Thanos would say, "Perfectly Balanced. As all things should be."

And also, if you have an introspective moment where you look back at yourself, and you feel the cringe... Apparently thats a natural reaction? Cos I would deffo go back and curbstomp 16 and 17 year old me cos of how much of a lil shit he used to be. Eh. We grow up eventually.

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