Happy Diwali

The thing with never leaving is that you never get to realize how the absence of everything you took for granted feels. I was laughing with a friend about how we both missed our first Fall seasons here. The intensity of moving and settling in took up so much brain space, that I completely missed the fact that the trees changed, that the color of the leaves had become absolutely dazzling, that the sky was in fact no longer a monotone, but an evolving palette of greens, reds, yellows and blues. I don't remember any of it. I don't remember the trees lining the sidewalks, on campus, on my way to school, in the park across my old house, it is a blank slate. I recall moving through the days heavily, almost as if underwater. I remember the effort it took to just function, simply be. I remember feeling alone, and most of all I remember feeling wrong. I felt I had done something wrong, I had become wrong. So much of this came out at moments I thought I had under control. I would call home, to chat, only to sob intensely and I remember the ache, both in me and across the screen. But the distant sparkle of lights can be seen underwater.

Diwali is almost here. I remember Diwali vaguely from last year, only because of the kindness of my extended family. By myself, I was alone and little. I had few friends and even fewer who celebrated Diwali. My house did not allow even the smallest of parties; we had a person in the living room to bring the rent down. I was too broke, exhausted and sad to celebrate. I had too little to do and too much time and the combination was lethal. I would obsess about the littlest of things, I would try and fit in: I wasn't completely dishonest with myself but I wasn't quite myself either. I console myself by trying to believe that I didn't know then who I was (and who knows, I perhaps still don't). 

The Diwali I remember very vividly is the year before I moved all the way across the world. I remember it for its crisp, cool air; the prayer songs my mother made us sing; my unspoken fear that  the old cassette player would not work and then it would only be us singing; the mithai, the home-made coconut and Milkmaid laddoos; the distant roar and crackle of firecrackers followed by an electric painting in the sky; the disappointment of the eventual smog and the gloomy statistics in the newspapers. I remember it for celebrations at my workplace, for diyas and candles, for tacky streamers and balloons. I remember it for the tantrum I threw each year, unable to ever draw a reasonable rangoli, even with a stencil, and my mother and sister finishing it for me. I drew tiny feet for goddess Lakshmi to come to our house, that was the one thing I could do, with a paste of rice and water. It was always a holiday, I remember afternoon naps because I would run out of things to do or have no desire to do them. 

But I remember Diwali from that particular year because that was the moment (if there is ever an exact moment in the story of a regular life) when I knew I couldn't live the life I was leading anymore and I had to leave. The prayers were over, the sweets offered, I had eaten some mithai and perhaps even gone and visited a few neighbors, being a dutiful daughter. I was to meet some friends; I had very few friends and these were among my very few friends. It had somehow happened that despite all my efforts, life was still pretty lonely. I remember trying to be nicer, I went for classes, went for parties, tried to do things but somehow things never added up. I remained a solitary unit, not quite a misfit but never fitting in, no one ever understood the mechanics of my loneliness. I remember waiting for them to come get me and somehow thirty minutes rolled into an hour into two and I thought to myself, I can't do this anymore. I couldn't wait for others, I couldn't live with my aloneness and loneliness, I couldn't live this life anymore. Waiting for them somehow became waiting for life, for some notion of happiness, that was not starting even though I had done everything right. It seemed like I was stuck at the starting point. 

Of course, it was a bitter moment. Festivals and holidays do a particularly cruel and capable job of sharply illustrating what is missing from life. It now seems almost absurd, actually completely impossible, the energy this realization gave me. I had been toying with the idea of studying abroad and taking a break from work for a while, but not very seriously. I remember taking dates for GRE within that holiday weekend - I remember watching my bank balance dwindle and fervently hoping that my decision would pay off. I remember preparing for the GRE with every ounce of academic intellect I had in my brain at that time, perhaps giving it several full days when I studied non-stop, before laying down catatonic on the bed, with no energy to think or speak, being driven by an absolute madness of emotion. I did well in the test. I was not proud, I was grateful. I was extremely grateful for being one step ahead. But it made Diwali bittersweet, because it drove home the point, with exquisite sharpness, that the life I had was untenable and it was no longer an option.

But this year, it feels better. I have a family, a family of friends, a family that is in a way a collection of odds and ends of people who I have met on my way here and who have stuck. Who have been there for me on nights spent overlooking city lights and demons of the past, early morning trips to gather the flotsam and jetsam of life, who have welcomed me to their homes and lives. This year, for I am celebrating in a way I have never done before. In the most non-religious, agnostic sense of the word, I feel blessed.