Thank you note

My new friend and landlady Diana has recently returned from the Philippines and she was writing thank you notes to her friends and people who helped her have a good time there. This reminded me that I never said thank you to Bangalore and people there, for letting me have the utopia of a life.

People who know what I am talking about might think "do you mean that one bedroom apartment where you and your friends occasionally went mad?" And the answer is "yes, exactly that. The freedom to be eccentric in a group of people is not an easy thing to come by".

I remember the first few years in Bangalore being so hard that I cried myself to sleep most nights.It was lonely and frightening and so competitive than the normals that I was used to. At that time, I never thought that eventually when I leave (after eight and a half years that is), I would miss Banglore more than everything I have known so far. I know many of my colleagues and friends in Bangalore might not be able to say the same thing. But I was lucky to have in Bangalore something that most people doesn't find in their lifetime; the feeling of belonging in a community.

My community in Bangalore was built slowly without me knowing it was happening (as I basically highjacked different groups of people and tried to have them all together, because why not). Most of it was built on music, the openness and interest to discuss life with its set of difficult questions, kindness, forgiveness, and food. I can't imagine going through many of my difficult days without the backing of this huge support system of peer group. I am sure if not all, many of them feel the same way. We don't generally value the comfort in knowing that we can call up people to cry, to vent, to hug and just spend the nights together. I like to think that all of us could find our places to belong and we were aware that at the end of the day, we all need each other more than we like to admit.

Life as I know it is a series of tiny little sparks in a stream of darkness that we swim through and these moments of sparks is what makes sense in the whole scheme of things. If we keep swimming we always find the next little spark. The 'lehra' to which the guys played Tabla, the endless cooking of Biryani, the shadows in the terrace that looks like a beach, the tiny house that we see from the Balcony which fills up with people, the nights when we kept singing and dancing till morning, the random games that get too competitive, the drives or walks for evening tea, the eat outs with never ending topics, the endless nights on bed when you just can't sleep because you haven't finished the stories of a week, the afternoon when you just randomly decide to order food and desserts, the celebration of each others wins, the expensive highs!!! These sparks kept me swimming through the years.

I remember crumbling with fear when people started to move out of the group, to move on with their lives.I am writing this from the deepest most gratitude, but the deepest most fear as well, that I am not going to get it back. But I want to take my time to remember and thank Banglore and my people for the Utopia. I wish to grow old with us.

"We are all holding hands, waiting to see what comes next"