There are times when thoughts come to the mind and get all mixed up, moving from one part of life to another, from one person to another. The mind seems to be like a melting pot.
For the past two weeks, I have had the forced leisure of just thinking about things. I had come home for a week long vacation which turned into a virtual house arrest as I fell quite ill upon my arrival home. It was rather a setback in the new year. And very painful too.
However, it gave me a lot of time to think of so many aspects of life which one usually ignores during one's hectic routine of work. I have been thinking of my childhood, my youth. Of old friends and of my father and his amazing simplicity and goodness, of my work, of my strengths and weaknesses. Indeed, this has been a time for me this new year to introspect and reflect.
Things I had never remembered in years came back to me vividly during this confinement.Teachers who made such great impact on my life, the innocent affection of my school and college mates, the story books I used to read in junior school, the long drives for which our father took us in the hills and dales of the Himalayas…I do not know how all these wondrous memories came flooding into my mind and heart, helping to ease the pain I was going through.
So much has gone past in life! Many mistakes from which I learnt, many others from which I did not. People whom I tried understanding for years but could not, losing all those years in vain. People who took me for granted for years and I let them do it. A lot of regrets have also been surfacing in my heart. How could I have been so foolish as not to have seen the writing on the wallIJ Perhaps I was not being foolish. It was just hope that things would work out. Anyway, the years have passed away and so have the mistakes.The lessons learnt must stay.
Memories of my childhood gave me a lot of comfort.The secure, beautiful and care free years spent in the picturesque valley of the Doon, in the best of schools. With parents and teachers who were guiding spirits, noble guardians and our closest friends. Idyllic is the only word for describing that period.
After that came college which was an extension of the same warmth and security. Just the day before I fell ill, I met some of my batch mates from college in Delhi and we recalled all the wonderful traditions of our prestigious alma mater (St. Stephen’s College), getting more and more nostalgic about things which we perhaps used to take for granted when we were students there.
It brought tears to me eyes when, at the reunion, one of my dear friends, Rekha Aggarwal (who is a renowned lawyer today), came and hugged me tight saying “Those were the days, Jas!” Yes, Rekha, those indeed were the days. Days of simplicity and love, days when relationships were unselfish, when materialism had no affect on friendship, people had time to meet each other and share their thoughts and feelings, life was not about only technology and consumerism, hearts were clear and minds were open.
We have come very very far away from those lovely days when all we wished was that we would get a “first” in our English Honours course, our team would win in the “Just a Minute“ contest at the college winterfest, we would get an A Plus in that week’s tutorial or that we could manage to get that pair of jeans on fifty percent discount! Truly a blessed life, left far behind. The memories never fade and always give joy, mixed with a quaint sadness. Our professors were so learned and yet they would solve our slightest doubts in detail. They were real gurus whose lives we always tried to emulate. I can never thank them enough for having given me such valuable lessons not just in English literature but in living a disciplined life, giving great importance to academics and intellectual pursuits.
All these wondrous thoughts came back to me in these two weeks, putting back my life in a new perspective. The pain has been extreme but these memories have shown me new light in the new year.