Another Fall

Another Fall semester is going to begin from tomorrow, and I’ve been feeling somewhat nostalgic, in spite of my "cold, fratchy, and unfeeling self", and in sudden bursts (with Beethoven’s Ode to Joy playing in my head and Ami Keboli Swapano playing from my comp. every now and again) because I’m reminded of the first year that I came here. That’s the only time of my life that I feel happily nostalgic about sometimes. When I first came here and for some long months after.

There is no point in brooding over the past but giving a little time for the good memories does no harm. In fact letting in the good memories might even make one feel better and more hopeful about some of the good things that may come to pass still. And in the end – well, there will be an end. But in between there may yet be some good laughs and some bliss-filled times.

The first time I came here I was filled with an unearthly, trembling, delicious and divine hope. I was convinced that good things were going to be done by me. I can’t think of anything good that I did but one good thing, did happen. If anyone scoffs at miracles – I can shove one in his/her face.

It was 8 years ago that I first came here. Eight years is an awfully long time. Eight years in school in India would have been between classes 2-9. Yet sometimes it feels that only two years have gone by or maybe two and a half considering the things that I’ve done and not done and un-done. Calling myself stunted does no good – but it isn’t an entirely misplaced label. Last year I was convinced beyond doubt that I was going to be done here and get on with things. Now I’ve gotten alarmed about still being here.

I wonder whether time passes differently as we grow older or whether our perception of time changes. Does it slow down or does it speed up? I know in some ways, I now measure time by the seasons (and sometimes not too accurately) but that’s because the seasons are discernible. Otherwise there are only clumps of time in my head. In school, every day seemed different. Every day was a different day and I could remember what had happened a month ago or even two months ago. Now I remember nothing of some years and some other months seem to have been stretched out to cover large expanses of space in my head.

Wonder what this year will bring. Some good luck, like during that first year, would be nice along with some military discipline. A couple of laughs, here and there, might do no harm but I don't want to push luck too far.

I harbour the greatest admiration for writers who can write seamlessly, articulately and dispassionately even with billowing mushroom clouds in their heads...I’ve been reading in snatches, from here and there, and from very lovely pieces. Some lovely bits that I read in recent times come from a letter that Tagore wrote to Jagadish Chandra Bose – unstinting and unfettered in his admiration, praise and love, and unabashed in expecting nothing but Bose's love in return – and, another some bits from the many that he wrote to his wife. It’s one of those visceral experiences that makes one laugh sunnily for those minutes, no matter what else one is feeling. Come to think of it, more than a couple of the lovely bits that I've been reading are snatches from letters.

Do we change, I wonder. I don’t know whether I have changed very much. I like to think that I have in some ways. I have to say that for most things I can’t see how I’ve changed, and for other things I don’t see how I could not have. Not just in the last 8 years but from the time that I was 5 or thereabouts and through school and all…Sometimes I feel I haven't changed a whit and in other ways I feel like a different person to myself. Been putting the little scraps together in between this and that, which appear, in no rigid order, in the previous never-ending post.

Bye, for now. God bless...