Yesterday, I completed one year of being in Calcutta. Flew down from Bombay in June last year, amidst a bit of a crisis at home. A lot has happened since then. A LOT. Maa contracted Covid and had to be hospitalised before recovering, Baba left us without giving us a chance, I took the call of relocating back here and found a new job, Baptu dada helped out immensely in moving my stuff here, Mashimoni-Mishti-Deb all contracted the virus and recovered, Shejomamu left us and we couldn't even be there, and something that had been building for years ended in an emotional cataclysm. Oh, and these are just a few. It has been a tough year, but I realise that it could have been much worse. Like it has been for countless others. As I have grown older, I've tried to cut down my regrets, to let things go, to forget and forgive. Perhaps, the one regret that I am battling with the hardest right now is that baba isn't here anymore to see me working in Calcutta. But, life goes on.
Because, as Roberts put it so beautifully at the very end of Shantaram - "For this is what we do. Put one foot forward and then the other. Lift our eyes to the snarl and smile of the world once more. Think. Act. Feel. Add our little consequence to the tides of good and evil that flood and drain the world. Drag our shadowed crosses into the hope of another night. Push our brave hearts into the promise of a new day. With love: the passionate search for a truth other than our own. With longing: the pure, ineffable yearning to be saved. For so long as fate keeps waiting, we live on. God help us. We live on."
Baba, wherever you are, I hope I can make you proud. Calcutta, you have given me a lot over the years, you have always been my home; I hope I can give something back to you.
Comments
Post a Comment