Diary of a Lost Wanderer: Confessions of a Confused Soul

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Where do you belong? Is a question that has haunted me always. I remember as a child I used to feel always out of place amongst my other classmates. They would be talking about the latest music video or perhaps an English rock-band and I would be staring at them in disbelief. As if they were speaking some alien language. This ensured I avoided group discussions or hangouts like plague for the fear of being made fun of. This continued till quite many years till the time I was about to enter college. 

One of the colleges had a GD and PI before the admissions. The only thing that stood out of my entire preparation was be honest, don’t lie for that is negative, not knowing anything is not. In my PI I was asked about some band and I very confidently said, “ I am sorry I don’t follow any of the English bands.” The interviewer was startled, “You must be feeling very out of place then! And I don’t see any reason why you don’t for your English is impeccable.’ And that is the moment I got the answer I never knew I had.

I smiled and replied, ‘Sir, for me music is the language of the soul. I love and respect music a lot. Having learnt it for 8 years I share a very special bond with it. And for me a song has to connect with me and touch my heart to remain in my mind. If someday I come across a song that does that, irrespective of the language I will follow it like the way I follow few regional songs without knowing them.” 

That is the moment when I realized what it meant to belong. It meant to have a connect to a place where you felt a special bond, a place you could call your own. Somehow I have always felt out of place in the current era. Sometimes I pray hard for a time machine that could come and rescue me from here. Adding to it I have also had people telling me that I am born in the wrong century completely only to have me completely nodding to them.
 
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That simple ways of living, calm and peaceful existence, no rush for things, that contentment which reflected not only in thoughts but also in the health of the people and that joy resplendent on their faces of the small yet simple pleasures of life. When I look around today I see it all missing. I see people in a rat race for what, only they would know. The values have gone down and so has the very base for relationships which today is very shaky. By relationships I don’t mean only marriages, I am talking about friends, neighbours, colleagues, relatives, family, parents… almost every relationship has gone through a drastic change in the last few years. 

And this is the reason why I feel out of place, for I am a very emotional person at heart who uses her heart more than her mind. For me there is only black or white there are no greys in my life. I believe everyone is good unless proven otherwise. I trust people immensely and love them unconditionally with all that I have for I believe that is what we are here for – to love, live and let others live. But in whatever little time I have spend on this earth I have realized that the above mentioned attributes are too outdated for survival in today’s times. And unfortunately I am unable to cope up with the changing times, blame it on my age perhaps! 

That explains my love for Malgudi Days. No prizes for guessing I feel I belong to that era. To put it simply I am madly in love with the olden days. Museums fascinate me and so do history books and ruins. I look at them longingly trying to imagine what kind of people would have lived here, what were there stories. I still remember an incident when I had stopped on seeing a completely ruined house, in shambles and began clicking. My friend was shocked,” What are you clicking here? I will take you to better places.” All I could tell her was, “You see that broken window there, imagine a girl peeping through that window to a guy standing exactly where we are as cupid strikes them that moment. “ The beauty of those times begins to float before my eyes the moment I see something like this.

More than anything else what I love about those times in the simplicity and contentment that everyone had. I have thrived on Indian literature (By now I guess you know the reason why!!!) And I have read literature that dates back to the 3rd century only to have my belief become stronger. I imagine every single scene of the story as I flip pages and I almost begin to exist in those days. As if those pages quietly whisper to me, “You belong here”. There is a sense of belonging they give and that is where my heart goes to every time it feels a little lost in today’s chaos. 

So every time someone asks me where I belong I just smile and say: 

I belong to a time when love was the language of the universe and smiles danced on lips like the peacocks before the rain! 

~ A Lost Wanderer
P.S: I am guest authoring at Project 365 for the month of June. My prompt for today was Do you belong in this day and age? Do you feel comfortable being a citizen of the 21st century? If you do, explain why - and if you don't, when in human history would you rather be?

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