क्या ये जनम हुआ तमाम

There is a song by Sherry Mann titled Yaar Anmulle, full of college and youth nostalgia. There is a youtube series by TVF titled Kota Factory. There was a TV show in 90s titled Just Muhabbat, touching on teenage love and life around that. And there are thousands of coming-of-age sequences, which fill every one of nostalgia. 

Watching the first two of the above recently filled me with loads of not nostalgia but introspective regrets... I always thought that I have lived a full life. Once I actually claimed to someone that I have lived through everything that can be there. However, none of those were my experiences. I was a nerd, I was a bully, I was a lover, I was a fighter, I was a star, and I was a lot of other people at many times... but now I realize that I was just lost! 

I perhaps did a lot of things but everything at the wrong time... It was always too early or too late or too old or too young or too little or too much or too quick or too delayed... And it is at this stage of life, when I want to learn, want to love, want to live... but someone whispers in my ears - 

क्या ये जनम हुआ तमाम

हाँ ये जनम हुआ तमाम

P.S. - I always told someone that I am the cursed child of God, 

who will live for others and will never get anything for his own contentment. 

I never thought I would find my story written as a subscript to that of Harry Potter's.

भीड़ में अकेला आदमी

You know, last night, I walked up to that favorite spot of mine on this campus. As always, i just stood there for a while, watching lights floating in the dark.

That spot is a narrow road between a cut-rock on a slight elevation. When you are on one side, you have no idea what lies on the other side. It fills me with a childish excitement, which I have forgotten long long ago. And then, the road opens on this slight elevation, where I can perch. I can perch in peace and keep looking at those lights of vehicles floating on that long and dark road. As those lights appear and vanish in darkness, it feels nice that at least someone is reaching their destination.

Yesterday, I recalled why I love this scenario so much. Because 20 years ago, Parimal and I would find a similar spot beside Gomti in Lucknow. We would sit on those stairs on the bank, watching those lights appearing and vanishing on the other end of Gomti. I loved that whole scene - flow of water, stillness of dark, briefly interrupted by some flickering lights, someone to talk to, someone to stay silent with.

I had a similar spot in Ahmedabad also, where I would stand for hours. In the new campus, at the 132-feet road end of the academic block. I would stand there and people keep rushing, running, driving to somewhere.

In all those places, what I loved was that crowd is away from me without any idea of my existence. And yet, I could have the choice of being with or away from the crowd. I dreamt of my house in the same way, on an isolated, remote place.

I used to say, for me - one is company, two is crowd. I never thought it would become so true that I would just want to be away from everyone and everything and everywhere. You know, no matter how much I am surrounded by crowds... I am always alone - that's my secret.