I do not remember coming back home from my annual visit to my grandparents’ home without tears in my eyes. Pre-school, high school, college, employment, unemployment, doesn’t matter. Guwahati and its people has a grip on every fiber of my being, so much so that it hurts me physically whenever I see it receding behind the horizon. The sheer love and warmth I get from whomever I have the fortune of meeting here is capable of making even the most hardened criminals on the planet feel like they’re God’s best creation.
As a kid, my mother and I used to visit nearly every second month. It’s such a damn shame I don’t remember those days, but the recognition in people’s eyes, the surprise they express at seeing me as an actual grown up is a sensation that never gets old. I’ve lost count of the amount of times people have told me they met me as a toddler, with some of them even saying that they took me on walks by the riverside.
I can’t always put a name to their faces, but perhaps a part of me keeps track of the people who’ve loved and cherished me, which is why I, in turn, do my part to love and cherish them.
This year seems a bit different though.
I don’t think I’ve ever gone so long without visiting the city at least once, even if my stay ended up being for a few days. Uncertain vacations after college and a pandemic can do that to your regular plans.
The impact of Covid isn’t unfamiliar at this point in time, so I’d rather not touch upon that topic.
My grandparents are badasses in their own way. They’re well past the age of retirement; nobody could judge them for choosing to hang up their proverbial boots and relaxing with their kids. Multiple health ailments and a global pandemic hasn’t deterred their strength and will to be independent and their own bosses. Frankly, they seem more sprightly than some of my peers who’ve barely worked for a year or two now.
Try as you might though, as the wheel of time keeps turning, your body doesn’t always act the way it used to. Mental strength doesn’t matter when you need a helping hand to take you from place to place.
And so it was, that my grandparents wanted one of their kids to come and spend some time with them, to provide support for a surgery. A relatively minor surgery, but still. Things like these tend to set your heart aflutter when you’re aging.
With everyone being fully vaccinated, we decided to go and meet our grandparents after literal years. Plus, we figured, everyone needed a break from current circumstances. A trip to the northeast would be a welcome respite from the rigours of daily life in the big city.
I’m not going to talk about the exact details of the trip of course. However, I can tell you that this trip seemed a lot special than the others. Perhaps it was the extended hiatus in our otherwise regular trips to this place, or just the overwhelming sense of relief you get when you meet loved ones amidst a lull in the pandemic. Perhaps it was a mixture of both, or perhaps it was neither.
It almost feels strange to say this, but spending time at my grandparents’ place in the midst of a pandemic imbibed in me a sense of freedom I seldom experienced before. Tier 2 cities and lower give you that, I suspect. There is so much worth doing, worth experiencing, worth seeing barely a few hundred meters away. It is addicting once you get a whiff of it. From walks by the riverside to stumbling upon the quiantest cafes, so tiny you’d be hard-pressed to find a trace of them online, to observing life outside a metro…
I felt more connected with the city in barely a few days than I have with where I’m currently based, despite staying here for more than a decade. Always felt like a misfit, and experiencing life in multiple cities elsewhere only drives home the fact that sometimes you just live in a shit place man. Infrastructure be damned when the people aren’t your vibe.
Honestly, with the advent of work from home, tier 2 cities just seem like a better place to be in. They’re cleaner, less crowded, less polluted, slower. Infrastructure is lacking, to say the least, but it’s an acceptable cost for a few weeks of respite.
Sorry for the rant there.
You get the gist though.
Ah, how the heart aches to be home.
Side note: Midnight Mass is another banger by Mike Flanagan, the creator of The Haunting anthology. 7 episodes to handle incredibly complex themes like religion, devotion, morality and death, via horror as a plot device. Truly beautiful television. Check it out along with his prior works!
I also finished Hollow Knight after coming this close to quitting. Gorgeous art, great score, tight gameplay. Well worth playing.
