Driftwood

I don't know, it is strange. It has been some 78 days since i have left home. and for most of that time, there has been one feeling that has dominated my conciousness - numbness. i am strangely, inexplicably, somewhat frighteningly numb, emotionally that is. nowadays i get the feeling sometimes that the numbness is fading. but that is no comfort, for i am afraid of what promises to emerge from behind the shadow my mind seems to have cast over my feelings.

78 days away from home. away from mom and dad. away from my room, my messy, light-yellow walled room. away from my computer, my music, my recording equipment. my familiar bathroom. my brother's bedroom with the hi-fi music sytem, the view of the hills, the cool winds. away from the safety and comfort of home, from mom's vegetarian mondays, from dad's habit of turning the ceiling fan in my room off at 4 in the morning, from my bike (oh, my bike!), from the now hardly used basketball court that i worked so hard to maintain, from the tv, from watching dad's head bounce off the wall as he would nod off while watching tv sitting on the sofa, from frowning with disgust at the ridiculous soaps my parents suddenly seemed so addicted to. away from standing in the varanda at dusk, and listening to dad lecturing me about how i need to start taking my life seriously, or about how to deal with women (yeah, he's the DUDE!! his takes on women are hilarious, it makes me smile to think of his 'advice'; it makes me smile through the numbness). from the stars in the nightsky. from the telephone.

78 days. 78 days since the final confirmation that my college life is over. 78 days since the time i could look forward to a lazy afternoon in the ncc. since the time i could think about jamming in the college canteen.

78 days away from jeetu, sam, rono, mayukhda. 78 days away from discussions on performances past, and dreams of performances in the future. of the feeling we get when on stage, with guitar/mic/drumsticks in hand, stagelights on our faces, the sound of our combined energies finding fruition in the amplifiers, the speakers, the monitors, the waves of cheering from the crowds, now soft, now rising, now on a crescendo! 78 days away from Ehsaas (the irony of this is amusing. i, who started 'Ehsaas', am now numb!)

78 days away from knowing that Goddammit! when it came to debating, i was the No. 1 in pune. Atleast! hell, i don't wanna be modest about it here, god knows i play it down everywhere else. but why should i not say it to myself? i'm not feathering my own ass. 5 years worth of competition has proved this statement to be true, dammit! but who knows it now? who will want to remember? 78 days since anyone cared.

today, i am in a new place, in a new world. one in which my talents are unknown, and have not yet found any way of being discovered. one in which i am no more than a wet behind the ears, bespectled idiot, whose sole objective is to learn while being pushed around. one in which i fend for myself, and am surrounded by strangers, each of whom have the same curt reply to seekers of sympathy, "Yeh mumbai hai." 78 days since i was more than just a dot on a crowded, confused and hardly artistic tapestry.

thank god karan is here. but his being around tends to have a somewhat scary effect. he might not be aware of my numbness, but his company serves to remove some of the fog. and behind it there seems to be emptiness, a vacuum, one that threatens to make its presence overwhelming. and if it does come forth, i am not sure if i can take the resultant gloom. i haven't been away from the comfort of the familiar for this long before. but the unknown is the only path i can take.

78 days since i knew who i was. a lifetime ahead to find that out again...