Tuesday, July 16, 2013

What it feels like to be on your own at 18.

It's been around 3 weeks since I've moved to Mumbai for college and been on my own. 
Getting up every morning morning on my own without my mother screaming in the background and cursing me hundreds of times, adjusting with a very orthodox, conservative, innocent and naive roommate from the suburbs of Udaipur, using common bathrooms consisting of Indian toilets and shower cubicles with choked drains, washing my clothes on my own for the first time and ruining my favorite Zara t-shirt, rushing down a floor to iron my clothes before a lecture, adjusting to the tiniest room possible with a less than comfortable bed and crows coming into my room from the windows and eating my food and a cupboard with a high risk of fungi messing up my clothes, getting used to people from all over the country - different religions, different backgrounds, different lifestyles, different mentalities, different thought processes, different upbringings.. Different lives. 
I have led such a comfortable life so far. I have led the typical South Delhi boy life. Everything has been given to me on a silver platter. Back home, I used to just dump my used clothes in the bathroom and they would be all washed and ironed in my cupboard in a few days. I never had any idea how much hard work goes into the part in between. I know now how hard my mother and my maid worked to never let me have one uncomfortable moment. How I cribbed over such minor things. I actually feel like I have grown so much in the past 3 weeks. 

But then comes the loneliness. When everyone leaves after college hours and I'm the only one here in this huge expanse of a campus along with a few other souls. These huge, old and dilapidated structures of South Bombay all around me taking me back into time. This huge expanse making you feel so alone. It does get alone. Maybe because it's a new city and it's all out of my comfort zone. Perhaps I'd take time getting used to it and the loneliness would go away. Maybe it will always be there. Sometimes I long for a good conversation, sometimes I walk alone to sit by the sea in solitude and introspect, sometimes I just walk the streets looking to explore, sometimes I just look for someone to be with. Sometimes I get these things, sometimes I don't. It's not like I always feel this way. I am surrounded by the most amazing bunch of people but it's so overwhelming at times that it just makes me lose my place. 
I miss home. I miss the comfort I feel when I see my parents face. I miss the comfort of the school  I went to for 14 years of my life. That was my comfort zone. I was somebody there. 
Here I am looking to find my place. It's all a new beginning for me here. A new start. A do-over. A chance to be a somebody again. Maybe I will, maybe I never will. I shall find out after 3 years.

But this has been such an experience. I have learnt more in almost one month of college than I did in almost one academic year of school. I have learnt so much, I have experienced so much. That is one of the main reasons why I wanted to come to St. Xavier's so bad since the beginning. They give you wings to fly here. You make your own destiny here. You grow here. There is so much room for success here. There is so much potential to reach the top of the ladder here. There are so many eyes full of ambition here. There are so many souls brimming with creativity here. There are warm and friendly people here. There is so much individualism here.
When I think of all these things, I forget all my woes and worries. I forget all the loneliness. I forget all the troubles I face at times.
Because it's all so worth it. I am extremely happy here and here, at the age of 18, in a new city, far away from my comfort zone, only I am the maker of my own destiny.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

The pleasure of being INDEPENDENT, just washes away all the sad feelings sometimes.. :)

Jerusha Samuel said...

Being a xavierite and an outstation student myself i know exactly how you feel, you have put it down beautifully in words :)