“You are somebody’s something, but you are also your you.”
John Green- ‘Turles All the Way Down’.
Have you ever thought about how most of the time you are alone, you are, in fact, lonely? Well yes. I do too. I think about loneliness all the time. Sometimes so much, it consumes me. But I have been told that loneliness is a gift; it is a weapon that I could use against the odds of living around people who don’t care. But is my loneliness a gift? What I know is, it is like a worm that grows slowly inside me. A parasite that feeds on my thoughts, feelings, and on the entire being. On some nights, I find it so big, so consuming, like a giant empty creature that gnaws on my skin and then my bones through my head, and all I would want to do is run. It’s a clingy thing, you know? This loneliness. It’s like an impervious glass box. You walk, talk, and smile through this box. And sometimes out of utter desperation, you try to break this box with your bare hands, and the people outside call you a madman.
But life is funny. It is constantly moving and showing us ungrateful madmen how wonderful it can be if we just look in the right direction.
A few days back, I was sitting in a hospital, waiting for an appointment. And you know how hospitals are- tense, dramatic, urgent, and serious. Very rarely are people at ease in a hospital. I was submerged in my phone, scrolling, somehow trying to kill the time. I momentarily looked up and saw a small, feeble, elderly man sitting on my immediate left. He was, as quietly as possible, reading the daily newspaper in English, out loud. Like a child in pre-school, obediently reading his textbook and stumbling in places and going on rereading till he gets the correct pronunciation, this old man did the same. I figured he was learning the language in its most authentic way, through the newspaper. Now, as I said, being in a hospital, nobody really is in a state to be patient and concentrate on a task. But this man, despite what trouble brought him into this place, utilized his lonely waiting time by doing something unique, by learning something for himself. And he did that so diligently and beautifully as if the world around him didn’t matter, as if he owned the world around him.
Another day. Torturous heat and sweat while I’m holding onto a burning rod in a bus for dear life, waiting for my stop. A few schoolgirls were laughing and giggling despite the insufferable weather. Life for school kids is always fun and cheerful. (Oh, how bad I miss those days.) The kids wanted to get down somewhere which isn’t a stop for the bus, and if they got down before or after, they’d have to walk a lot. They sweetly requested the conductor and, somehow, he agreed. The stop came, a huge traffic behind the bus, horn blowing through the air, people shouting because the bus stopped abruptly, and despite the chaos, the conductor got down, held the traffic, helped the little girls to the footpath, and got on. The striking moment was not this. It was when one of the girls turned around and screamed, “THANK YOU!” and then the others did the same, and while the bus took off, the conductor smiled. I wish I could record the moment, the exact expressions, the joy. That day, I wasn’t able to wear my earpods due to the crowd on the bus. I was standing in the over-packed bus, cursing the weather, my life, the mediocrity of public transport, and thinking how the only respite of some good music was also missing. But those little girls made me regret nothing about the bus and that day. Thank god I didn’t miss the little joys of life. I could witness and remind myself that being kind and caring and doing something for people does make a difference in the world. No matter how small. This moment took or added nothing to my life except a feeling of contentment knowing that people really aren’t alone or helpless. There is so much good to see in this world, but we have our eyes only on the bad.
These incidents are only some of the several I notice every day when I travel alone and feel the desperation inside me of breaking the glass box, of being able to feel differently. From these moments, I learned that you don’t really have to break the glass box; it is just our perception that is withdrawing us from the beauty of life. Being alone isn’t always being lonely. Sometimes, indeed, it is a gift that we fail to recognise. A gift to see the world around us, to learn from it, to live it, to enjoy it. And then I slowly realise, my loneliness is not a ghost. It’s a beautiful butterfly waiting in its cocoon, waiting to break free and see the world, embrace it, and live it.
Course of Growth 