Home and The Second Home

"If I were a Bird"; the topic of the only extempore I ever participated in to represent my school in 8th standard, in which I put up the imaginary condition of locking oneself in a house for hours, to explain the agony of feathers locked in a cage forever, but who knew my spoken words would become the truth of 2020, for not only a person or two, off the cuff, but the entire world. As the Covid-19 pandemic hit the world, with a subsequent lockdown in the nation, I was on my couch canceling my ticket to Delhi in the nick of time, with extreme internal mirth of extended holidays.

Initially, I had a lot on my plate, to be seated alone with the thought of nothingness and existential crisis, however with the wrapping up of the online semester, the days grew more impasse, and my intrapersonal voice sardonic every night, moreover, as an avid traveler I was already missing climbing mountains and venturing into the wilderness. With required physical distancing, my mind had acquired the mental distancing, and social awkwardness as complementary ethics to the norm, and anxiety started creeping in through my bedroom walls day in and out. My mind performed every possible permutation and combination of the same thought with a question mark, in the end.

For this self, dead in the water, I tricked my mind with canvas and colors, turns out, I possess decent painting skills, further, I tried my hands on Ukulele, and to my surprise, it took less than a week to play songs on this instrument.

Paintings I tried from Pinterest

Indulging in these activities relaxed the nerves of my brain to an ambit, and at the same time riding a bicycle, contributed to a goodnight's sleep. In addition to it, I also started interning as a blogger with a Mountaineering Expedition Company, B&C, which surrounded my virtual world with the great Indian Mountaineers and their journeys. I sank my teeth into ink and paper irrespective of day and night to frame their stories in my words with a pinch of creativity and imagination. I started getting an itchy fit in no less than a month due to intensely indulging instances and journeys I came across during this internship.

The month of October was about to end, and so does my sister's work from home. I saw it as the best opportunity for me to live a week in some remote village of Himachal, by sticking to her shadow, likewise in childhood on her friend's birthday parties for good food and return gifts, however, this time I was just looking for some Halcyon Days. Initially, the plan seemed like squaring a circle, but after a week, we got our Covid negative result, and flew to Mumbai and Delhi respectively.

Delhi felt the same from Alpha to Omega, with Airport Road as crowded as it remains, to students strolling around Kamla Nagar, eating Dolma Aunty's Momos. However, there was a void in my PG, it had changed from being a chirpy nest of forty college-going girls to a sombre place with pin-drop silence and vacant corridors. I collected my essentials, wiped the dust off my desk, locked my cupboard, and sat on the chair recollecting moments and memories from that room, soaking the nostalgia in my breath with misty eyes and trembling lips under the mask. This was a wee bit of overwhelming emotions I dealt with as a warm-up before meeting my long-distance partner, ready to head up the hill with his fleece jacket and rucksack, whose one embrace had all the warmth to deal with the sufferings of months and the cold of Delhi as well.

The resplendent street lights, highway, and fellow vehicles were so satisfying as if my homesick soul was traveling to her home after months. I could write an entirely different blog on just my commutation to Sojha, but to put it in a nutshell, we had to change our medium of commutation three times within 12 hours. We boarded the bus at Majnu ka Tila that dropped us in Baddi at 3 am, where we boarded a tempo traveler headed to Jibhi, and from Jibhi we ascended in a cab to Sojha. With us, traveled our rucksacks, backpacks, tripod, and ukulele as well.

The Great Himalayan Range and the embrace of love and serenity pulled me out of the labyrinth I was stuck in, performing like a marionette in the hands of anxiety for the past six months. I woke up to the lush greenery of Tirthan Valley, with clouds suffused to the stretch of my eyesight and a wagging tail on the door, followed by receiving fresh green apples from the orchid and a red rose from the farm. It was the moment of my 11:11 wishes coming alive, from late-night video calls with our pillows drowning in tears to conversations, breakfasts, ukulele jams, and coffee under the same sky, the most nonchalant 5 days of 2020 indeed! But the most sublime has to be the third day which we spent sitting on the rocks in the middle of the Tirthan River, with trees striving for the sky and, clouds moving below our feet. It was only through pure serendipity that we sensed the river flowing nearby while strolling around Jibhi and the next instant moment came across a trail descending towards it. It was the day when I met nature's most altruist form, providing us with a free therapy session for three hours, and this is just another reason why I keep going back to Himachal and call it my second home.

Now I am back, writing a poem in the little hygge corner of my room, with my very own pink mountains, complemented by small succulent on the headrest, photo frame on the side table and the wind chime hung on the wall, I squeeze in the corner with enough space to fit me and my ukulele, absorbed under my oversized sweater, warming the coldest winter, as the sun goes down and the moon starts reflecting in my mirror through the windowpane, guess, it's a sweet place to call home until I pack those bags again!