Insider #15 - Why am I Home?

what is a good thing without melancholy?

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👋 Hello, Insiders.

Today marks one month since I boarded the flight for India. I’m here for another 4 weeks. I have attended some weddings, met a lot of people for the first time, and seen a lot of people after a long time. And now I’m settled at home in Kolkata, and a cool wind blows in from the north and the sun falls gently on the south balcony, and I just want to … stay.

Where do you want to go? my mother asks. What do you want to see? What do you want to eat? Who do you want to meet?

I don’t have any answers. I just want to stay.

In our living room is a 4-piece sofa set that is 20 years old. We talk about changing it, but never take any action. It fits snugly into our world the same way it fits snugly to my mother’s frame when she watches TV in the afternoon and dozes off, the remote control teetering at the edge of her hand. She sleeps better on this than she does on the bed.

Very often, she also works here. This is a drawing I made of her last week, sewing a ‘formal mask’ for me to take to a family wedding.

I am typing these words from the dining table, which must also be nearly 20 years old. I remember when we had bought it. It was the first time I had seen a dining table with an all-glass top. I wondered how easily it might break. I am sitting on the chair my father takes at dinner. He also sits here when he works from home. His laptop and notebook are placed almost exactly where mine are right now.

I do not entertain the delusion that I could actually just stay in Kolkata. My experience of the city is that of a visitor. I do not know how things work and, by the time I begin to figure things out, it is time to fly back.

So what does it mean that I want to stay?

Every morning, I wake up before my parents. I watch them stagger out of the bedroom, and climb the steps to the terrace for the morning cup of tea. I observe that my mother, who used to bound up the steps with a spring, now takes each step more slowly. I try to remember her gait. We sit with the newspaper together and do the crossword. Every few minutes I lean back, to watch them poring over the clues. I try to remember the scene, exactly as it is. I try to breathe it in. If I notice everything, I tell myself, I can lock it inside my mind forever. Nothing can take it away then.

I want to stay so that I can memorize a bit of everything. Because, you see, I need to defeat Time. I don’t know when I will be here again. I don’t know what fresh hells will keep us apart and for how long. This is all the time I have. I need to hold from both ends and stretch it as much as I can. I need to pause it, rewind it, slow it, record it, and relive it. I need to extract from it every little bit of feeling it has.

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Since I was young, my habit was to mark different rooms of the house with different books. I would take them off the shelf, carry them to a room, read, and then leave them by the bed or side-table or ledge. When next I happened to wander into that room, I would pick it up and resume reading. This is the spread right now -

• In the guest bedroom, I am currently re-reading Robert Jordan’s The Great Hunt (Book 2 of the Wheel of Time series).

• In my bedroom, I am reading Manu Pillai’s False Allies.

• In the living room, I have a copy of Alistair MacLean’s HMS Ulysses, a book I first tried when I was a teenager but quickly gave up. I think I am ready for it this time.

Every room is a portal to a different world. There are days when I don’t enter one or the other room because I’m not in the mood for history, or WW2 fiction, or fantasy fiction.

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I sit behind them in the car when we go places. And I am acutely aware of how outlandish this is - a 34-year old son in the back seat being driven by his 62-year old father. But it would be nearly impossible for me to negotiate Kolkata traffic. I do not have any practice of driving in India. This means I am uncomfortable on the left side of the road, unskilled with a manual transmission, and completely ill at ease with the chaos of Indian roads. To add, I really don’t like driving.

So, as I enjoy this strange privilege when we go to meet relatives, I retreat into a little time-capsule. I am once again a young child. And from the back seat, dark except when orange pools of light fall from passing lamp-posts, I observe my parents as I have observed them for many years. In this way, I play tricks with Time.

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Time will pass nonetheless. And I will have to fly back to my Life. It is not for some weeks yet, but I know exactly how it will be. It has happened so many times before.

I will sit in the front seat that day as my father drives. My mother will sit in the back, holding back tears. She will reach out to squeeze my shoulder, and then hold my hand. She will ask when I will come back. Soon, I will say with forced gusto. You won’t even notice.

Why can’t we all live in one place, she will ask. And I will have no answer. Again.

It has all happened before. I will hope, in that moment, that it happens again, without any changes. I will curse Time, and Ambitions, and Decisions, and Circumstances, and Myself.

In a few days, we will both be alright. And we will look at each other on our phone screens, and talk about the next time we will see each other.

But how cruel it is to leave things behind. What right do you have?

I have 4 weeks to go. I am trying to stay. I am trying to hold Time.