Back in Delhi and Getting Intimidated by my Friends
It has been about a month since I came back home – where I have inarguably spent most of my life. I guess calling it home is a little unfair now that I don’t live here anymore. I had forgotten how much the heat kills you here in Delhi; I remember complaining about the heat in the Mediterranean when I would talk to my mother during my last few days in Marseille, and she would laugh at me. I understand her now, I would laugh at myself too. But as has been established, I have a very high propensity to complain – my brain has this unusual ability to find some problem in a perfect situation.
I have been seeing my own city as if I were a tourist because I have now realised that it is fun to be a tourist. It is even more fun to be a tourist in a city that one knows very well – one looks at it from a completely different perspective. I like to go out all alone, take the metro, stop where I see something interesting, and just explore. That is how I found the beautiful cemeteries of Jamia Millia Islamia, a university and a neighbourhood in Delhi.
A few days after my arrival in India, some of my college friends came to Delhi – it was a junction point for us to start our trip up north in Punjab and hiking in the Himalayas. While they were here, it gave me another opportunity to see my city, and despite my own newfound perspectives of my city, learning the others’ as well. It is always fun to observe how others react to things that I like or dislike, understand their nuanced points of view towards those things, and just learn new things about my old friends.
Another thing that has changed about me is that I have been walking to places a lot ever since I came back. Rather, I have been allowing myself to walk a lot ever since I came back. Earlier too, I would want to walk to places but would be very easily influenced by others around me to not do so – it is understandable when you can practically feel your sweat evaporate. But when one is frugal enough, notwithstanding low energies, spirits are high – they have to be, since spending money on cabs isn’t an option that I give myself.
I brought a bunch of savons de Marseille for my friends here – a few of them appreciated it, many didn’t understand, and many more thought that I was insinuating that they don’t clean themselves enough. But it honestly felt gratifying gifting things that meant something to me, and that I actually spent a lot of time (and money) on.
Almost all of my friends have now moved to Bangalore – they are all working, which always feels intimidating when I am with them since I am the only one continuing my studies because I “didn’t want to grow up”. Physically moving away from my friends, and having a completely different schedule than what they do also means that I relate to them lesser than I used to – I remember, back in Marseille, I woke up, checked my DIscord notifications, and found out that all my friends back in India were on a call together, while I had to hurry up and get ready for classes.
Many of my friends have a clear picture of what they see themselves doing in a few years, I don’t even know where I will be next year. The anxieties of starting my second year have begun to creep in as the list of students joining us in our programme was recently announced. It brought me back to reality – during this time, I had forgotten that vacations actually end. This month went by quite quickly. I have one more month left here, and I hope that I am able to enjoy it as much as I possibly can, before going back to the monotony in Marseille.