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| My own lane |
It took me a while to realise
that I was in the wrong lane and fatally so. All the headlights were rushing
straight into my eyes and one of the drivers shouted an expletive too. It was
sometime in the 1990s. I was on my Yamaha 100cc, returning home after a visit
to an acquaintance who lived on one of the many remote cliffs of the little
hill town of Shillong. The acquaintance had directed me on a shortcut.
Shortcuts abound in the hills. And the shortcuts on the hills can be particularly
tricky. It was thus that I emerged from the shortcut on the wrong side of the highway
in Laitumkhrah.
Those were
days when my life was running downhill with greater acceleration than the usual
free falls have. Later on I wondered time and again about what would have
happened had I been killed that evening. Nothing. People would have come to the
natural conclusion that a drunken man was driving madly on the wrong side. A
natural end to an aberration.
Frankly, I
don’t know whether an end like that would have been better than what followed.
I endured a lot of misery in that wretched place where I always seemed fated to
be on a wrong lane, however much I tried to understand the tricky natures of
mountain paths. It took me years to realise that I didn’t belong in the
mountains. It was a protracted agony without the consolation of any
intermittent ecstasies. And I ran away in the end.
Delhi’s lanes
were all clearly demarcated with dividers built in concrete. That is where I
ended up after running away from the mountains of Shillong. I seemed to belong
there. At least, I learnt quickly how to navigate Delhi’s lanes and even by-lanes.
Delhi has a system and I like systems in spite of the quintessential rebel
within me.
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| Dennie never worries about lanes |
Let me hasten to add that it wasn’t all about metropolitan systems and mountainous mystique. Wherever you are, whether it is a swarming city or a simpering mountain, you need to learn the place’s ways (pun intended). My mistake, a grievous one too, in Shillong was that I refused to learn its ways by placing me above the place. Narcissists are doomed to despicable failure unless they usurp autocratic powers.
Shillong
taught me a lot of lessons anyway before it ejected me as gracefully as it
could. Those lessons came in handy while I breathed in the air of the most
polluted city in the world. I took all the caution that a beaten narcissist would
take while navigating the endless crossroads of Connaught Place and the mesmerising
traffic circles of Lutyens’ Delhi. I had already internalised the
diminutiveness of my ego which, I had learnt, did not require much space among two
trillion galaxies with their hundreds of billions of stars each. I had learnt
how to keep that precious little ego of mine on the right lane of Delhi’s
hectic traffic.
Now I live in
a small village in Kerala almost like a recluse. Recluses have little to do
with lanes.
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| Brownie is my own Godi Media |
PS. Written for Indispire Edition 384: If everything is coming your
way, you’re in the wrong lane. #WrongLane
The thought of being a recluse is so inviting. I am troubled by chaos and I need order and routines to stay sane.
ReplyDeleteBeautifully-written post!
I have reached an age when retirement makes sense. You may be better off exploring alternative ways...
Delete@satabdi, time to connect with me.
DeleteAs always a beautifully penned post! As you rightly said, every place has it's own way and to abide by it is the way to survive. Well,the recluse in the discussion has been building his own path and lanes. More power to your pen and you!
ReplyDeleteThat's true, I can always console myself with the realisation that I beat a lot of new tracks, what if some of them were too wild!
DeleteVery deep thoughts expressed in lucid style !
ReplyDeleteThank you. I think Eric Weiner has influenced my style here.
DeleteSimplifying Weiner for laymen like me is an art!
DeleteLife has it's challenges everywhere, even in solitude. And every city rightly has it's own ways, as is quite evident in my city Kolkata. The city hardly follows any system, and still Kolkatans romanticize the chaos :) Maybe that's how we are. Nicely written post, your's.
ReplyDeleteI've experienced the chaos of Kolkata though for very brief periods. I'd have found it difficult to survive in a place like that. But then, as you've said, every place has its own challenges...
DeleteHari OM
ReplyDeleteIt is well known that no matter where we run to or hide, be it urban jungle or the actual, the desert or the mountains... unless we have dealt with who we are, we will always be 'fighting the traffic.' Finding the correct lane means having to take a wrong turn or two and learning to properly read the map... or, if we rejected them, accepting that maybe the maps serve a purpose after all and that going 'off road' comes with hazards!
So glad to see another fine post - and such endearing photographs! YAM xx
We can't run away from ourselves. Precisely. The Irony in my case was that I'd learnt the necessary lessons before i quit Shillong but the people there wouldn't accept that... Delhi had no time to bother itself with others' problems.
DeleteGood afternoon Tomichan I'm unable to post a comment, hence this reply. Loved reading. sometimes people like you and me, learn the rules so that we can break it.
DeleteTake care.
😅😅 Love that. Yes, even as a senior citizen i love to get on to the wrong lane sometimes. But few people like you will know that it's ok and needed too.
DeleteA beautiful post with an apt title. Every place or country has its advantages and disadvantages. Looking at the positives is the key to happiness. Not to mention, Brownie and Dennie are adorable.
ReplyDeleteBrownie and Dennie have one more sibling, Dessy. She's a bit reserved. Difficult to get her for pics.
Delete