New Old Beginnings

“Where are the people?” resumed the little prince at last. “It’s a little lonely in the desert…” “It is lonely when you’re among people, too,” said the snake.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

There’s no reason to begin writing this post with this quote. But it is New Year’s Eve. I am sitting in my 680-square-foot 2BHK apartment that overlooks a football field and thinking if there are people in this city I would want to meet and who would want to meet me. To the former, the answer is yes. To the latter, I don’t know because I didn’t ask anyone.

But this time alone has given me some space to reflect on the year that will end in the next hour. When I look back at this year, I see only a compounding of sorrow, leaving me feeling diminished. And grief, which has been the leitmotif of my poetry takes its place in my prose.

This has been a year where loss came in all kinds of packages. The smaller ones came to me as the loss of a job. The bigger ones came as the loss of several close friendships and the life of a dear aunt. The death of two kittens my parents were fostering, and the loss of an opportunity to reimagine this country’s future. Then the litany of losses that Palestine relentlessly faces. The bodies that are mounting in Manipur. The loss of dignity that Kashmir has consistently witnessed. I can keep going.

As I write this down, I can’t help but feel that the cosmos is malevolent. The world has been cursed by powers I don’t understand or want to believe in. We are living in a world so inherently flawed that there is a need to destroy its very fabric. But I know that if I lose faith, I surrender to the status quo. I stop hoping and working for change. And that is not a life I can imagine living with.

Just keep swimming

2024, for all its flaws, was a year that brought me clarity. I learnt how to trust and who to trust. Some friendships fell apart because of a thing I still don’t have to courage to write about, but I know I will find that courage someday. Some friendships found their way back into my life and are being rebuilt.

This, I imagine, is the cycle of life. Friendship, as C.S. Lewis reminds us, is “unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.” It is the one theme that consumed my year.

A fear I often experience, whenever I am feeling lonely, is that I may not have any friends. A lot of the conversations with my therapist centre around this fear. I have spent days thinking about the friends I have lost, what they meant in my life and what I was supposed to do to fill the void they have left behind.

The end of a friendship is a silent pain. When your romantic relationship ends, there is a system of support. But when that happens with a friend, you may find some sympathetic ears, but you probably won’t be writing poetry every day over it, your other friends won't be showing up at your door with ice cream or alcohol or both to comfort you. Even if that does happen, you know it is a one-off thing.

When the friendships around me collapsed, I mourned for days. I cried even at the mention of those friends. But it was done privately. Some days, it felt like my hurt needed a stamp of approval. My life wasn’t allowed to fall apart because a friend walked out of it. I was only allowed to do that when a lover abandoned me.

To new beginnings

The year was also spent writing furious notes in my diary about how my lost friendships changed me as a person. Change me they did. Years of childhood trauma taught me to never rely on people, and never ask for help. But despite the deep discomfort I felt in expressing my sorrow repeatedly to those around me, I did it. And it was rewarding. I learnt that there were people who would hold space for me.

Despite all the losses, I was surrounded by love.

Those who have read my work know that I live with chronic illnesses. I manage the black dog of depression every day. I fight the voices inside my head to make sense of the life I have built. I know it is the time when people hope and wish for light and happiness. It perhaps is unauspicious to knock on the doors of a new year with so much angst and sorrow. But I do not wish to carry this anger into my new year.

So I take this opportunity to write it out and leave it behind with 2024’s Manjiri.

Sitting in my room and writing this post on NYE is making me feel lonely, like the Little Prince in the desert, but I know that surrounding myself with noise and company that may not care for me will also be an isolating experience. Therefore I am messaging those who have decided to stick around in my life instead. My new year can begin later this month when some close friends and family arrive. There is no expiration date on celebrating new beginnings. And since this year, of all years, I learned to dance, there will definitely be dancing.

Here’s to new beginnings with friendships old and new. I hope that the new year is indeed filled with light, joy, love, music and dance for everyone.