Childhood Memories, Nostalgia - The curse of #adulting!

Adulting has its banes. Often times you feel that everybody else around you grew to become an adult while you were left out in the process of evolution. And then oftener times, you feel as if you were the only one who evolved while the rest were living under a rock.

Needless to say, I have had my own such moments every now and then. But recently, I found myself caught between both emotions simultaneously.

Having lived in different cities during my growing years, I never studied in one school. While, the upside to this is that I got exposed to different languages, cultures, dialects and climates. The downside is that I hardly have any friends from the long lost school days. A couple of school friends that I have were made during the last leg of my schooling. Clearly, I don’t have that gang to recount those days.

The above fact in not new to me but the realization hits hard around once in a year. That’s when I spend substantial time recalling all the names of my classmates, teachers, neighbours, and look for them across social media. Of these names, there’s one name that has remained registered over the years. And every time this nostalgia hits, I look for this person as well.

I recently found this guy, and thought of sending him a connection request, hoping that he would recall my name, and not consider it weird. Luckily for me, he accepted my request and so began our chit-chat in general. During the conversation I got to know that he is living in the same city. Happy and full of nostalgia, we exchanged numbers and a time was fixed for call.

So far, there was just a happy memory of school days, knotting the school ties, stealing chalk… The call was looked forward to.

Struck midnight, and I got the call. The person was clearly in his own “zone”. Instead of exchanging pieces of memories from school, he decided to hit the most favourite subject of women’s safety and how it is associated with their conduct. In middle of the night, talking on the phone, I could not figure out why I got in touch with this person in the first place. The gyaan was pouring in from all directions about how women have a problem if men look at them, and how they still have a problem if they do not look at them. How women choose to dress a certain way and then create a fuss when they are misbehaved with. And how, women should think before indulging in PDA. He was only short of saying that rapes happen because of Chinese cuisine!

That one conversation, hopped from how certain languages and certain cuisines in our country are distasteful, to how he has never seen a woman being dragged and raped in front of his eyes. That one conversation really found me swinging between the two thoughts. Either I was living under a rock or these individuals have arrived from another planet.

Well, well, all said and done - I think, I’m done tracing my roots for this life. Sometimes we just grow up, or grow out…