The Triple Farewell
Pondicherry found me when I was barely a metre tall. It was the summer of 2008, my parents had declared the war conch of their separation, and the winds of unsettling change had swept me off the dusty streets of Delhi and left me into the arms of the Pondy sea breeze. 15 years later, the departure now draws near. As a child, I grew up in this town’s embrace, but now I feel that embrace loosening. Pondy knows that I must leave. Gently it is letting go of me, releasing me from its protection, allowing me to move on. The farewell lingers in the air around me, not always evident, and yet ever-present. I am not allowed to forget that I must leave.
Often, that fluid floating farewell solidifies into a form. Even though it is the whole of Pondy that I must leave, sometimes it feels like I am leaving a particular person, a place, a feeling. In the following passages, I wish to convey through my words three images that come to mind when I think of this farewell. The first is an activity I have done for the past 11 years of my education, the second is a place extremely dear to me, and the third is a person I love and admire. These three aspects of my life in Pondy have shaped me with a lot of love and care, and to them I dedicate these words of mine.
Activity - Concentration
The concentration, the morning music, the voice of the Mother booming through the speakers - all my school days have begun with that sound. As children we were expected to close our eyes, to pray, to centre ourselves. It was never easy. It was an activity, or rather a lack of activity, that I always found challenging. Those daily 5 minutes when I was expected to find some inner peace, I would only find turmoil. My body refused to stay still. My eyes were afraid of the darkness they faced when the curtain of the lids came upon them. My mind was a-flutter, never unmoving, perpetually restless.
In my early years of school, I would put my head upon the table, and as the music began, as the voice of the Mother, unintelligible words, filled the air, I would let sleep caress me once again. When we grew older, certain teachers began asking us what the Mother had said during the concentration, I could never quite remember. Eventually, I began trying to listen to Her, but I could catch only phrases here and there, the whole never seemed coherent. I blamed Her. Clearly She did not want me to understand! There was a strange animosity that I developed for those 5 minutes.
As I grew older, when supervision was no longer forcing me to keep my eyes closed and my ears tuned to that sound and voice, I gave up trying to listen in the dark. I left my eyes open to wander around, prance outside the window, settle on some bird upon a tree or a fellow student. Sometimes, I would even rebel. I would come late to school, much after the concentration. Sometimes I would ignore it and continue working during those five minutes. I refused to meditate, I refused to still the inner chaos, I refused to let the silence, the music, the Words, enter my being. Perhaps this refusal, this giving up, was what I needed to do.
The exact date escapes me, it is irrelevant perhaps, but at some point, I realised the concentration was having an effect on me. I was already in my second year of Knowledge by then. One fine morning, as I sat through the morning music, my eyes open, my mind wandering, I began looking at a picture of the Mother. It hung upon the wall opposite me. She wasn’t smiling. I remember quite distinctly, the music seemed to fade away, her own Voice dissipated into the background, and a conversation began. My inner voice was talking to itself, voicing my hopes for the day, my prayers, my dreams, and the realisation came crashing into me - I had just had a conversation with the Mother! Technically, it had been a conversation with myself, but it felt like the Mother was listening. I told myself that day - ‘Ah, this is what concentration feels like…’
Since then, concentrating during those five minutes of morning music has become an activity that I look forward to every day. I don’t always try to meditate. I often let my eyes wander around the spaces She created for us. Perhaps I don’t treat these five minutes like I should, but this activity for me is a conversation I have with myself. My inner voice speaks to itself and it always feels like the Mother is listening.
Place - Galleries
When I walk in through the heavy metal gates of school, I am assaulted with the scent of nostalgia. The building seems to have bid me farewell already. The spot - where I used to sit cross legged, my fingers committed to a furious tango on the keyboard - that spot has been filled already by another person. It is that ancient tragedy, where the familiar becomes the unfamiliar. My claim upon that patch on the galleries has exhausted its lease. There are new faces in the places I used to call mine, faces I do not recognise. Even though this particular location seemed to have moved on already, my farewell to Pondy would be incomplete if I did not speak of the galleries at school.
When I was younger, I would avoid those large steps. They were always filled with older students and the chatter and clammer of conversations I was not meant to hear. It was only when I was admitted into the free progress in E4 that I realised, the galleries offered a new perspective to school. As if carved into the wall, they became the cave to this recluse. I would come early in the mornings, climb onto my spot, open a book or my laptop, and begin the day’s work. Occasionally it would be noisy, but during class hours, when most people were boxed into classrooms, I would sit, as often as I could, in the galleries. The sky would be just beyond my reach, the grass almost at my feet, the imagination tree blooming as if just for me.
There, I wrote. Essays, poems, assignments, but most often stories. I would arrive there with a mind teeming with ideas and there, in the safety of the galleries, I would let all my thoughts scatter themselves around me. From that chaos, I would pick out words, characters, plots, and stories would come pouring out of me as if they had always been there. Even now when I go to the galleries, they remind me of the stories I wrote, the badly formulated sentences that I was so proud of, the nonsensical plot twists that I crafted. The galleries were the enablers of my creativity. Sitting there, watching the imagination tree blossoming, the clouds drifting through the sky, I felt at home.
Even though I remember the galleries mainly for the moments of blissful silence that I spent there, they were also a space where I had comforting conversations on a rainy day, friendly chit-chat between the scenes of a play, arguments loud and soft, the occasional outburst of tears. To me that space was a lot more than just a corner of school. The world, from the third step, felt different. In hindsight, I think I loved spending time in the galleries not because of what they were, but because of what they allowed me to become. They turned me into a writer, they moulded me into someone who cherished silences, they taught me to enjoy solitude. They kept the world at bay, not too far and yet not too near. I am yet to find such a home elsewhere.
Person - Sayuri Mima
Sayuri Mima.
For all other farewells, I am prepared, but no amount of preparation will be enough to say goodbye to Sayuri Mima. We met when we were ten. I was insufferable, often angered, and easy to dislike. She was quiet, mysterious, and had a kind smile. Perhaps I was drawn to her because I thought she might tolerate me, and I was right - she has tolerated me for the past eleven years and for that I am ever grateful. Looking back, I don’t remember our first conversation, or even the first time I really saw her. We were insignificant to one another. I’d like to believe that over the years we have grown considerably less insignificant to one another. You see, it was certainly not love at first sight. Perhaps love at multiple sights and conversations and laughs and a mutual disappointment with ourselves.
Sometimes our friendship baffles me. There are too many things that should have kept us apart. Our walks for example. Ten years ago Sayuri walked as if there was no hurry in the world. I walked as if the world was ending. It was infuriating to walk beside her. There was something slow about her, her thoughts, her voice, everything seemed to be tethered in another land. The person in front of me was only an image and she actually lay somewhere far away. I might not have understood Sayuri when I first met her, I am not sure I do now either, but I was drawn to her. I watched her and I wanted to be the kind of person who smiled like that, effortlessly, and so often. I wanted to recount stories like she did, to enjoy solitude like she did, to work diligently like she did, to be quiet like she was. When I turned 13, I had decided that I wanted to become Sayuri.
I failed to become her, but when I look at myself now I see parts of her in me. That unbothered detachment, those long silences, my love for solitude, my need for productivity, even my walk. Now, Sayuri and I don’t have the occasion to walk together often, but sometimes when I find myself alone on a street I have an urge to hop off my cycle. To walk slowly. As if each step was a command from beyond. I always find myself thinking of her in those moments. In the eleven years that have unfurled since I came to know Sayuri, she has filled me with memories so tangible that I can almost smell the air in which they live. Together and apart, through conversations and silences, we have grown wiser, older, faced the strange disillusionment that comes along with growing up.
Saying ‘goodbye’ to her terrifies me because I do not know if there will be another ‘hello’. Our lives feel like vast stretches of uncertainty before us, an endless ocean upon which we must set sail. Once we leave this shore, the winds that fill our sail might not carry us to the same places. Will we ever cross paths again? The question scares me. It would certainly be nice if fate decides to bring us together again, but even if it doesn’t, we’ll be okay. The conversations, the smiles, her colourful silences, will always remain one of my most cherished parts of adolescence. Sayuri was the first person I learnt to love selflessly and no matter where we go, she will always remain that person for me. I love her so much, it would be impossible to stop.
Goodbye
My farewell to Pondy took the form of three aspects that nurtured me and made me who I am. However, in hindsight, it is only a physical farewell. The three things I wrote about live within me and are inseparable from my identity. Those five minutes of conversation with Mother have taught me that whenever I do want to speak to Her, I can, and She will be listening. The galleries have awoken the writer in me, and left me with enough inspiration to last me a lifetime. All that I admire in Sayuri, I still strive to embody.
Pondy has been slowly preparing me for this farewell. I know it will not come crashing into me on the 16th of December. I will not be left in the debris of a heart-breaking goodbye. For the truth is, with Pondy, there can never be a farewell. I might leave, but only temporarily, because I am tethered here by something invisible. Pondy lives within me. Since that summer of 2008, Pondy has taken care of me, and now even as we bid each other farewell, Pondy and I know, this is not a goodbye, only a ‘see you later’.