Solitude

I was surprised that it took me a whole week to throw my hands up and give up on my books. The silence throughout the house, oddly, did not help me concentrate. Romantically, I had always considered myself a solitary creature but sitting in my room alone, knowing that my sister’s chatter or mother’s murmurs would not break the silence, I was forced to face the unpleasant truth that I had been fooling myself. I was not a solitary creature. I would not be able to live all by myself in a pretty studio apartment, with the wall stickers and fairy lights, when I was alone and independent.

Or perhaps it is easier to be solitary in smaller places?

I was really good at lying to myself.

Sitting in my room, my notebooks and laptop strewn around me, I could only curse my stubbornness in letting my mother and sister leave on our extended trip to my uncle’s house ahead of me. And I cursed them for agreeing. How heartless was my family anyway, abandoning me at the time of my exams to go gallivanting around Orissa?

Self-pity comes easily to eighteen-year-olds.

Well, I wasn’t going to study anymore. I only had one exam left and it was after two days. I could afford some gallivanting of my own, right? It was December in Kolkata, the weather was spectacular and I just could not be cooped up inside these miserable four walls anymore.

Winter was the only tolerable season in this city, I had long thought. If it was early enough, before the crazy Christmas rush, one could really enjoy even the most ‘touristy’ of the spots without the overwhelming crowds. And even though Christmas week itself could be a nightmare, I quite enjoyed watching the lights and decorations going up in the couple of weeks preceding it.

And although we always joked that it was typical of Kolkata to make such a major production of this particular holiday, as compared to other cities, I knew in a small corner of my heart that I would miss it when I left. And I would leave one day. I knew that.

The lights and decorations were already up in Park Street but being daytime, it was rather underwhelming. The most present thing was the noise and the people. There were always hordes of people on Park Street, even at midnight. I never minded it like my mother did. She said, Kolkata had become impossible to live in over the years. There was too much traffic, too much chaos, too many people. So that one could not walk the streets without having their shoulders shoved. I suppose it’s true. I didn’t mind it always. It depended on my mood.

That afternoon, I had been craving some noise and the sight of people rather than simply my textbooks. So, I revelled in the chaos. I drifted along from one end of the street to the other and laughed inwardly to myself at the scenes I witnessed: a woman dragging her child away from the direction of the candy store, a man having a vehement argument on his phone bumping into cursing pedestrians every few seconds, two giggling schoolboys discussing a successful prank, or so I imagined from hand gestures and facial expressions. I could not hear their conversations.

Having reached the end of the street I found myself at the metro station and decided to ride the metro simply because I had not been on it since my grandparents had died and we had no reason to visit Dumdum anymore. I remembered it being fun, I remembered being fascinated by the turnstiles, the whoosh and roar of the trains arriving. 

It was all of those things. But it was not the exhilarating experience that I remembered from my childhood. It was simply a train that travelled underground and that was it. 

I was hungry. And it was a good thing I was so near Southern Avenue and its numerous cafes. And yet, being in this particular area always managed to make me feel embarrassed. I don’t exactly know what I had been thinking the day I met that random boy on the street and started chatting with him. My decision to accompany him on a stroll around the lakes and for a cup of coffee was even more baffling. My thought process when I gave him a wrong number and sprinted full speed away from him after a couple of hours was absolutely incomprehensible, even to me.

It happened a few months previously. I had barely begun college. Was it some sort of daring endeavour to prove to myself that I was not the perfect little girl I had always been painted as? I don’t really know. My behaviour embarrassed me and infuriated my little sister, the only person I told. She lectured me for an hour. I sometimes forget which one of us is actually the elder.

Of cafes, there were plenty in Southern Avenue. I chose one which did not have too many people, chose a seat by the window and sat down with my milkshake and corn and cheese quiche. This road was as different as could be from the bustling Park Street. A car went by every two minutes. Perhaps a couple of pedestrians every five minutes. A woman walked her fat Labrador, the dog more interested in sniffing every car than in actually walking. 

When my friends got lonely, they called me and talked for hours. When my sister got restless, she dragged me along for a walk together. When my best friend could not take her studies anymore, she begged me to meet up and talk over junk food. 

What was wrong with me, I wondered, that when I got sick and tired of being alone I went for a walk by myself, surrounded myself with people in pairs or groups and lunched alone in a café, looking out on the world outside? And was perfectly content in doing that. I could have called Anupama or Trina. I could have forced Debu to meet me instead of the other way round for once. But I decided a metro ride would do instead. And I was already feeling cheerful enough to hit the books again.

My mother would be happy to know I went for a walk instead of curling up in bed, scrolling through Tumblr, at least. A walk alone surrounded by people.

Maybe I could manage living by myself after all.

Hope dies last.

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Rittika Dhar

M.A. Batch of 2020.

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