my sacred place
I got off the last train and was subconsciously drawn in the direction opposite to home.My room is in a complete mess.Everything’s strewn around in an unkempt manner and what’s worse,I barely look up from my laptop screen to even notice it.
Sucks.Because the state of my room is a direct manifestation of my temperament, to a great extent.This time,accurately so.
So,it wasn’t a surprise that my feet led me down to Memorial Drive.Charles River.My happy place…My place…My sacred place.I had never been there post midnight and I took a deep breath as I soaked in its breathtaking beauty. *Sigh*
I took a moment to just stare at the twinkling skyline of Boston across the dark expanse of water.Boston.The fantasy land I had imagined up when I was 16,when I first felt the refreshingly extraordinary passion for biology as the choice of my profession.Ha! I didn’t even know of its existence back then.I had only begun to grasp the basic concepts of this fascinating subject and just felt within me,the wondrous array of possibilities it beheld.I couldn’t take a fancy biotechnology track in +2.Those weren’t established in Pune by then.I went on to BITS hoping to expand my technical knowledge and experiment with my interests…all the while hearing only one name attached to the Biotech Industry : Kiran Muzumdar Shaw.And it felt weird.If my excitement for the possible permutations and combinations in this magical science was only getting stronger year by year why was it that all I heard was Pharmacy and Agriculture in this context in India? It troubled me to no end.Limits trouble me.Constraints threaten me.I hate the word “trite”.By the end of my fourth year,I was bored of researching.Don’t take it the wrong way—-I still love reading my ass off,poring over a single problem,sifting through articles over articles…The challenge of designing an elegant experiment and going through allllllll the slogging that goes into making it work still exhilarates me…And I know I’d never really stop liking that life.Its just that,my intuition told me that there was more out there.And I simply needed to go check it out! So,the reason I decided to spend a year at Harvard was,to a large extent,that Boston sounded similar to the place in that picture I had painted in my head when I was 16.The place where biotechnology actually happens.
Its funny,almost hilarious,how our brain is able to process all the crap above in a millisecond.Or second.Or microsecond,even.Well,real time and perceived time is one of the intriguing concepts Neurosciences is dealing with.I digress.I tend to do that.
I looked at the hundreds of thousands of twinkling lights that weren’t switched off even though people are dying out of the lack of electricity elsewhere in the world…And sighed,again.
Sounds like a magical moment,perhaps.But reality can most often not be magical.A week away from graduation.Perfectly aware of the immense amount of learning I have done in the past year.Perfectly aware of the incredible enlightenment I have experienced.Perfectly aware of the fact that I have no job waiting for me.That I have no concrete plans.That all I have is ideas,dreams and aspirations.Fucking empty entities.No,I refuse to call them empty.Fucking entities.That I (arrogantly?) chose to say no to anymore school.That for the first time in my life,I have no damn clue as to what’s next.An empty love life decorated with scars from the past.A life far away from home for so long that it’d feel strange to be back and think “I’m here to stay.” Friends lost and found and lost.A week away from graduation.This is not how I had planned things to be.
I peered hard at the vast waters and felt so drawn to the gentle splashing.Like my cluelessness and its unfathomability could make one seamless entity.Was it by chance that I happened to be standing right next to an old rusted ladder that led straight to the water? As U2 continued to play “…and you give yourself away…”in my ears, it suddenly felt like a real possibility.I just wanted to feel the water on my skin…for no specific reason.Learnt as I have,from my impulsive and intuitive life,I contemplated the pros and cons.What’s the worst that could happen? If I,just in case,died tonight,would anyone even know?I wondered if anyone would really really give a damn.I thought of my ma and pa and tai.And a few other people who I wish I had thought of but hadn’t.As I longingly stared at the water and its enticing shimmer,I also thought of work.Contributions I would like to make,to this world and to myself.And I sang.I sang out loud.I sang in unison with the waters lapping against sailboats in the dark as I chose not to climb down that ladder.I love life too much to have taken that beautiful risk.And though it seems messed up right now,the possibilities ahead excite me.The struggle fascinates me.The idea of fighting to give those entities real shape enthralls me.Irrespective of the fair odds of failing.Above all,the feeling of being alive mesmerises me.
And I remembered an earlier evening by the river when the soothing flow of water had calmed down the relentless thoughts storming in my head.I love Cambridge.I love Harvard.And it will be weird to not wake up in my lovely closet-like-room every morning..It will be weird to not know that the intellectual comfort of my desk is waiting for me to start another day..It will be weird to never see some of the finest people I have met in my life again..It will be weird.But,the river water doesn’t circulate in the same spot like in a pond,does it? It flows to where its innate forces direct it.And I must follow mine.
As I stared more deliberately at the twinkling skyline, words I had come across earlier in the day seemed to take a dazzlingly profound meaning : “There will be a point when it will seem like everything is over.That,will be a beginning.”
And I knew, it was time to go home.
