Those old friends

"What did you miss most about India?", my friend Alice asked me while I was showing her around Delhi. The question had occupied my mind earlier that day. I had spent almost two weeks in India, and it became increasingly obvious to me what I had missed. Had I been asked the question before the vacation, I would have drawn a blank. Living comfortably in Oxford, making good food and enjoying life with lots of friends, nothing seemed amiss. I didn't realise what I was missing, till I came back to it.

Over the last year, I had become so engrossed in my life in Oxford that I tended to ignore the relations I had formed back here in India. And yet when I came back, I found them intact. The warmth and generosity of my friends astonished me. It seemed like yesterday once again - all of us had a few more battle scars, but we still seem to care for each other like we did earlier. I also rediscovered myself. The layers of caution and politeness I had built around myself - which I tended to call 'maturity' - gave way to what I now feel is the real me, or was the real me. Blithe. Optimistic. Passionate. Perhaps funny.

I am not implying that the life I am living at Oxford, or the relations I am forming there, are not optimal. To the contrary, I cannot remember being as contented as I am at Oxford. Any kind of change is met with resistence. Perhaps this is me resisting the changes I am undergoing. Maybe I am trying to hang on to the memories of a time past. Perhaps this is the order of nature - of continuous change, of resistance, and a cessation of resistance.

However, the past is great because of the lessons it imparts. Hindu culture is said to view time not as a progression over time, but as one of circularity. And in the circles that my life will undergo in future, I will be better off learning from what had happened in the circles past. One of the lessons I want to keep with myself is the warmth I was capable of, and the love my friends showered on me. For long I thought that this love was what motivated me to achieve things professionally; that might not be true anymore. However, the way these relationships have withstood great stress tells me that the relations I form in future should be based on that kind of mutual love, trust and respect. Then, perhaps, I will be able to marry what are the best components from these different phases of life, these different circles.