Flying Solo

“Alone??? Have you lost your mind???” My boss was looking at me incredulously.

“You will get bored out of your wits!” A friend told me.

“So, I hear you are off to the Himalayas?” My aunt asked sarcastically.

“Hope you have got your kamandal with you?” Were my cousin’s encouraging words.

“Madam, what will you do here alone for so many days?” Even the resort manager was shocked. 

I grinned at most of these reactions, reveling in the confusion I was causing in people’s minds. I didn’t care what anyone thought. I had made up my mind. The Bull, had decided. I was going on a week’s vacation – all alone.

It had started off as a group plan, but people gradually started backing off. I desperately needed a vacation, it was long due. Also, I felt the timing was perfect…I was in a transition phase on the work front, and this break would give me time to relax and get rejuvenated for the new beginning I am so looking forward to.

So when I realized others will ditch me at the last minute (as usual), I decided to plan for a solo trip. Once the idea occurred to me, its appeal kept increasing with every passing moment. Alone, I would be free to do what I want, not worrying about taking the group along. I didn’t want to do much on this vacation, just stay indoors, enjoy peace at a place close to nature, read, and write. Moreover, a lot has been happening in life lately, and being alone would give me an opportunity to absorb everything, and introspect, without interruptions. A vacation alone sounded like the perfect thing.

My parents were a little worried. Who goes on a vacation alone? And that too, akeli ladki?! Is everything alright? Has their daughter gone insane, like their son claims? Well…none of this, I assured them. I just want sometime by myself, that’s all. And as for insanity, between my brother and me, it will be him first, obviously.

Anyway, the place I chose was Lansdowne, primarily because it is easy to reach from Delhi, I had loved it when I visited it last year, got a good deal in the resort I wanted to stay in, and the fact that it does not have proper mobile network coverage. Yes, that’s the level of peace I was looking for.

So, I packed more books than clothes, laptop, notebooks, and was off for my first ever – solo vacation.

Today is my last day in Lansdowne…I leave by the night train. The last 6 days, in one word, have been AWESOME. I was able to do all that I had planned. Read, wrote, slept, had tea while looking at the mountains, took a walk in the hills, enjoyed the rains. I was also able to successfully avoid what I did not want to do: receive or make phone calls, read/post Facebook status updates, check mails – on Outlook or otherwise. A very successful vacation indeed.

By the time I post this on my blog, I will be back in Delhi. My heart has mixed feelings about leaving. One part of me does not want to go. It feels that it will really miss the lazy lamhe spent here, looking over the beautiful hills and valleys, sipping tea. But there is another part, which is kind of missing all the drama in life. The cribbing, the fighting, the laughing, the crying, the talking, the Facebooking. It’s ironical, how I came looking for a getaway from all of this, and am leaving eager to get back to the same old life! I want my phone to ring, to talk to my friends, to get up in the morning and go to work! This is a side effect of the vacation I had not imagined in the wildest of my dreams. Weird life!

Oh, by the way, it’s 6 PM, and is getting foggy outside in Lansdowne. I am going to go and catch the last few glimpses of the beautiful scenery from my room’s balcony. I know I will do this again…the solo vacation, when I get really tired of the drama again. And as it turns out, such a vacation will not only rejuvenate me, it will also remind me how much I love the drama, after all! That’s not such a bad deal, is it?

  

Turning 29

No, this is not an attempt to hide my real age. On the contrary, it is an honest, and I would say rather brave admission of the fact that I have indeed, turned 29 today. A year away from the big 30, this birthday is special in its own way.

Exactly two weeks ago, I was in a state where the whole of my life seemed really messed up, and I was going through one of the toughest times in my life: physically, as well as emotionally. I was suffering from high fever and weakness, which later was found to be due to a lack of proper blood count and low hemoglobin. Personally, things did not seem to be heading anywhere. Going backwards, actually, and that can be quite frustrating. On the professional front, though things were better, but I had started feeling a kind of saturation point with what I was doing, and for the first time in the last 4 years, was not really enjoying it. And to make matters worse, I was going to turn 29 in two weeks – which would usher me into the last year of being in my twenties. Talk about having reasons to be depressed.

A lot of things have happened in the last two weeks. Awful lot has changed. For good. And as I turn 29 today, all I feel is immense gratitude for all that I have. I have never been more at peace.

It all began with this book I was reading. It’s called “Conversations with God.” It is a fascinating dialogue between the author (Neale Donald Walsch) and God Himself, apparently. It talks about how God actually has nothing much to do with our lives, except having created it. And how we, as individuals, have complete power to create our own lives…through our thoughts, words, and actions.

Over the past couple of years, this has been a recurring theme in a lot of stuff that I have read/seen. Gautam Buddha had said so (“All that we are is the result of what we have thought”). Bhagvad Gita talks about how you create your own life through your Karma. The whole concept of “The Secret” is around the Law of Attraction and how the Universe works towards giving you whatever you have asked for. Even SRK said it in Om Shanti Om: Itni shiddat se…you know? But, while this was a recurring theme, it is only after reading Conversations with God, that I was completely convinced at a theoretical level that all this is true, and I indeed have created the mess in my life through my own thoughts and deeds. And if I am responsible for the mess, I am also the one who has the power to clean it up. So, I decided to put this theory into practice and see how it works.

As a first step, I started thinking about how did I land up here in the first place. I needed to know which thoughts and actions in particular would have had this impact, because I needed to eliminate them from my mind. The more I thought, the more I realized. Life was good, but I was not at peace. The main reason for that was perhaps that I was still holding on to some ghosts from my past. Some people, some experiences, some grudges…that I had not been able to let go from my heart. I had cut some people out of my life, because being around them was a constant reminder of what had happened. But cutting people out of your life also leaves you wounded. You can’t just delete people from your memory, right? You can stop taking their calls, delete them from Facebook, delete their messages and contact details…but the harder you try to forget someone, the harder it gets to accomplish it. And especially if some of those people have been your dearest friends, with whom you have shared some fondest memories, it really hurts. And just when you start thinking that so and so is out of your life and you are over him or her, one fine day, out of nowhere, a small remark/joke/movie/song/place/name – brings it all back. The smallest of memories, the slightest of details – all come alive. And you are left with a bitter sweet taste in your mouth, seeing all the effort gone in vain. So yes, I had cut some people out of my life for my mental peace, but that was not helping. There were times when I would find myself thinking why did it have to happen the way it did etc etc etc…and feel bad for myself. And this kind of thinking could obviously not create bliss in my life.

And interestingly, I had not learnt my lesson yet. I had not realized that running away from someone is not the solution. Of course it helps to an extent to not be in touch if you want to get away from someone, but only to an extent. To really be happy, you need to make your peace with what has happened. I was on the verge of cutting some more important people out of my life…because I perceived a lot of pain coming my way had I continued to be in touch with them. Thankfully, that’s when this book happened to me. And I realized so many things about life. What someone else says or does, is not in your control. How you react to it, however, is. You can control your thoughts, words, and actions, not someone else’s. And your own thoughts are responsible for creating your life.Will people still hurt you? Yes. Will you be able to stay aloof and unperturbed all the time? No. But can you think over it, overcome it, and make your peace with it? I think yes. May be it will take some time. It is not very easy as well. But it is possible.

I have tried to do that in the last two weeks. I have made my peace with those people and those situations that had been haunting me for years. This does not mean that I called all of them up and said, Hey! Let’s forget about what happened and be friends again. No. But yes, I did make a conscious effort to acknowledge that they had their reasons for doing what they did. I have nothing to do with those reasons as I can’t do anything about them. Everybody has a right to their life, and to the choices that they make. I am no one to judge anyone for being right or wrong. As long as I know that I did not deliberately hurt someone, and don’t regret the choices that I have made in life, I am fine. Nothing else matters. And ultimately, things will work out for the best...like they always have.

So here I am, at the end of these eventful two weeks, feeling transformed, with a resolve to think better and create a better life for myself. That should take care of a lot of things. I have not exactly arrived in implementing the theory yet, but as I said earlier, I have never been this peaceful.

As for the last one of my worries - getting older by another year, well, here is what I came across somewhere recently: Growing old beats the alternative – dying young. Doesn't it? Of course! Hands down! I mean, what choice do we have in this regard, really? Given a choice, what will I choose? Growing old, or dying young? So there goes all the fretting about turning 29. I have lived long enough to celebrate my 29^th birthday, that’s good, ain’t it? So, here’s wishing me a very Happy 29^th Birthday. May I keep growing older (and wiser?!), year after year! Amen.