Outsider

The other day i visited my old neighborhood to get some work done in the bank. I had plans to meet a high school friend who studies in a college located in the same vicinity. My work got done an hour early and I had nothing to do and no one who was free to answer my calls. 

With no where to go and ample of time to kill I walked to my old apartment building. There was an atm there and I desperately needed some cash to get through the week. In the back of my head, I knew when i would see these old streets and imagine the echoes of my childhood, something would be triggered inside me. And so after withdrawing some cash, I turned to the unfamiliar watchmen and asked him, "does anyone live here anymore?" 

"Yes madam, a few flats are still occupied." 

You see the building was supposed to be cleared out by the end of this year due to some complications with the lease. Anyway , with a heavy heart and a strong craving to go up to my terrace, where I used to spent most of my evenings and nights contemplating my life and writing these blog posts, I turned away and took a very slow walk on the sidewalk of the same street. 

As I brushed my hands on the old walls with new paint, I received a call from my father. He wanted to ask if all the bank work got done smoothly. I answered all his questions and right before he hung up I said- 

"Dad, do you think it'll be okay if I go up to our old terrace and sit there for a while?"

His reply was-"Oh no, you don't belong there anymore. You're an outsider, they won't let you inside the building." His voice was filled with and equal, in fact a heavier amount of sadness than my previous question had carried. It was obvious, that this place had meant a lot not just to me, but them too. 

But what struck me hard was, how he called me, called us outsiders to a place we called home for almost 9 years. It's funny how you assume a sense of personification to a building. How it's hurtful, that a chunk of cement, four walls and smooth Matt marble doesn't remember you. It's hurtful that a place you love so dearly , has no memory of you. It's ibliviousnof all the times you tripped on its staircase, or the number of times you've knocked on its doors, or the echoes of music through the walls. It doesn't remember the forts you build inside the rooms. It doesn't remember the aroma of the incredible food your mom cooked and how her humming to old songs just made everything taste better. 

This building, this locality, this whole area doesn't remember you at all.

A week later my dad came to stay with me for a day. He wanted to see the hostel I'd be moving into soon. We were coming back from the hostel. And I noticed him looking quizzically outside the window and wondering something. So after we left he turned to me and says

"I think in all the time I've stayed in Bombay, I've never felt like an outsider. Not even when I came here in 94 for the first time with your mom. But today I really feel like an outsider.

"Every time I got out of the airport, I'd take a Rick or taxi to home but today I stepped out and remembered home isn't here anymore  " 

And then I realized that it may take you years to get used to not associating your memories and feelings to a place you call home. But this city, this city won't take a second to forget you.