Alien

Imagine you are stranded on a different planet.
On this planet, you are a what not a who. On this planet, you have some unimaginable luxuries and freedoms even.
You are spoiled with gadgetry, you have time to spare, you are naive, alive, stimulated even. But you have no connection, no kinship. You have no you. You have a vague memory, but no nostalgia. The planet allows a collective mind, but you have no soul.
There are many nice others here on this planet, you meet them. They are polite and pretty, they bow, wave, smile, they mimic you and you, them – these others. No touch. No community.
Then you go sleep alone at dusk. There are no cuddles on this planet. White noise for company.

Imagine.

…

No, I’m not homesick.
That was in fact, the planet of before times, of childhood. That was my home planet, what I thought- life was always going to be. And in some ways it still is, in some neighborhoods, I see those others still, pretty, polite, privileged, of different color and language, but they too float unperturbed, like those of my home planet. And Boston scares the Bengal Brahmin in me, because among them, I am once again a what, not a me.

Some days I only see the uncanny resemblance in clutter, rage and aloofness, in polish, in perceptions, in a never ending race to success.
Some days I hear meddling sounds of the past, the metro screeching, the palm trees in the storm, sound of smoggy sunsets, Radio Mirchi 107.8, the metal gates in the morning, the sound of sunlight through the sticky brown windows, Nokul Dana on a small steel dish token offerings to God that doesn’t give us what we want, the sound of matches lighting incense sticks, cigarettes on the terrace, trucks on the highway, trains at midnight, hum of a city in six different accents, hum of the TV in a monotone in someone else’s house.
Some days I hear all of it all at once, some nights I only hear my longing. But for whom?
I have a craving to touch people, I know not to crave. My heart hurts for those, who are not mine. I grow an idea – many ideas, to make from scratch, to connect. I want to love the idea of love, to hate – what I previously ignored. The darkness, the blur around my eyes is vertigo, is anguish- not tears.
The feeling in my stomach when I think of that planet past-it’s not love, not longing, nor hunger, it’s a rush to leave wherever I am. I’m in so many places at once. I’m nowhere at all.
I tell myself every night now, as I cuddle my dog-
That’s not my home. They’re not my people. It’s not my planet. It’s not my heart that’s breaking.
It’s not my today. It’s not my brother. It’s not my body. I am okay. I am okay. I am breathing.