“People, can’t live with them, can’t live without them”
Sorry for modifying the world-famous quote, but that’s kind of what I feel for people around me. You see, you take occasional bouts of depression (since the last 8 years) and then add some anxiety, insomnia and dreadfulness to it, what you get is an adult perfectly incapable of doing anything productive, or even thinking straight. And as people already know about the “Winter blues” and what these can do to people all around the world, let’s not go into much details about that. Let’s just say, a overly talkative girl stops talking completely even with her family with whom she lives, she stops all contact with every friend and family and whoever else she knows, she cannot work, nor can play, her mind is numb and dazed throughout the day (without the influence of any external influences), and I guess you kind of get an idea.
Hence, for an round-the-clock anxious and timid adult like me, who has lost all her confidence to even ask for change from the shopkeeper, traveling solo after a gap of two years meant frantic planning, continuous worries about the ways I can mess up things, anxiety attacks before the trip, thinking of and trying to cancel the trip at the dead of the night, and other unmentionable shameful pre-trip symptoms. But, when the desperation to get out of your despondent state bites you, (no, not a travel bug or something like that) you do not just stop planning a trip, even after waiting for 4 months. You see, you already know what it feels like to travel to a place alone…a place you have never visited before, and stay there where no one knows you, and you know how much this experience can cure you of your dementors.
And that’s the intro of How I Went to Shantiniketan
Yeah, for the first time in my life.
“You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery,” said Benjamin in We Bought a Zoo. Well, it took much more than that.
Scene 1: Getting frustrated and anxious inside a bus on the way to the station, as quite unpredictably, there is a huge traffic jam at 9.30 in the morning somehow, on ALL the roads through which I traveled.
Scene 2: Running on the platform, aka Geet in Jab We Met, towards a train which had left (exactly on schedule, somehow 
) on 10.10am, while you reached at 10.12am.
Sadly, my life is not like Jab We Met’s and there was no one in the train who found me beautiful enough to become a Raj. 😥
Also, do not always complain about a late-running trains all the time, they will start right on time when you actually need them to be late.
Scene 3: Getting aboard the next unreserved train to Bolpur, and having the most peaceful long journey of your life, as, throughout the 3 hrs, there were just 5-7 people in the entire compartment, which gives you space enough to treat your coach as a lounge-cum-drawing room.
A spot where the train was stalled for around 20mins.
Scene 4: Bolpur station, then a ride to your hotel,(which was disappointing again, but more about that in the next article), having a sumptuous Bengali lunch at 4 in the evening, and then cancelling all your plans of going out, you promptly go off to sleep.
Scene 5: The whole evening, till night, is the start of the anti-depressant I needed. Well, Santana, doodling, sketching attempts, writing, drinking good ol’ Old Monk and smoking up (not necessarily in that order) should have helped anyway.
Add to that dancing in front of a life-size mirror and you get yourself a happy girl, with no more needs in life. 😀 😀
Scene 6: Getting out of your room the first thing in the morning (needs to be mentioned that I stayed in a single room with a portico in front of my room and just one other room in that wing), I meet A. A is a painter from Holland who rolls his own cigarettes (yeah that’s what I noticed the first thing about him), is staying in Calcutta since November, studying and painting, and has come to visit the art department of Visva Bharati. We started talking about our respective perspectives about the City of Joy, how so many artists in the world have to work in unproductive jobs in order to earn their bread, and other miscellaneous topics throughout the morning.
I wondered to myself about my confidence while talking to a complete stranger from another country, while I run away from the ones I have known all my life in my own city. Mind does work in weird ways.
Anyway, A left that afternoon for Calcutta and I do not have any kind of correspondence with him.
Scene 7: Walking for almost 20-30mins on a warm and sunny winter morning to the Visva-Bharati Museum, and staring in awe at everything. A new place…with no one to disturb me…even if they do, I’m not obliged in any way to make communication with them. Such relief solitude can bring…such peace and saneness, and as a result self-confidence.
Scene 8: Spending almost 3 hours in Visva Bharati Museum, trying to take it all in.
You see, growing up in a Bengali household ruled by Tagore meant reading, listening, singing, dancing, performing, play-acting, day-dreaming, studying and uniting with him, almost every day of my life. But somehow, all the plans of visiting Shantiniketan had failed in my life, except this one. And the whole museum, with the letters of correspondence, anecdotes, sketches, models, memorabilia (the Nobel’s replacement didn’t fail to sadden me), pictures and paintings represented the world I had mentally grew up in.
Specially the letters! I guess I read all of them, wanted to take photos of each of those so that I could take them back with me, read them all at my leisure, and then woe again at my own failure to receive a single hand-written letter. In short, a long fulfilled dream. ❤
Scene 9: While walking back from the museum, noticed a Sarod Player. He was sitting there in one of the campus grounds, playing his instrument and not giving a damn about anything else. It took some guts to go and sit there near him, but I did, and as expected, he did not care and went on playing.
After about 10-12mins, he finished his raag and we started talking. He is from Bangladesh, currently studying music in Visva-Bharati. Though he seemed shier than me initially, once he started describing his home town there was no stopping him. The weather, the celebrations, the people, the greenery, the simplicity, everything was given details of, and if it had not been for a call from his friend he might have talked a lot more, and I would have loved listening.
Maybe your interest in other people piques, once there are no obligations involved. You get that from very few people you know, and from everyone you don’t yet know. Most of the times, it’s hugely disappointing, but I have rarely met people on my solo trips who has disappointed me with their tales. You travel, you meet people, you listen to their stories, at times, share your own, and in the process, somehow you gain confidence about your own story, the one which is waiting for you to start writing.
Scene 9: No plans in the evening, so let’s go and get booze. While getting booze, you talk to a friend who suggests Kopai.
So next stop is that, obviously. Kopai was something else, entirely. Nothing there actually, just a river, a littered river-bank, a factory chimney churning out thick black smoke, and meadows. But, for someone who has visited Murti previously, just to sit there alone at the river bank for two days, that’s hardly a disappointment.
Also, saw a couple meditating on the banks, and got instantly revved up about the place. Watched my dear sunset (dear, because I love watching it every day), sitting quietly on that river bank for about half an hour, and then walked back once the light had dimmed.
Scene 10: Well the booze was still left to be bought. On the way back from Kopai, noticed an FL Off shop. (But that is an experience best told later)
Scene 11: Well, not much to say about the evening, as it went almost the same way as the previous one…the only difference being my absence of anxiety to sing, sketch, smoke and drink on the open-air portico, alone. (The waiter delivering my dinner, later was very amused and understanding).
Scene 12: So, this is, obviously the hardest part. The return.
Well, nothing much to describe here in this scene actually, except the lack of financial resources to stay in that place for a week more, really hit hard.
But As Tagore said “মনেরে আজ কহ যে, ভালো মন্দ যাহাই আসুক. সত্যে রে লও সহজে।” I vowed to take heed, and try again to accept the reality a bit more…I will start with the small things, like re-starting the blog, for instance. 😉
Special thanks to Pratik Roy Choudhuri for his perseverance and pushing me constantly to go on the trip, in spite of a whimsical, anxious, depressive and moody me trying to push him off every time. Thank you. 🙂
Random Solitary Pearls 