And Then There Were None...

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"I miss the taste of a sweeter life, I miss the conversations..."

These lines from 'Maps', a Maroon 5 pop song, sum up my feelings quite well during this CoVID lockdown. I miss a lot of things which I wouldn't really have cared about, had normalcy continued. Even the absolutely trivial things seem a luxury now. Of late, a few trains have started running, but there was a complete lull in between with only rare parcel trains running twice a week. Yes, you guessed it right; I'm a railfan and the Chennai-Howrah mainline runs about 100m from my home. I am so much into trains that I can identify whether it's an ICF or ICF-CBC or LHB rake even from the faint noise of an approaching train. Well, let's move on to the things I miss. You might be surprised by their trivial nature though!

I miss the Mumbai Local... changing from Harbour to Central line at Kurla, dodging people and scanning the local to find the least crowded 'dabba (bogie)', all in less than a minute or so. I miss the single hoot of the Hyderabad MMTS followed by the sound of its rapid acceleration which seems no less than music to my ears. I miss the 6 pm crowd at Delhi Metro's busiest, Rajiv Chowk metro station and the 'Darwaze baai taraf khulenge' (doors will open on the left) announcements. I desire to look out of the large windows and look down at the serpentine traffic jams near Lulu Mall as the 5.24 pm Kochi's green Aluva-bound metro left Edapally.

Kochi Metro pulling out of Edapally metro station


I miss the 2-hour traffic jams at Silk Board  (Bengaluru) and the usual 'Busy hai main, dikh nhi raha hai kya?' attitude of the infamous auto drivers. I crave to bargain in Half-Tamil, half-English with the meter-less autorickshaw's driver for a 3.5 km ride from Chennai Central to Egmore. I long to run and reach the Vizag Railway Station bus stop before the last 400Y route bus left. I long to ask the 12 AC MoBus (Bhubaneswar) bus conductor 'Bhaina, via Infocity jiba ki?'( Would the bus go via Infocity?). I even miss the anxiety when Uber and Ola cancelled their rides last minute and I had to take a CTC bus from Howrah to Esplanade. 

The infamous Silk board traffic jams in Bengaluru


I miss going out, a lot. Even the window shopping I did at Lulu Mall, Edapally in Kochi. I miss going to the Visakha museum and heading straight to my favourite section, the marine antiques. Don't even get me started about the evening walks on the beautiful Marine Drive with the cool breeze and tangy bhel giving me company. I find it difficult to go to sleep sans the train horns and whistles. Now a few trains have begun and there's no  How I long for the sirens to be sounded again, the ones that marked the start and end of the morning and afternoon shifts at the nearby HPCL, BPCL and Dockyard. I await the newspaper headlines which carried pics of leaders hand in hand at global summits and of India's victories and medals in sports.

Marin Antiques section, Visakha Museum, Vizag


When I was young, my mom always used to tell 'You would understand the importance of a thing only in its absence'. I realise that very well now. I long for the monotonous routine which I desperately wanted to escape earlier. But now, I would trade anything to go back to the so-called 'plain, regular' days. I now miss the urge to wake up in order to not miss the classes. I miss the dilemma of taking 2 dosas or 3 before an 8 am lecture. I'm afraid the skill of eating or rather gobbling food in a hurry might have now become rusty. I miss pressing the buttons on all floors to reach before my unlucky department friends who had taken the lift. Waking up just in time for the attendance and grabbing the last bench was fun. Witty excuses for coming late to the class that made the whole batch laugh and the mini-heart attacks that surprise tests gave us, every fiasco is fondly missed. All of those, now seem months, or at least days away.

A typical room at SD Hall of Residence, NITR


Club meetings which once felt boring, are now awaited. Oh, and how could I forget about hostel life. Apart from the messy food that the mess served, it had LAN, GPL, binge watch nights, last night preps and friends. I miss the late-night discussions about almost every topic under the sun, ranging from profs to crushes and from memes to administration. I miss what I had taken for granted, throughout my life.

 

P. S.: In no way, am I in favour of Coronavirus or its allies. The article is just an expression of feelings and the things I miss, being confined to my home. I wish we defeat the virus, formulate a vaccine get back to our normal lives pretty soon.

 

Yours nostalgic,

Debabrata Malik

A 'Google Maps and Explore' guy rather than a 'Netflix and Chill' one

Image credits: Livemint, Outlook India, The Quint, Vizag Tourism, justdial

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