I have felt this and been here before. The North remembers, and so do I.
There is a feeling of estrangement, sudden and swift; a feeling that makes the familiar corridors, people, tasks, and events feel strange, new, and almost alien and unknown. Something similar to how you feel when you enter a new house: an uneasiness due to unfamiliarity, an intuitive throb that reminds you that you do not belong, that you have to leave (and soon).
Do not confuse this with the constant
feeling that some of us carry of not belonging anywhere – at school, at home,
with family or friends. This is not about the realization of the depth of our
sadness during the loudest of our laughs, or the sense of guilt that pinches us
even while we avenge ourselves. This piece is not about the chronic feeling of
unbelonging. I have learnt to carry that and feel at home with it now. No, presently
I am talking not of that persistent friend.
I am talking about a strange,
sudden and violent cascading feeling. It falls without notice, and all at once.
It severs ties and makes you a stranger to your present. I remember the first
time it fell. It was three years ago (sometime in April). I was standing in a crowded
ground at night. I remember being surrounded by the noise and spectacle of an event at the campus, when the air suddenly shifted. As the performer continued, I felt
a mist rising in the air (and within my mind). In the blink of an eye, the known place became deeply strange, and alien. A place where I had worked with
dedication and love for more than three years felt all of a sudden: not mine.
Something told me that my time there was up, and I had nothing more to contribute;
nothing left to give. I remember the sickness that followed: the loss of voice,
and the pain. I remember the feeling before the final fall: “I won’t have to
go there anymore!” Ah, the relief! I remember embracing the possibility of life
extinguishing itself with an Edgar Allen Poe style relief: “Nevermore”. I carried that feeling of an unwelcome intruder
till I left that place shortly after; I believe the mind can sustain an
illusion not for long before it breaks!
“I will read and teach; I will
engage with others on topics that I find interesting; I will get to
have interesting, deep and fruitful conversations; I will be a part of
discourse and knowledge sharing.” These were the dreams. The University
successfully broke them all! What was supposed to be a platform for learning
and development, has now mostly transformed into a clerical mundane exercise of useless things that contribute nothing meaningful to knowledge, students,
or society. Dead birds don’t fly; and throwing dead birds from high rise
buildings is not flight but fall! But who cares!
That heavy mist is creeping again. The corridors I walk are beginning to stretch, the faces around me blurring into the scenery of a play in which I no longer have a part. The North remembers, and the spirit does not forget the quiet violence of an illusion shattering. Only this time, I am not paralyzed by the sickness or the shock of the sudden severing. I recognize this phantom throb for what it is: the house has grown irreparably cold, and that familiar, fatalistic relief beckons from the threshold.