Dude, Where's My Car?

चाँद तन्हा है आसमान तन्हा

दिल मिला है कहाँ कहाँ तन्हा

बुझ गई आस छुप गया तारा

थरथराता रहा धुआँ तन्हा

I was talking to my hot friend Waheed (he absolutely did not ask me to write this, and I absolutely can be trusted with that statement), and we spoke of loneliness exactly once. That’s when I thought I should write this. Loneliness likes witnesses, even if it only gets one.

Writing is the only way this world—and its breath—grows larger and louder for me. I function in ways only a strange part of me understands; my inner world remains largely unknown to me.

I live alone now. I had been looking forward to it since I was eight-ish. Why? Because I always felt like an adult carrying a grocery list in a car that needs refuelling. I am fluent at being by myself—practically native—but fluency doesn't mean immunity. I can be very good at solitude and still, of course, struggle with it.

I told Waheed loneliness is both the first step and the final boss. It is both ends of the spectrum. Life exists somewhere in the middle while you start, perform, and end your day in a world only you have maximum access to. I’ve thought about loneliness a lot. Read, profusely. Intellectualised, aggressively.  Therapy taught me it can be an autonomous choice. But sometimes—just sometimes—it’s the heaviest, non-autonomous burden I carry.

Spending a lot of time with yourself implies a kind of freedom. Another friend said, “With great freedom comes great loneliness” (my friends should be paid for these lines). I have been gasping for air since the first moment I was handed moral responsibility for myself—an absurdly young age to be in charge of anything but colour pencils. All the hustle to taste freedom. Now that I have some of it (some), I have no one to toast with. Don’t get me wrong: I have wonderful, wonderful friends. But there is a void. An all-my-previous-versions-shaped void. A people-I-loved-shaped void. An eight-year-old-me-shaped void. A grief-shaped void. A heart-shaped void.

Experiential loneliness is very interesting—poetic, rather. Despite being the single most common experience shared by humanity, it shows up differently for everyone. I like that. It makes the world at once expansively communal and intimately private. I like that this solitude is mine to keep and I get to be one with it, and I can live with it without an audience or an explanation.

However, it is deeply disappointing, I know. I know it hurts that nobody will ever—ever truly understand you. Every single wish of running away is a secret cry to be seen intently and held conscientiously. I understand. But this is real. Nobody will get it. Nobody has to. Isn’t that liberation of a strange kind?

Loneliness is embarrassing. Embarrassment itself is an odd, intimate emotion. Maybe the shame is knowing how ordinary this feeling is, and how fiercely private it insists on being.

A couple of days back I had one of the worst crash-outs I’ve experienced. I visited a church on a hilltop. The view was pristine. I felt nothing. The other day I went for a gorgeous drive—roads with green canopies, so cinematic it could offend—but I felt nothing.

Then this other morning: I made breakfast. There was robust music with flimsy lyrics playing in the background. Not so suddenly, chopping onions and coriander stopped the urge to run and hide. It was then I understood what freedom can be: this—the quiet permission to accept joy. Not hunt it, not perform for it, but let it in. When I accept a small joy, there seems to be room for a little more. I told myself, “Enough. I will reclaim my share of happiness. It is mine to have and I will make space for it.” Too dramatic for an uttapam-making morning? Perhaps. But I am a child of 90s melodrama.

A lonely, solitude-friendly person is easy to spot. I see it in myself. When someone looks at me in public, do they know I live alone? Do they know I talk to myself? Do they know I sleep with my life shoved to one side of the bed? Do they know I feel lonely?

I’d ask you this—do not pity me. Never pity a lonely person; pity is a soft weapon. Loneliness is one of the cruelest, truest trails of self-discovery. Much of most religions are built on it: prophets alone on mountains, seekers in silent rooms. Do not pity the person who walks and eats alone. They hold a power and a softness that might sting you if you’ve never managed a half-hour walk without music. Yes, without your headphones.

I am currently dealing with a monumental event. I am dealing with the final boss. There is a crumpled, overused grocery list in my pocket. I have been carrying it for a long long time. It grows. It calls for additions. The car still needs some refuelling. It’s a sunny day. I better get going.

love,

k