Hara nahi hoon main

The morning started quite uneventfully. My arms were heavy from all the exercise yesterday. Yesterday was still a nightmare of challenges for me. I never visited the gym for the life of me, so weightlifting was never my cup of tea. Thinking about tea, I made coffee by myself for the first time in my life.

Hold your thoughts there, I made tea before but that was on the open stove. Making coffee in a kettle however wasn't as tricky as it looked. I just boiled the water, added instant coffee, milk power and sugar to a cup, poured the water and stirred. Coffee couldn't be better.

The tantalising view of the distant hills, the mellow morning wind, the light sun just burning brighter and brighter and my perfect cup of coffee.

The day dawned boring with usual cleaning and washing. Ordered food from the college mess. The warden came, wearing mask, head cap and gloves (excess much), refused to hand me the food hand to hand. So I asked her to keep it at my doorstep and once she was gone, I picked up my parcel.

If I felt bad, I just brushed it off. Someone had reccomended a webseries called 'Flames' on TVF app. I binged three episodes straight, laughed at the cuteness, hummed the songs and had a déjà vu of initial college days.

Friends chatted all through the day. The ones who had so enthusiastically fought with me for making the choice to come here, were now asking me about how I'm managing here. My initial reaction was to ignore the text but then what's the difference between them and me? So I tried to answer their cautious questions.

As the day weared on, I tried writing poetry for a Wattpad contest. Once I was done however the earlier lack of confidence raised it's ugly head, glaring at me mockingly. I tried to ask people for help. KashishBelikov volunteered to help me by checking the rhymes I implemented on the poetry. She encouraged me to go on and those little words uplifted my mood again. I thanked my lucky stars again for gifting such an awesome human being to me!

Grandpa called in the evening to check up on me. He repeatedly called me 'A brave girl and said I can do anything like him.' I chuckled to myself.

The rains came then. The lightning was worse. The thunder claps shook my room and for the first time I was afraid, really afraid. I felt lonely.

Loneliness has been a part of my life always but living in this entire wing all be myself, and being able to see no one was a punishment in itself. The grasp of loneliness was suffocating me. I tried videos, I tried songs but they made me feel more lonely till at a point I was done with my own thoughts.

I fortunately have a very unique defence mechanism for my loneliness. Instead of pinging up people, I go back and read old chats. They make me feel as if I'm conversing directly. I can hear their voices in my head, if I've talked to them anytime.

Today I had a perfect reading material. Yesterday's double poetry jamming session with cchinu. As I scrolled through slowly at the weird rhymes we wove at near midnight, the loneliness as usual was being pushed to the back of my mind, slowly yet surely and soon I had gotten over that momentary blip without crying

Akela nahi hoon main
Hara nahi hoon main...

A bit of social media and some little chitchat with with xxRazmatazxx and skidzipop took away all of the fears. The rains lasted for three hours and the lightning would jolt from time to time but friends made it bearable.

The lovely durriza peeked in to ask about dinner, which made me realise it's time to try making some dinner.

Noodles, precisely Maggi. Now I know to make Maggi on the stove but then this electric kettle needs to be mastered. With inexperienced hands I put almost 600 ml of water and put in the tiny 10 bucks noodle bar. At the end of 5 mins, my noodles were floating like a half sunken ship in a sea. I boiled it again and finally they were a mass of curls.

I drained the sea of 500 ml water, added the dry masala and stabbed the poor noodles with my fork in an attempt to mix the masala. Meanwhile I put two eggs to boil again and waited.

5 mins...
10 mins...

And then I realised I didn't switch the kettle on. Cursing myself, I switched it on and dived into the bland noodles with clumps of masala at places.

They say when you're hungry, everything tastes like ambrosia. I was in the same condition. Then I thought my eggs were done. But I put them near my ear and shook them to hear a sloshy sound. In they dived into the kettle again, and came out, hopefully done.

Very carefully I crack a shell to realise they're only half done. The hot yolk escaped the shell and slouched off on my shorts. I burned my fingers red, trying to manage it. Cursing the eggs and my luck, I did away with the broken egg. I boiled the otter one more, which became a bit better and I attacked it like a famished animal.

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When my mother called finally, I was happy munching cream biscuits. I didn't tell her about the eggs or I'd have gotten a bad scolding.

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Situations and life won't be the same always. We need to adapt, learn and grow everyday. Be it little self help, be it discovering ourselves or be it finding new meanings in friendship and discovering ways to ward of loneliness... Everyday teaches us a lesson for life. It's for us to learn and go ahead or stay stagnant and lose ourselves. And today's song for me is

Hara Nahi Hoon Main
By Shankar Mahadevan

It says
'Kistmat ka itna bhi mara nahi hoon main,
Ye mana ki halaat se zaraa,
Sehem sa gya hoon magar
Hara nahi hoon main.

Yes... I have not lost. I completed one day of isolation. 13 more days to go and I love a challenge 💪

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