Returning to the past

Have you ever wondered how it would feel to return to the past? To revisit every nook and corner of the streets where your memories live by, hiding in the plain sight. Events that you could relive as if they never passed by.

This happened yesterday, as I made my visit to the city of Ahmedabad after seven (07) long years. You might remember that I spent half a decade of my formative years graduating from this city. Friendships to break ups, topping the academics to filing of police complaint(s) on disappearance of students, you name it and I have been through.

However, the day I graduated, I decided to not look back. As a wise man once said, you retain the place in your heart and always move forward. This motto I carried along despite the animosity of many. Such is heart, that somewhere I wished to return to the institution that moulded me into a person of substance, a vessel that understands his capacity. Yet it did not happen.

Return to the day, being in the same city, I could not resist visiting it. It is as if I was being called to return to, to face the memories I was desperately running from. With a few deep breaths and balancing my thoughts, I stepped in.

Walking through those lanes where once I chuckled with a group of friends, lied down under a tree reading books on a weekend, dancing through the rains, every ounce of memory rushed by. I could hear the hushed voices from the past, the figures distant yet near approaching me. It felt like everyone would suddenly jump back to life and take me back to twelve (12) years in the past.

As my chest filled with nostalgia and forced me to wipe a tear of my face, I heard another voice. Recognisable but faint, my heart remembers every person it has ever shared its thoughts with, but a sweat trickled down my face and I turned around. Silly is it not, how memories play with you, knowing it is not real but events from the past that you wish you could relive.

Believe me when I say, it is not in my nature to look back to, but such is human desire that it does not wish to exist in a world where it does not know the life around. The structures have changed, gigantic skyscrapers have made their way around the institute and yet the alleys retain the memories of thousands, of which one happens to be mine, hidden somewhere observing and smiling at me. Seeing how far I have come.

By boringbug