Remember that hollow in the pit
of your stomach on the last day of school? The months you spend after that
talking continuously about your school; or spending days in complete in
silence? You feel like crying but tears never leave your eyes because the wonderful
memories always make you smile. You are stuck between being sad and happy.
The 13 days trip to Ladakh with
11 amazing people has got me stuck in the same situation again. I miss them
terribly and that makes me cry. But all the wonderful moments with them makes
me smile, even laugh at times; at completely random times. Everything reminds
me of them. Pictures, roads, songs, people, absolutely everything!! I spent
hours in the days to come trying to relive those moments; listening to the
songs we heard there, going through pictures. But I didn’t want to do it alone.
I wanted to listen to those songs with THEM and only them, not with anyone
else. I wanted to click many more pictures with them. After spending 24 hours
of 13 days with them I felt like I’ve known them forever. But now it feels like
maybe I didn’t spend enough time with all of them. If now someone asks me if I
would like to spend another 13 days with them, I would say yes within half a
second. Now it feels like there are many more things I would like to know about
them; many hours I would like to spend talking to them.
On the 13th day of the
trip, I was distraught. I think everyone was and we all dealt with it in
different ways. We all knew we were going to miss each other. But at the
beginning of the day we had huge smiles on our faces, trying to cheer each
other up. Some were reminiscing those past days and others were shouting at
them to stop because it was too emotional.
We didn’t want it to end ever, but knew that it was not possible. We
will have to go back someday. And that someday had arrived. We landed in Pune,
still refusing those tears to escape our eyes. Laughing at jokes, remembering
the old ones and making new ones. And no one cried. All were happy yet sad.
Days after that were harder than
I knew. I woke up the next day panicked that my roommates were nowhere to be
seen and then realized I was back home. It struck like lightning that I would
not be greeted in the morning by those 11 faces- some smiling, some grumpy and
some purposely trying to be annoying. Those days were gone. So quickly? I
wanted it all back. I wanted those people back. The next day I spent in
complete daze thinking only about Ladakh. My family was shouting at me and I
didn’t know how to deal with it. It was the weirdest feeling in the world. And
everyone was feeling it. "I have to get back to my routine", said my brain; "I have
to get back to ladakh", said my heart.
That trip left a huge mark on my
soul. It brought out the best and the worst in me. It gave me an insight into
the deepest corners of my heart. It brought out the real me. I did things I
never dreamt of doing. I saw things that were mesmerizing, overwhelming. The
views were so amazing they made us cry. The shades of blue, green, brown and grey which we watched with glistening eyes. Now it was all gone. And it would never
come back. I would never sing those songs with them. I would never make jokes
with them in those beautiful mountains again. It was a hangover worse than that
of alcohol. It was going to stay for days, months, maybe even years.
“Zindagi ke safar mein guzar
jaate hain jo maqam, woh fir nahi aate, woh fir nahi aate.”
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