I still remember how it all started...
The year began with the first rays of dawn at the viewpoint in my first ever solo trek to a hill range called Kunti Betta, in Bangalore. I had made this plan with complete discretion. My family couldn't know about this lest they make me feel guilty and cancel the one adventurous thing I was about to do in two decades of my existence. Anyhow, the mild rays of the morning sun, the subtly warm bonfire and the group of strangers accompanying me on the trek sure made me feel like I am starring in a movie like Yeh Jawaani Hai Dewaani, except that this Naina had her Bunny sitting miles away in another state. Naina and Bunny had a big fight on the first day of the year because Naina wasn't honest enough to acquaint Bunny with her impromptu plans in a city she had been in for just ten days. But fights or not, Naina had no regrets about coming on the trek and this dawn here at Kunti Betta gave her hopes of a year full of possibilities. Graduation was just three months away and she couldn't wait for what was next.
Soon, the visit to Bangalore was cut short by an unprecedented return to Guwahati, only to head immediately to Shillong. Apparently, I needed to get a scanned copy of my Passport uploaded with my Masters’s Application at the dream university- The English and Foreign Languages University. The last date was due and I had no choice but to return to my hostel and fetch that damned passport that I should've ideally carried with me.
With this passport collecting ordeal done, I headed back to my hometown, Duliajan, to spend the last fortnight of my last winter break at Edmunds with the family before I finally head out to Silchar for the District Conference of Rotaract 3240. The year was as eventful as it could be, article deadlines from my content-writing gig, secret rendezvous with whom we shall henceforth refer to as Bunny, impulsive shopping sprees on Myntra, College assignments, Rotaract responsibilities, and everything else that a twenty-year-old college kid engages in.
Soon after returning from the conference at Silchar, I got busy applying for the post of Joint General Animator for the famous College Week of St. Edmunds College. Obsession strikes me as pervasively as it struck Naina in YJHD and it’s an honest confession when I say that days and nights had been spent in extending prayers and summoning the Goddess of Good Luck to come and bless me. Luckily, the universe granted me my wish and I did secure the post of my dreams. The last few days of February were crazy. The 24 hours of a day were just not enough to accommodate all my commitments - the department magazine had to go out on time, the literary activities had to be planned well, the weekly freelancing articles had to meet the deadline. Oh, it was a mad mad month in more ways than these but what was causing a general commotion in the state around the time was the communal riots. There was hatred manifesting itself in the form of violence, injuries, protests, and deaths. To stop the spread of misinformation, the internet connection across the state was suspended for around two weeks. With the internet gone and the load of the many responsibilities I listed above, I couldn't prepare for the entrance exam of the one place I really wanted to get into for my masters.
My lack of preparation wasn’t going to stop the entrance from happening and so I did sit for the entrance on 29th February 2020. The city was under night curfew, the exam center was at a place I hadn't heard of or been to in my three years at Shillong and obviously, it being month-end didn't leave me with much money to book a cab and go - public transport or shared-taxi was the best deal I could possibly have. But where would I find a taxi when the curfew was yet to be called off!? I walked a significant portion of the distance before God finally sent an angelic taxi. I hopped on and reached my center, gave the exam, and somehow got back to the hostel before it was curfew again.
College Week began in three days. A crazy week went by…with all the themed days, activities, and a festive spirit. Our roles as Animators barely left us a moment to spare. But despite the busy schedule, it’s only fair to say that the entire week was magical. I didn't make as many acquaintances in three years as I made in that one week. I never dressed up as much in my entire life as I did for this last college week. And all this because a part of me knew that I will never have it in me to put so much effort into things ever again. I tried to make the best memories in the limited time I had in my hand. Because in our part of the country, the end of college week was the cue for juniors to plan for the farewell. I hated that part. I didn't want to leave Shillong just yet, it was only now that I fell in love with the city, how can I leave already?
Anyhow, the one beautiful memory from the rotten year that 2020 turned out to be was the last night of College Week, the Prom Day (as we call it in Edmunds). Prom Day ended with me going out for dinner with my English department friends. That shit is rare because we never had any unity or interest in befriending anyone outside the circle we chose for ourselves. We were classmates, never friends, but that night, each of us felt that perhaps we should have let our guard off a little earlier. We realized that we missed out on some wonderful friendships solely because of our inhibitions. I have grown to treasure that night for several reasons - many of which revolve around a particular someone I have secretly admired for all my time at College. Going into the intricacies of this memory would make me answerable to a lot of people so I'd like my imagination to weave stories about this evening while choosing to censor it in this particular 2020 piece.
College Week ended on March 7th and the time between then to 18th is hazy in my head because it was barely significant academically. All I remember doing is packing my small Duffle and smallest trolley bag with the bare minimum belongings and leaving the hostel hastily because college was shut down until March 31st and everyone was instructed to head home ASAP. Now, I am someone who travels with a HUGE bag containing all semester books in it because I believe that motivation might kick in any day and I might finish the entire syllabus overnight with that kind of sporadic energy. But over a span of three years, when you constantly carry heavy luggage on your solo trips home (and the 'home' being 600 km away) only to realize later that the books weren’t needed in a leisure trip, and that motivation is hard to come, you kind of make a compromise and bring the tiniest bag possible. I'm just sad that I chose to apply this otherwise-sound logic in this particular trip home because I wasn't going back to Shillong for eight months after that.
A nationwide lockdown, online classes, online exams, no farewell, and no scope of ever saying goodbye to my friends and the city that has my heart was the last thing on my mind. But it happened anyway, and not just for me, for everybody in every part of the world. While I am grateful for this life, food on my table, good health, and the healing of the planet this pandemic has brought, I can't possibly overlook the damage the year has done to the people around me. I'll skip the figures or economic aspects of it, but the year had caused much harm to the wellbeing of a lot of people's mental health.
I for one, have always been a victim of my unpredictable mood swings. I almost hate myself for being me. And the lockdown just made it worse. I went from being cheered by my girl gang to being betrayed by the one closest to me, from being healthy to being an impulsive eater, from taking evening walks in the streets of Laitumkhrah to digging a hole in the mattress at home with my constant sitting, attending classes and writing. Life went haywire. While I was earning, I was spending even more, and I got no pocket money from my parents for sitting at home, which just made everything worse. But keeping aside these lows, there were my highs too. I finally started saving up for a mobile phone I needed for a long time now, I started helping with the house chores, I began buying things for the house, I got back all the time I missed with my mother. Life happened in patches while I remained 'locked in' till May. Gradually, the lockdown was lifted and life showed chances of reverting to its original state. Online shopping was reinstated which believe me, was a big relief to my aching heart. Going out for walks with a mask was normalized which increased my chances of meeting Bunny.
One day that tops the list of 'Nastiest Days of 2020' was most certainly my birthday. Nothing felt right that day. I was in my lowest lows and the deepest state of despair. With two months of cold war with my father over him being a chauvinist and me being a girl wanting to attain liberation from toxic masculinity, I was exhausted beyond what's explicable. Anyhow, after every fifth of June comes the sixth of August (just an over-dramatic way of mentioning Bunny’s birthday) and I had a lot of plans for the big day. I finally took on the seemingly taxing task of making a journal. Only, it wasn't for me, it was for him. I invested around 3-4 hours a day, every day, in planning the birthday gifts and that phase was really enjoyable. I was constructively engaged and nothing keeps a mind saner than creative pursuits.
With that done came the exam fear and I hastily got back to my ebooks and cliff notes for the most unconventional exam of my life. Online exams were our only window to graduation and as much as we hoped the protests for 'no exam for final semester students' would turn out in our favor, we knew they wouldn't. So studying was the only option I had and that's what I did. September-end saw me and my mother go to Guwahati after what seemed like an era. I had an entrance at Guwahati, after appearing for which, we planned to go to Shillong for the last time, to get all my luggage. It's funny how what's your 'room', 'space' and 'belongings' one day becomes plain emotionless 'luggage' the next day. What was my happy place till March was suddenly an unnecessary expense (room rent), that needed to be dealt with at the earliest to save some money.
Knowing how emotional I can get, I mentally warned myself to not spare a single second for contemplation while at Shillong. Because gazing at it's clear blue sky, or feeling the fresh breeze on my cheeks in the perennially cold city of Shillong would fill my heart with pain when it would be time to leave. I went, began packing, and in two hours of constantly putting things into my bags, I was done converting my 'happy place' into a 'seat' of a room at a PG in Lower Motinagar. The car was overloaded with my belongings - there was nothing I left behind in my hometown when I came to Shillong, I carried everything with me and hence this vast expanse of bags and boxes of stuff. The Shillong chapter ended this way and my heart still aches when I think of that day.
A week after getting home, my end-sem exams commenced. I tried as hard as my estranged-from-books-for-six-months heart let me study and gave the virtual exams. The months of October and November were all about evening dates and morning cycle rides with Bunny, spending time writing articles, and paying for that mobile phone I got myself. December was bound to be a happy month, for my elder sister was coming home after one-and-a-half years. The broken pieces of the family somehow find a way back to fit into the picture every once in a while and this was that time of the year for us. We took a trip to Kaziranga and she bought a lot of necessary stuff for the household. Being the sole earner gives her the power to materialize the dreams, wishes, and desires of the other four and that's exactly what she does. Life seemed wholesome with her around, I felt like I was reliving my pre-lockdown life.
At midnight of 31st December 2020, as I sat down with my laptop, desperately trying to reach my article deadline, I thought about this day a year ago. On this day, last year, I was on a bus to Kunti Betta sitting beside a stranger and talking to him about all sorts of things. I remember feeling grateful then for such an adventurous year-end and year-beginning and God was kind to bless me with the same feeling again in 2020. The year-end was unusual this time too. For years, I have not been a part of any festivities and suddenly this change felt overwhelming. I felt lucky that the mundane schedule of life before college wasn't repeating itself.
Looking back at the roller coaster ride that 2020 has been, I mostly see an abrupt end to my carefree life, cruel pangs of depression, frustration, heartbreaks, deaths of renowned figures, forests burning, floods, and everything else that accompanied COVID 19 but despite everything here, are my Top Twelve Words in 2020. I'm sure some (most) of them would resonate with your life as well!
September: Topsy Turvy
It has been an extremely unusual year and I'm sure we have all grown in some way and learned lessons that were needed. I have my list of lessons too, but I'll leave that for another day! Take care folks!
P.S. I know I'm not a great photographer (or subject of photography) but pictures capture emotions better than the words of an aspiring writer, hence the photo display!
