I left Shillong during the lockdown, on 18 March 2020, to be precise. I had a close inner circle there comprising four girls and we called ourselves SAGA - the letters representing each of our intials. And as you'd have guessed, I'm the G in SAGA. So, SAGA never got a chance to officially bid farewell to one another back in 2020. Fortunately, three of us are originally from the same town and our fourth precious leg, though a resident of Guwahati, manages to keep well-connected with the group virtually. Thus, graduation wasn't really the end of this friendship. Some bonds are meant to last a lifetime and I earnestly believe that this is one such bond that I'll continue to cherish and maintain till I'm old and gray.
Over the last four years of navigating adulthood and our personal struggles, SAGA has silently harboured a wish to reunite in the place that brought us together in the first place - Shillong. We did have a brief reunion in 2023 during my sister's wedding but that barely did justice to the mammoth of memories we had to reminisce from the three best years of our lives spent in each other's blissful company. A reunion was long due and our sincere wish to revisit the old lanes of sweet Shillong turned real in the last weekend of April 2024.
Once again, the four of us started early in the morning from Guwahati to Shillong and the 2-hour morning drive was just right to send us all back to nostalgia land. There was laughing and trolling, singing and dancing, exploring and eating, crying and drinking, and just everything else in between. While I fondly cherish my time with my girls and do so quite a lot in isolation, my reconnection with the city deserves a special ode. So, my beloved Shillong, this is a letter addressed to you:
I remember feeling profound grief in the initial months of the lockdown when I had to suddenly adjust to the fact that I'd never be 20 again or walk energetically through the hills of Shillong again. In recollection, the life of penury and eyes full of dreams from 6-7 years ago somehow feel soul-satisfying. Struggles have always felt sweet and smooth in recollection. Nostalgia is often about revisiting the select memories the mind subconsciously yet mindfully decides to keep in agreement with the heart's fondness for them. I too, only have a memory of my poetic and happy times in the city, barely any memories of the struggles that defined my life here.
We were to stay at the PWD Assam Rest House at Barik Point which was incidentally also my place of stay during my first-ever visit to Shillong for the St. Edmund's College English Entrance test back in 2017. Over the 3 years that I stayed in the city, I never really got a chance to revisit this guesthouse and entering it again this Saturday morning in 2024 brought back all the memories....of how I had come here with my father, with dreams of becoming more knowledgeable, of making my parents proud, of learning to live alone, of struggling alone. Seven years later, almost everything dreamt of back then is a reality, the only longing now is to go back in time and tell the younger unsure self to calm down and trust the process.
Like I always say, my connection with Shillong is like those we have with our first boyfriends or girlfriends. It shows you've grown, and it always helps you go back in time and enjoy the fleeting moments of childhood. Shillong is my first love in terms of cities. I could revisit the Cathedral, Laitumkhrah market, Don Bosco Square, Jeeves', and Lady Hydari Park. During this brief weekend trip, I got a chance to recall and treasure all those times when I had walked on these streets. A lot keeps happening in life every day and my memory isn't that efficient in long-term storage. A lot of the overwhelming emotions that make Shillong the love of my life have faded in colour (in my mind's memory album) over the last 4 years, but the blurred images are there still.
While I felt grateful for the privilege of returning to the old lanes, I also felt a strong disconnect with the city this time. And I think that could happen to any place over time. A city feels different when you live there and when you just visit there. No matter how many times I go to Shillong now, it'll never be the same again. And somewhere I feel that the awareness that I don't have a room to my name there makes a lot of the difference. But I guess it's also wrong to expect that one can hold on to the memories forever. We gotta let things go when it's their time to go, how else will the next big thing get a chance to enter our lives, right!?
So, to sum up, revisiting old lanes with old friends felt divine. I look forward to more such trips and hope that life brings me an opportunity to fulfill my dream of living and working in Shillong!