I was born in Gorakhpur, brought up by the Internet. As a kid, school was my first home. However, once I left it, I didn’t go back for five whole years, until recently.

It was comforting to go back to the familiarity: the teachers, the staff, the buildings, the sun rising from the East. I was finally able to see my name shining on the “Toppers Board” against the year 2018. That’s what I graduated High School. I do not support the first-second-third system – it can be heartbreaking. However, I value my name on that board for one and one reason only: for 6 months of my life that I prepared for my Grade 10 exams, I did not do anything but that. Eating-breathing-worshipping NCERTS, studying 12hrs/day, doing EVERYTHING it needed me to do with just one goal in mind – I will score the highest in this country. That was me then. Today, I am embarrassed of this goal. But I am insanely proud of the fact that I gave it everything I had in me.

This is not the point. I tend to digress A LOT.

The point is this: EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE AT SCHOOL REMAINED THE SAME.

From when I joined Hallmark in 2008 to 2023 today – 15 whole years – this place and it’s people have not changed. And yes it is warm and wholesome like a true Hallmark movie but also weirdly scary? Acche Lal Bhaiya – he does the bell ringing and the duster cleaning and practically keeps the school running – was there my first day of school. He carried my schoolbag from the bus and guided me to the classroom. Sure, he was brawny, unmarried and had no grey hair then, but he was there. He was also there this time – serving guests tea and carrying registers from office to office, just leaner and married with two kids. The primary school caretaker who would buckle my belt when I’d go pee – Asha Didi – was still there. My closest teachers, who have each switched between multiple subjects, had changed in appearance, but they were still there. Meanwhile, I have built lives, found friends and left 2-3 different cities. I might have even changed as a person over 20 times.

I almost felt bad for them. Why are they stuck in the same old lives for the last 15 years, and happily so? Don’t they crave change? Don’t they think life gets better than this? Are they happy or have they settled for this? Somewhere in the middle of this out-of-line pity party, I figured why it made me uncomfortable: Because I started putting myself in their shoes. Because I wanted them to look at life from my lens. Because I was scared of the day I would “settle down” somewhere.

But I owe them an apology for this thought. I don’t know their lives, their priorities, their responsibilities – I have been a mere outsider. I come from a place of EXTREME privilege when I say that I want a life that never settles, that I always want to be choosing new adventures, that I want every day to look different. For me, it could a very rational possibility. Maybe for them, it is the worst way of living life. Or maybe not.

But I learnt that feeling bad for someone or finding someone else’s way of living not right just because I won’t live that way is bratty. So while I am really scared to ever be stuck in the same place, feel complacent, spend 15 years going to the same old building, I will be an idiot to feel that about anyone else.

Until next time,

AK.