Yellow Hues – An Ode

 I’ve been home for almost 3 years now (wow that’s a lot of home), except for a few months in Delhi now and then. I have always hated small towns like the one I live in – they are too crowded; everybody knows everybody and there is an absolute lack of privacy. Also, people gossip a lot- news here travels faster than the BBC morning broadcast. Imagine a Hollywood movie’s portrayal of the Middle-East – a sepia/yellow filter, dust all around, dilapidated buildings and noisy streets, with some form of “exotic” background music playing. That is always how I imagine small towns like mine – with a permanent yellow filter on my eyes.

Being here these past years have made me realize how sheltered I have been all my life – it was only in 2020 that I started going around the town and interacting with people other than my school friends. I also recently started going to the gym. All these years of stress-eating, PCOS and horrible body issues culminated in this impulsive decision. It will be a welcome addition to the list of projects I hastily started but abandoned in the middle, making me feel guilty everytime I go by that area of town.

Small, uneventful towns like ours live through its small pockets. Until I started going to the gym I did not think there was a life that began before 9 am in town (I knew people went to the gym, but I had not considered that it would build up to be its own small community). I've begun to understand how many different pockets contribute to the town's overall character now that I am a member of this one. It is not entirely a lifeless, yellow-hued dusty town after all. It is the same feeling when I discovered “Beelor paar” here in 2020. It was the first time in years I had been at home for longer than a month and discovering the place made me realize the yellow hues did have mysteries within.

Here’s a poem about small towns by Mamang Dai, a poet I dearly, dearly love <3

I relocated here from a nearby village, when it still resembled a village rather than a town (it is still a glorified village to be very honest). I have seen the town grow with me. I talk like an 80-year-old, but I really feel old. There are no familiar faces of teachers in school anymore, and every time I drive past serves as a brutal reminder that it has been 8 years since I left that place. One of my seniors in school is a teacher there. Tell me, how do I NOT feel old?

I digress. One of the best things to have happened to me in these two(three?) years is reconnecting with school friends. I moved out at 16, and have never been home for more than two months at a time, and my introverted self never reached out to anyone when I came home for holidays. This self-induced loneliness led to an unhealthy dependence on cousins, something which took me a good deal of time to get past. A handful of us has now formed a group where we have sleepovers like 8-year-olds. It is the most precious and wonderful thing ever.

Also if you’re interested, here is a list of the most romantic small towns in Europe <3

Finally, I have started feeling at home in this dreadful place. I'm not sure if this is due to lethargy or comfort, or some other unhealthy indulgence. It took me 11 years to get acclimated to the sense of home, largely because I never had my own space in the house, or pocket in the city, or because I left the house only 2 years after we moved in, but the feeling of home has finally sunk in. Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s the company. Whatever it is, I am grateful. 

Unrelated, but here is a song that has been my entire childhood, and is the primary thing I associate my father with