August, 31st

Call them radiant

Call them mother’s eyes

Home’s a narrow space for me to find

Your beguiling state in endless heights

I’m just not moving right

Just not moving right when it’s just not you

The last day of summer is ending. It’s getting cold at nights.

Herds of students are scurrying about near the university I was working on my thesis in.

The Sun lazily beams from the clouded sky.

Eleven years ago I was elated to be among a crowd like this.

Do the people I was with back then matter now? No.

Well, do the people I was with even as recently as three years ago matter now? No.

Threads are torn.

I am halfway into the twenty-ninth year of my life. In less than two years, I will have turned 30. Acceptance of certain things in life never comes easy.

I got hitched in April, four days after I turned 28. I’ve been watching a lot of my friends being busy tying the knot right after. Never thought I would be the first among our circle, yet here I am. The circle. I feel that these bonds are stretching and, perhaps, will have also become irrelevant. Way sooner than we may be thinking.

At this moment, I don’t want to be thinking about what may lie ahead, the shithole the world is turning into et cetera. I am just harking back on my life.

Autumn. It’s always autumn. Yet another academical year commences. I dress up, hop on the bus, go to uni, hop on the bus, go to the private school I was teaching kids chemistry at. The lessons are over, and it’s getting darker and colder. I wrap myself tighter in my coat and light up a handrolled cigarette, and the vanilla-flavoured whiffs drift in the damp air. I listen to some English podcast or BBC Radio 4. I bump into my friend from another uni. He’s earned some money and wants to drink it all away. I’m in. The bar is inundated with students like us. When we finish the fifth round of drinks, we go outside and hail a cab. Next morning, I’m not having a hangover. I hastily write an essay for the forthcoming English lesson and go outside.

These small pieces seemed so trivial and insignificant as they were unfolding. No, I have not missed out on anything. Just the nostalgia painting my past in bright colours.

Memories. When I am pipe and slippers and rocking chair, that’s gonna be all I have got.