A Decisive visit to ever busy Delhi offered her a path and an ambition for future whereas stay in serene and scenic Andhra taught her to live in the present. Nisha Aggarwal shares how the journeys complemented each other and touched her life.
Life itself is a journey, perhaps, so many journeys put together. However some journeys are unplanned. They just happen, exactly the same way crucial decisions are taken in life. There is a difference between leisurely journeys and the decisive ones. Decisive journeys could change your life and transform you into a new, shining and elevated self. I cannot ever forget the month of May, 2004 when I travelled to Delhi from Sri Ganganagar, Rajasthan along with my parents and younger brother. On that summer afternoon, I was confronting a new world. Vacuous eyes of the fellow passengers were still watching me. The rhythm of steel created by the wheels of the Intercity Express resonated the rhythm of my heart that was anxiously beating at the expectation of the unknown.
As a child I had always imagined a life in a metro. It was a ‘long lived’ imagination because it was my third trip to Delhi. The earlier visits were, one during my summer vacation after my senior secondary examination in 2001, and afterwards during some family occasion in 2003, but both were to my uncle’s house, who has been in living in Delhi for a long time. These visits had evoked a desire in me; to live in this city for long to know a bit deeper than its glittering skin.
The holidays that I had spent at my uncle’s home began with a morning drive to the local attractions that included ‘nariyal pani’, chaat and at times a sumptuous breakfast at some restaurants. Lazy afternoons were spent in watching movies in home theatre and the engrossing evenings were earmarked for visiting India Gate, Birla Temple, Lotus Temple and some multiplexes or shopping malls. At night the city roads revealed a different scenario before us, the children. I realized that in this city I could pursue my creative life which I was not able to do in Rajasthan. I used to spend a lot of time in completing my cousin’s holiday art assignments and projects which brought prizes and appreciation. Whereas I didn’t have much to do in the name of art at school level apart from some self initiated competitions by my classmates.
Now, I come back to my third travel to Delhi after my graduation in 2004 from Rajasthan, which I call decisive because it was not merely a ‘visit’ instead it was a permanent shift along with the family. It was decisive at the same time critical. Life transforms, as I mentioned elsewhere, when confronted with critical moments. It gives you a new shell to hide or flaunt yourself. But destroying the old could cause a little panic.
Shedding the old shell for me, thanks to Delhi, was easier. Two years I spent wandering around doing various jobs; starting with dress designing and stitching for a boutique, computer teaching and later on dialing unknown numbers in CA’s office, in a passport consultancy, in a call centre and in a bank’s loan department etc. I was experiencing a ‘new’ Delhi and looking at the lives of the middle class, their aspirations, snobbishness, meanness and desires. I floated above a sea of human beings at the workplaces and never had someone to be claimed as my ‘friend’. It was now time for me to make friends. And once the friends were made, I was seeing the glamorous side of the city too. May be that time glamour for me was merely observing the style statements of the girls passing through Delhi’s roads or learning the basics of how to walk and how to talk.
Outer changes cannot bring the necessary internal transmutation. It needs a plumbing of your soul and I found art as the best route to transmute. In 2006, against my family’s wishes, I decided to become a fine art student. My transformation was slow in the initial days but steady. The severity of the college campus became serene once frivolousness gave way to philosophical discussions. High heels were replaced by Kolhapuri chappals, trendy tops went hiding at the arrival cotton salwar-kurtas, shame burnt my cheeks when I saw my pop-music collection and it took no time to replace them with serious sounding gazals. Trendy joints became a thing of past and their absences were filled by wayside tea stalls.
Poetry oozed out when friends gathered. We did not care the scornful as well as curious looks of the people when we were sketching from the sidewalks of the busy roads. We were small rebels in the making and first of its expression was avoiding family functions; a first rebellion against the system. All this felt real because we were thinking ourselves as ‘artists’ and artists were supposed to be like that. But tricky were the youthful ways that whenever it was needed we did not show any qualm to claim those abandoned customs and habits back. That was the magic of being an artist. Shining colors showed us the flickering innocence, white was satisfying our youthful passions, pitch black stood for depression caused by nothingness and the occasional glances of dull hues heralded an impending maturity. Going back to bright colors made the circle complete expressing the need for energy and courage.
Years in Delhi taught me to deal with life. Two years in campus taught me to deal with conspiracies and strategies. Metro coaches and Delhi Transport Corporation buses gave me quick lessons in dealing with strangers. Days and nights were showing the trails on which my life as an independent artist was impatient to walk.
Complimenting my shift to Delhi came my posting in Andhra Pradesh, this time as a teacher. From a student to a teacher of many students, the shift was abrupt and unexpected. But things happen for good, an optimist in me says always. I had visited South earlier. Coconut fronds gave away the feeling of a green blanket. Sky was like scattered blue in the middle of predominant green. Night silhouetted the landscape like a ghost in flight. Rain came and went unannounced. I had some stereotypical images about South India and Andhra Pradesh confirmed them. However, I never experienced the grace and peace of nature before either in Rajasthan or in Delhi, as first one had dried open sky with parched roads and the second was somber gray patched sky peeping through the craggy balconies.
Ambience of habitation influences the inner self, the way rain evokes music in you. A single blaring of a motor horn could shatter the glass wall of peace. The general pace of a city could infuse speed in your otherwise slow heels. Craving for future might make you lose your present. Ambitions can puncture the inner equilibrium. I have learned to live in peace by creating a balance between ambition and peace.
Looking back, I always ask this question; had it not been the shift to Delhi what could have come to my life? Petals of my inner soul then fold in gratitude before my parents for facilitating that crucial shift. Delhi gave me a reason to live and Andhra Pradesh, a vision. Yet, it is not the end. I would conclude this piece with a few lines from Robert Frost:
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
