Perks of Leaving Your Hometown Behind

RODALI BARUAH

Moving away from home, to a new city has almost always been associated with nostalgia and a longing grief. Relocation, adjustments, familiarisation. A lot of work, truly. When my turn came to move to a stranger land for my higher studies, I was skeptical too. How do I cope up with an environment so entirely different from our Assam, which is the epitome of warmth and comfort? I found my answers soon. This isn’t a tale of moving to a new city and missing home. No, that’s not it.

I read a quote somewhere that a hometown is never kind to its women. It was one of the most relatable things of the few years of my life I have lived (Blink). Back in my hometown, I breathed but how much did I live. No question mark. I won’t go into the complexities of being a girl in a society like ours. What I’d like to discuss is the “good girl” tag and how much it becomes a blinding cage.

It’s strange how being a good girl is inevitably being linked to silent obedience, polite acceptance, and infinite patience to tolerate injustice thrown at you; because, well, you are a good girl. A society monitors a good girl’s every step like their lives depend on it. Pardon me to say that I would rather live an anonymous identity, than bear the burden of being a socially acceptable numb persona. The choice was not mine to make, and I was dragged into the goodness and the virtues. Unfortunate. That jail still scares me, not that I am completely free from it.

Half of my life, people have interpreted my silence to be my weakness, fear, or just the lack of confidence. While I do not boast of a lot of confidence, my insides have never been silent. They have always been burning with a desire to thwart the bars of Do’s and Don’ts that I was (using the past tense because no one cages me now, I took that right back) surrounded with.

Perhaps the greatest joy for an underconfident person is when they finally find their voice and start raising it for themselves and for the people they love. I did too. I will never forget the calm and peace I felt after I finally spoke out against, let’s term it vaguely, oppressive forces. Let’s keep it vague, people. I do not want to unleash another hellfire.

Let’s return to the topic. Moving to a new city. The decision stemmed entirely out of a striking need to prove myself to everyone that demeaned me, and that included Myself. I needed to prove to me that I was worth all the dreams I dreamt, all the kindness I carried, all the love that I emanated. So when I secured a seat in the University of Delhi, I packed my bags and said my adieus. Allow me to thank my parents here, who were as anxious as me to send me away from my hometown because they have seen what it does to its women. They had seen what it did to me. Very Lucky in that aspect.

So Delhi welcomes me with its historical monuments, food, pollution, books, and people as puzzling as its streets. I venture with reserved arms, the city pulls me in. And in a new city, a heart learns to breathe, to live. Did I mention how relieving it is when you start noticing all the little things again?

How beautiful it is to fall in love with a sienna sky, to dance in the terrace in the middle of the night with similar hearts that have fought and left their demons behind? How does one articulate the feelings of finally embracing one’s dreams, with a completeness that was unreachable until now?

Somehow in the labyrinthine streets of old Delhi I see that my shackles fall off, no prying eyes try to gather who I am talking to, my actions remain undistorted. I am free to walk here with myself, to laugh and to cry over things that broke me, to pick myself piece by piece and put myself together in my own terms and not theirs. A lingering freedom now pushes me to become better and better and better, to be so kind and spread so much love and learn so many things that my heart tends to overflow.

Rodali Baruah is a student of Delhi University

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