An Affair to Remember….

It is funny how random chats sometimes open up an entire treasure chest of memories. Memories you thought you had relived enough and were now meant to be ‘kept in the past’.

Not very surprisingly then, that when a friend and I were chatting and the name Brighton popped up, I struggled with the memories for a bit. ‘That phase in your life was 7 years ago,’ a voice within me whispered. ‘An entire lifetime ago’, the voice persisted. ‘It is time to let go.’ Just as I was about to engage in a battle with the self, a message popped up on my phone. “It’s time you visit soon”…a sentence so casually uttered, and yet enough to break down the dam of nostalgia so carefully guarded until now.

Pune. A place where I was ‘born and brought up’. Quite simply put, unlike my parents who moved through various cities before ultimately settling in this city, I have lived the definition of stability. I never even moved house, let alone change streets and cities. So when I got selected to be a part of a Youth Cultural Exchange, travelling across a continent seemed to be quite the task! But a new house, city and country welcomed me with open arms and pretty soon, that place became a home too.

Back to my hometown after a short stint away, it wasn’t a few more years later when I was faced with the ordeal of having to move away again. I say ‘ordeal’ because at that moment, it sure felt so. I was leaving house to study abroad. A year away from everyone, right down to the comforts of the house I had always lived in. Leaving behind the city whose nooks and crannies stored so many of my memories. However would a new city be able to keep me happy?

Determined to not like the new place well enough, I landed on the English ground and made my way to a small seaside town – Brighton. Its first glimpse threw me off – guard. An unending expanse of bright blue sea, highlighted against a pebble beach. I smiled despite my misgivings. ‘It couldn’t be that bad’, I reasoned with myself and set off through the town that would be housing me for the next 12 months.

Pune is a place I was born to love, quite literally. It was mine, I didn’t need to prove myself to it. But with Brighton, it wasn’t quite so easy. The city hated me some days, it hurt me some nights, it mocked me on the gloomy grey days and it tickled a laugh out of me on those long summer nights. It made me sigh with loneliness when the soft summer breeze played with my curls. It made me cry out loud against the backdrop of the unruly waves. And yet, the soft lull of the very same waves calmed me down eventually and the smooth shiny pebbles made me want to dance gleefully upon them.

Brighton was like a love affair; a city that I dangerously flirted with. Knowing that I was handing over my heart to it, allowing it to wreak havoc. And yet also aware of the fact that it would safeguard my love, for now and the years to come….

The years did pass though, and here I am tonight, thinking of how the city looks and feels tonight. Does it twinkle in my absence and do the waves whisper my name? Or has it simply changed in its loyalties and treats me like one of its exes?

It’s this feeling that scares me off from going back once again. For I fear what it might be to explore those familiar paths with eyes that have seen a little more of the world ever since. I wonder whether those sea gulls still hover around, stealing people’s bagels. In my mind, the picture is crystal clear, a place of my dreams, awaiting my arrival.

And yet, in my heart, there is a hesitant flutter….unsure of how the city would receive me now. The last time I stepped on to its ground, I wasn’t sure of how the affair would unfold. The next time that I do, I know I shall with a set of expectations in my mind.

So do I really want to visit it again? I dream of it often, reliving those moments of walking through its Laines. I wake up ever so often, hoping against hope that it wasn’t just a dream. Perhaps it is time….to visit Brighton soon.

To turn this dream into reality. Because what are dreams, if not meant to be fulfilled?