jhala-ka-jhola

[jhala-ka-jhola]

Changes.

People say - The only constant is change. But the ones with hope say that there are always exceptions and that somethings never change. I have always been one of the ones with hope.

When I came back to Nathdwara after 8 years of being on the run, I didn’t remember much of it. But with each and every barefoot step that I took, I had a core memory get irritated in my brain, the same way a cathartic sneeze irritates your nose. But something was different this time. Everything seemed the same on paper, the roads led to the same alleys they used to, the shops sold the same items they always did and Moti Mahal stood as tall as it forever will. But no, something was amiss, and my feet were the first to understand as we came closer to the mandir-

The soft sand, that used to coddle my pink feet now tested their toughness through the fiery and stony roads and the cold and uncomfortable tiles.  Then it was the eyes, the shop with the cool fridge that always had heaps of glass bottles of Amul Kool milk, now only had the plastic ones. Devastating blow to the 11 year old in me. The chaat on the street wasn’t as spicy, the old Dining hall we always used to go to was now a shell of itself. Everything seemed smaller and much more easier to navigate. Alright, fair enough.. the last part is just me growing up.

However, the one part I counted on to not change was the rush and the fight to do the darshan. I would’ve said that even if every single thing on Earth changed, the one thing that’d remain constant would be the crowd in Shreenathji. And in a way, that’s true. But this time we took those tickets to do Darshan upfront and bypass all the wild crowd. It took the same time of impatient waiting, but the wild fighting was not there. We had changed.

As always, dad took his sweet time to do darshan, and as expected, the pandits started smacking him with the cloth and asking him to move. But just before the first smack landed on dad, the Darsh that would stand next to him and urge him to finish quickly and move along - grabbed the pandit’s wrist and looked confidently but humbly in his eyes and him to be patient. Darsh had also changed.

So there I was, in the eye of the hopeless storm of change, with Nathdwara standing as a metaphor for all the big things in my life - the people, the relationships, the cities, the comfort places, the homes. I understand how change is a part of life and growth and it needs change to make things better, but it’s making me take stock of all the important people and relationships I have in life now and hoping that our time never comes, that I patiently outwait the storm and come out with enough exceptions to calm my cold and scared self. After all, its the lack of hope that comes and gets us.

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