lightwritesstuff

[lightwritesstuff]

Different different but same

I recently shifted to a new apartment (which I do not pay for btw) because it’s closer to college. In all the years of my life I have never lived in an apartment in a building. I have always lived in a house. Hence there are some things here that I find very very strange. For example, the fact that since these many buildings are built very close to each other I can literally see what people are doing in their houses if I stand in the balcony. I can see what kinda clothes they wear based on the clothes they hang in their balcony after washing. I can see who does yoga in the morning and who starts their morning chores without even brushing. I can watch cricket matches on people’s television in the opposite building.

So one random night while I was standing in the balcony post dinner, I saw two guy friends talking and laughing with each other. I looked at that and yearned for a moment with my best friend which I couldn’t experience given that my exams were going to start very soon. I thought to myself how sad my life is, and how much I’d kill to be in their place. And that was it. I went to sleep.

A few days later, my parents and my brother came to meet me over the weekend. Our usual get togethers include chicken, non alcoholic beverages for us and an alcoholic beverage for my dad, masala paapad, fried fish, boiled eggs, all sorts of gossip about both mom and dad’s sides of the family, laughing till our stomach hurts and doing all this all night long. It’s more refreshing than a limca during peak winter afternoons after the daily annual sports day practice on the ground in scorching sun.

Later that night I took them to the same balcony in which I do an observational cohort study on people’s lives without their consent, to tell them how I assume my neighbours’ lives must be. I looked into the same apartment I saw the two guys laughing the other night. To no one’s surprise I saw one of them studying with a book in his lap. He looked very stressed just like I was a few days earlier.

That day I realised something. No one’s life is better than the other’s. No one’s happier than the other. We experience the same phases but at different points of time. If in this particular time frame I’m extremely stressed and overwhelmed but my neighbour is happily enjoying party in their living room, doesn’t mean their life is better than mine. It’s just that their exams started and got over before mine did.

This realisation made me wonder, what if the next time I’m sad I just call up my parents and have a conversation with them, will that transform my sad phase into a happy one? If I choose to be happy all the time, will that morph all my sad days into happy ones? What if I say, since I have a sea of syllabus to cover I’ll atleast enjoy the sunset while I’m there? Life will be worth living if we change our attitude instead, right?