Thank you, Prateek

There was a time, when I thought writing was what made me happiest. Because writing was what made me travel, ticketless and helped me live with the highest degree of intensity.

I would write the word ‘writing’ in my semi-dark, one-window room of the hostel and felt there was light around me. In to the darkness I would feel a day had started to dawn. I would write and then slowly started travelling out of my room, into the terrace, then would be on my way to the hills of North east, the little village that those hills guard – the village where I could still smell of the lemon flower,
still see a rainbow after every downpour,
still see the toothless smile of the old Santhal man who came everyday to catch black eel in the soft mud of our drying pond,
still felt the shivering of a dragon fly in my hand…

Then it all stopped. I stopped writing. I took on to existing. I smiled at those I knew, talked, to those I always been talking to, worked, shopped, read and travelled, for specific reason.
And I existed. For months.

Then I got your message. You asked me why was I not writing any more? And I wondered, ‘why indeed?’

And so here I am. Coming back to write. To travel. To breathe out all that I had been holding all this while. I am coming back to live. And I thank you for that. Welcome back to my world, once more, my friend!