In 2013 I had walked anxiously around in South Delhi by my old neighborhood and didn't see anything recognizable. There was always this
belief that I could always visit my old places and they would be there, untouched – it was an illusion. Not a molecule of it was there to
connect to – it was erased by progress. Standing there under a pall of melancholy an inexplicable longing had welled up in me that only a
Marcel Proust or a Giuseppe Lampedusa could have understood. The illusion I had for decades had simply evaporated. Only faint grainy
mental videos played out as I stared at the emptiness. And as I stood there a tall middle-aged gentleman had approached me and asked me
who I was, and if I was OK. It was only when I was invited and having tea in his living room did I realize who he was – an old neighbor I
had played with, a lifer there. He never recognized me, and I had left it at that and moved on. People do not react the way we expect them to.
We can be poles in our sentiments. Progress with time is a poisonous recipe for nostalgia. We are better served by those ancient Buddhist
precepts of non-attachment, dis-association and transience, which is the only anesthetic against such futile expectations of our internal
atmosphere – but then who can afford to be an ascetic?
