Because it's always been Delhi

The house is always crazy loud this time of the year, because our relatives come home for Diwali with their sons, who’re my brother’s age, and the three of them can’t be calm or quiet. This year, I’m extra sentimental. Because I’m leaving. It happened. The thing I’d been praying for for 18 months finally happened and I couldn’t take the time to write about it here.

Last month, two days before leaving for a trip to the hills with a friend, I applied for a job. It was a Delhi job, but for some reason I repressed that information and didn’t dwell on it. I applied because I’d been ignoring vacancies and saying that I was having too much fun in my sabbatical to end it so soon. I applied because I wanted to know my value in the job market. I applied without first understanding if I wanted it. All I knew was that I was wanted them to want me. So two days before I left, I applied, told barely three people about it, interviewed on the phone, and pulled an all-nighter to take their copy test. I sent it the morning I left for Delhi to take a bus to Manali and then forgot about it.

Until six hours later, when, unexpectedly, while I was still in Delhi, I got the call. They liked my writing. They wanted me to start ASAP. They wanted to negotiate salary and talk contracts. I couldn’t breathe. What was happening? Was I going back to Delhi? Was I going to take the job? It was then that I realized that there was never any other option. I’d always wanted this - not the job as much as the city. By chanting Delhi like a mantra and refusing to let go over the last year-and-a-half, I’d somehow made it happen.

That day, still in Delhi, I talked to my parents about returning. About moving out again. There were so many things to consider. My health, my doctors, my diet, my life. To give them credit, my parents were surprisingly chill about it. They never said no, not for a minute. They were just discussing logistics. How much money? When do I join? By the time I took that bus for Manali, seven hours after the call, I’d negotiated the salary and told them I needed 24 hours to get back to them with a joining date. The next day in beautiful but boring Kasol, with everyone high around us all the time, I made the call. Yes, I’d love to work with them. Yes, I want the job. Yes, I’ll join in the last week of November. I hung up and came back to the table where my friend was drinking beer, and we hugged for one whole minute. That night, she made me try red wine. To celebrate, she said, because you’re fucking coming back. Was that what was happening? I wasn’t leaving home, I was just coming back.

The next night in cold Manali, stoned and stupid with laughter, I called up my (kinda) boyfriend. I was worried about his reaction for many reasons, but he was only happy I was coming back. I messaged a couple of friends that I was moving back, I told them about the job. I got excited phone calls in return, where I tried very hard to conceal the fact that I was high for the first time in my life.

I was happy, my friend was happy, but I banned us from talking about the job until I got the contract in my email four days later. She focussed on my boyfriend instead. What was happening? What were we doing? Will we get our heads out of our asses now that we weren’t going to be long distance anymore? We discussed everything endlessly, and came up with theories that were bizarre but fun. We kept trying to look for reasons to talk to the two Dutch men who were staying across the hall from us. When they asked us about the hot springs, we were giggling so hard we couldn’t answer properly.

We took long walks and sat by the river and ate trout and prawns in every café that we went to. We kept trying to click pictures of each other that would be worthy of putting up on Facebook. We talked about her legit boyfriend and our jobs and bosses and friends and everything. We hadn’t spent this much time with each other since we lived together in Delhi and I was so relieved that we didn’t get on each other’s nerves despite spending a whole week together.

I returned from Manali just in time to participate in my zumba group’s flash mob and go clubbing with them on Halloween as Supergirl, my last-ditch effort at a costume. That night, as we posed for pictures and danced till 2am (I’m surprised my parents didn’t kick me out when I came home), I realized that I had a class eighth type crush on one of the boys in my class. I don’t even care if nothing happens, I just get crazy happy every time he so much as looks at me. I started hanging out with this group often and then told them that I was leaving.

I also started the process of telling all my friends, who are all very happy with the development but also very surprised that the sabbatical is ending unexpectedly soon. I also had a few difficult conversations about this job with a couple of people, who can keep their opinions to themselves.

Now, I’m supposed to be packing and house hunting, because I move in less than two weeks, but I can’t seem to get anything done. I have moved quite a bit in the last few years. First from Jaipur to Delhi, then thrice within Delhi and then finally back to Jaipur. Now, after 18 months of talking about going back without ever actually believing that I would, I’m moving back to Delhi, to the reality of living alone which is far from the fantasy I’ve been reliving in my mind for so long.

Everyone’s asking me how I’m feeling. I’m very happy but I’m also very scared. What if, along with losing my freedom when I came back to Jaipur, I also lost the ability to live alone? I might be on a truce with myself, but I'm still superstitious.