Three different cities, five different schools, four different houses. Transitions have always been a normal part of my life. Everyone, in one way or the other goes through changes, be they drastic or subtle. Things I’ve personally learnt from these transitions is that the human mind has a very remarkable trick up its sleeves, due to which we are able to thrive even through the troughs that we face during these changes. It is the ability of the brain to re-map the new surroundings in accordance to the past ones, whether it be faces of new people, new places, and so on, there is ALWAYS something that’s about them that makes our brain go ‘ding!’ subconsciously. Especially when it comes to new faces or traits of people, you will always co relate them with the quirks or features of someone you know/knew well in the pre-transition period. And in this way the people who you believe to have left you or vice versa, always make themselves manifest in other people, whether it be through their voice, facial features, nature, likes dislikes, hobbies, etc.

You may find the same to be true with places, the smell or the way a place is lit up, the sounds, the manner in which it makes you tingle or that fuzzy feeling that it conjures from within may definitely remind you of a somewhere where the same took place, that converts this village, town, hill station, residency into that same old place in your head in a small but apparent way.

Going back to the people’s scenario, I always like think of how often I tend to find my Nana Abbu, who passed way years back, in so many other individuals, seeing someone walk a certain way or stoop a certain way or a specific way of clothing makes a tiny voice at the back of my head go “that’s Nana Abbu”

The same goes with my friends from previous places, I always manage to find them in my new friends, though I remain physically disconnected yet still, they manage to make themselves manifest, only to remain morphing and shifting from one to another.

And to me, this is the wisdom of transitions, they never technically, actually happen, and that is beautiful.

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