The Quest(ions)

Another piece I recently wrote for my Writers Group where the topic was Quest.

It had been 9 months since I had quit working and 5 months since I had moved back from New York City. Here I was sitting literally at the edge of a cliff in Himachal Pradesh, wondering what life had in store for me next. Not for a moment was I worried or concerned - the emotion I felt mostly was ‘excitement’.

The Big Apple was actually the beginning of my quest. On a lark and without giving it much thought, I turned in my notice at a job in Bangalore that was not just paying me extremely well, it was convenient and relatively less demanding than my previous positions. Making a lot of money had stopped being of interest to me for a while.  ‘Convenient’ and ‘undemanding’ translated to boring and a waste of my time. Having just lost my last surviving parent, being single and responsibility free, it was time to make a change, get out of the rat race and experience a life that I never had time for. 

I turned down a senior management, high paying job that was first offered to me in New York. They couldn’t understand why I wanted a pay cut and a lower position when I didn’t have to take one. I tried explaining to them that I wanted a balanced life, a job that would allow me to have time to build a relationship with the city. If I had to spend my life at airports and inside buildings or on conference calls, I was better off in Bangalore. They continued to look puzzled and I could almost read their minds which said “who turns down more money you idiot”. 

Outside my apartment building in New York

The eighteen months in New York City were life changing for me. I moved into a one-bedroom apartment by Central Park and within a week it had everything new, from the largest piece of furniture to dessert spoons. Anybody walking into that apartment would find it hard to believe that I had just moved from India. I had never fallen in love with a city until then. A city that gave me the option to do as much as I wanted. I became a member of a Journalists Association, which organized events with authors, big names in media, folks in the movie industry among others. I attended film festivals and workshops conducted by famous Hollywood directors, went to concerts, the Opera, dance performances, watched shows on Broadway, off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway. I took culinary lessons, ate street food as well as ate at the snootiest restaurants. I celebrated Thanksgiving, Christmas, Diwali, Cinco de Mayo, St. Patricks Day, Easter, Halloween, you name it. I watched the US Open, NFL and NBA games at the stadiums, threw a Super Bowl party and celebrated on the streets when the Giants won. I probably did more in that year and a half than most people do in a decade. 

While I wasn’t quite sure what I was searching for, I also knew that it was time to move on to look for something else. A purpose for the rest of my life? Possibly!

The cottage in the clouds in Himachal where I spent a few months

So I did the cliched thing and decided to spend some time in the foothills of the Himalayas. Thanks to the generosity of a friend, I had a cottage to myself at the edge of a cliff. Once there was a huge storm and I was certain that the pre-fabricated home I was in was going to be blown away and I wouldn’t have to worry about a quest any longer. However, that didn’t happen so while I was there I enjoyed a variety of seasons, I made an effort to teach the local kids English, I read, I wrote some short stories that are still sitting in my old Macbook, I travelled some and trekked a lot. What I didn’t do was meditate, which may be the reason that I didn’t get any answers. But then I wasn’t even sure what my questions were any longer, since I was in such a happy place.

One of the homes in Navadarshanam

Recently I caught up with a relatively old friend and we went over to this place called Navadarshanam to spend the weekend. In all the years that I’ve known her, I’ve never seen her so happy. It was as if she had found herself, living a vegan sustainable lifestyle in a little community, planting vegetables, playing with the newborn calf, making chappatis in the communal kitchen and singing bhajans at night, she was completely in her element. Her school kid like excitement was infectious and I was so happy that she had made this discovery.

My friend Uma with Gauri the calf in Navadarshanam

As much as I loved spending my weekend there, I was happy to be home. A while ago I gave up ‘questing’ because I realized that I already had what people quest for. It was my life and the answers had come to me during the course of my adapting to not having a routine, not earning a salary and not conforming to a ‘normal’ lifestyle. 

Never in my life have I had as much as I do now.