It is what it is!

I used to not much like it. But still, it never was too frightening for me. I mean, it was ok if I had to live like that for a short-term. Not a big deal. Yes, short term. There should be a not-too-far, an end date. I equated it, a prolonged one, with a painful psychological torture which when undergone could lead me to madness. I mean, in that case, I would imagine me lying on my couch, scratching my ragged beard with no sleep to sleep or no thought to think. A swarm of water bottles and cans popping all over the carpet and that humiliating ‘Are you still watching?’ message on Netflix, when you look at the TV noticing that it's been silent for a while. Unappealing to say the least – isn’t it? By now you might have guessed probably, I am talking about solitude or staying alone.

However, having lived it for some time now without meeting my pre-condition of visible end-date, I have a changed perception. It doesn’t suck all together. I mean yes, it is not the ideal way to live probably because you are supposed to be a social animal, but it’s also not a beast you thought it to be. Not saying that those dreaded illustrations of conditions I imagined were completely false, and also not saying that there are some perks to it like some self-realization and self-determination (at least in my case). But there was one unconsidered factor which is significant, a truth, and has been there since time immemorial – it is your most practical trait of coming to terms with something; the realization of reality, when you lay down your arms and prepare to live with it. It is the human ability to sigh and concede and say – it is what it is! It is when you start your day with a new frame of reference and leave your bitterness and grudges behind.

..when solitude became my room partner, I first hated it as it wasn’t going out until further notice

Simply explained, it is the experience that mellows your resistance and makes you come down to earth. So, when solitude became my room partner, I first hated it as it wasn’t going out until further notice. I resisted coming face to face with it. But whenever I ended my last Teams call at 5 PM saying to a real person ‘see you tomorrow’, I would find it standing next to me. I would find it come and sit besides me on my bed, on those Saturday afternoons, when Twitter seemed deserted and screentime charts in my phone guilt-tripped me into keeping it one hand away. I would find it staring at me when I opened the door of my house after coming from a walk outside. All this with one question thrown at you – what will you do about me? Initially, my responses were frenzied, with the usual suspects – YouTube, OTTs, sleep, phone a friend, Twitter, more sleep. In my battle with it, the collateral damage was time of course.

But then time slowly persuaded me to go easy on it. If you cannot change something, you live with it until it changes you. Slowly, I reached to a point when I was not alarmed by it. I had a newfound acknowledgement, then respect and then gradually, a kind of liking towards it. With how it was going, I wouldn't be surprised if I fell in love with it, maybe someday. They say you can fall for solitude in your years of maturity. And by golly, sometimes I feel like somewhat being already there – in those years – for I think very highly of home cooked daal and rice nowadays, with my frozen stocks at all time high due to below average demand. The demands of maturity and conspiracy of my room partner made me take cooking along with other chores, seriously. Cooking is a necessary life skill. And that conversation between Yaksha and Yudhisthira on the same topic! These were the things that motivated me to DIY and gradually be a regular, par-life cook as opposed to the one who had a few skirmishes (like - hey look, I cooked a different kinda maggi !) Being a considerably good cook now, one night I was heating some oil in a cooking pot, when I was making dinner for me. I added some freshly chopped onion into it. The onion resisted as if it did not want to be with the hot oil. There was this incessant sizzling, popping and cracking as hot oil was slowly kicking out all the water in the onion away in the form of bubbles of steam. And soon the sizzling stopped as onion changed itself into its softer self with all its water gone. It had conceded its defeat in the battle and decided to live with it .. its sautéed look, as if, was saying - it is what it is!