ab aeterno

I look at the calendar, and realize that it's very nearly been a full year since the last time I was in India and the last time I stayed in that hallowed home of mine that bears the memories of many of the most important events of my life within its poorly waterproofed walls - e.g. being introduced to Slam Dunk, Bleach, and fan fiction. In all seriousness, it feels a teeny bit like having crossed the boundary of the observable universe, and realizing that any attempts at getting back in touch with the way things used to be are doomed to fail before they've begun.

If I did go back now, what would I see? Dried lawn with a hole where a tree had once been. Empty garage. Photographs hanging over the bed in which grandparents once slept. Rooms without furniture. Basketball hoop without a net.

And if I gave it a decade or more? What used to be a quiet street creeping past the driveway, winding between ancient rocks and gnarled trees with a polite unobtrusiveness, and coming to rest at the edge of a vast tranquil moor, will have been transformed into a thundering four-or-five-lane road with trucks and cars and motorbikes barreling obscenely down it, accompanied by an endless stream of honking. What a transformation that would be.

Things in India seem to be changing at a rate far exceeding what is seen in the U. S. (at least in some key regions), where the neighborhood we lived in in the 90s is exactly the same today as it was then, where commercialism has managed to adopt the staid and solemn appearance of being permanent.