Travel worries

Tomorrow the Diwali weekend starts. Most of college has already left for vacation or is getting ready for it. Once again, I am not going anywhere. This time it is partly due to laziness and partly to the fact that I am out of cash. Another factor that was not factored in till the last moment was the holiday that college would declare on the only working day in-between.

View from the college terrace

So, like all good journalism students that can't stay away from our computers in case the no-email genie will get us, we too thought that we will be here. Actually we had planned a trip to Kodaikanal but health, low finances (at least on my side) and improper planning played the villain.
Staying in the city seems boring but I guess I will do that now that everyone I know has decided to give up and go their separate ways. We decided to go to Pondichery for a day trip keeping in mind that everyone has other commitments and now one by one people have decided that since the company isn't right, they can back out. For someone who has given their word to another, backing out of the plan is not an option for me now.
It amuses me to know that solitude is an expensive commodity. When you want it badly, it seems farthest from you but when left alone it becomes unbearable after a while. That's the thing that scares me the most in this city. I know exactly two or three people outside of my college mates. I don't want to spend any more time with them but unless I run away to some far away place, they are everywhere. The language too I find confusing (not for the lack of trying though). So I am going to be spending all my time with friends from college.
A festival is the worst time to be alone as nearly everyone else has returned home, leaving my hostel bare except for a few who cannot afford the trip home or are disallowed to leave the city.
I hate being stuck here! Vacations may not be a big thing for me but back home I would be able to visit friends who I may have been unable to meet on other occasions. I am going to miss that. Hopefully they will miss my irritating presence too.
What I will also miss is my sense of personal space. Out of options to go anywhere thanks to the crowds I may end up living in the city with just a day trip thrown in for relief. Chennai may be a big city but it is not kind to people from different cultures. Or maybe I haven't been to those places that are. I some how always compare my days as a student in Chennai to my one week of vacation where I did a lot of roaming around, saw places and enjoyed the stay.
This sense of helpless loneliness would not have happened in Mumbai. I would have been able to hold my own, curl up in bed with a good book, eat cake and rest. I would not have to find excuses to go out. Here I am bound by a million obligations that leave my wanting for personal space.

I miss my home.