The heart wants what it wants!

Being an anxious introvert, it takes me time to break the walls and be my authentic true self around people. It tends to get even harder if you are a major over-thinker, and an emotionally intense person. So, unless it is with someone that I am completely comfortable with, my source of solace has always been books, movies, and songs. I have always been a movie buff, so much so that most of the times I think and act like the stories and the characters. To be able to escape any time into someone else’s story, to the see the world and things from their perspective is nothing short than a blessing.

Countless times I have caught myself thinking about going to Varanasi to sit by the beautiful Ghaats, not only because of the serenity of the place, but also to feel the sense of calm Piku and Rana must have felt when they spent time there, just sitting silently. I don’t enjoy road trips much because of the motion sickness I get on those serpentine roads, which is kind of a huge bummer. I can and will only endure this uncomfortable feeling if I am with the people that I am comfortable with. But I still have road trips on my travel bucket list after watching and absolutely falling in love with the movie Karwaan. I don’t know if it even makes sense, but of all the places to visit in Tamil Nadu, the one place that I want to visit the most is the Mahabalipuram Shore Temple. I am sure I will end up crying there listening to Ullam Paadum Paadal song and thinking about how after all the struggles, Krish and Ananya made it at last. I want to visit the Golden Temple, not only to pray, but also because it was there that Taani realised she had found her rab in Surinder. I am obsessed with NewYork City (who isn’t, right!) mostly because I want to see all the places Ted Mosby and his gang loved to go to, for all the lessons and fun F.R.I.E.N.D.S have there. And this is just the beginning. I have a long list of places and stuff to do which is inspired by my favourite movies and characters. Sounds corny I know, maybe nonsensical, but hey, the heart wants what it wants.

My so-called self-declared cool English vocabulary is mostly built by the new words I hear in movies. The first time I accepted this publicly was when I was busy being myself with “my person” and we unintentionally confessed about how we both learned to use the word “spooky” in normal conversations from watching Harry Potter and the Chamber Of Secrets. Wow! How easy, underrated and at the same time rare to just be yourself with certain people is, without any fear of being judged. It helps so much to know the kind of person someone is based on the books they read, or the movies they enjoy. But to get over that same one person who shares the same wavelength as you (and of course, love) is painfully hard. One of the many things I hate about this feeling is that the stupid movie buff in me wants to travel to all these places with that one person only, the one who is no longer mine.

We think we know ourselves but hearing someone’s perception of you that is so different from your own hits differently. In a similar way, we think that we have healed from something or someone until it hits back, even when you think you are over it. So now, my long travel bucket list has the same places, only the reasons to tick them off the list have multiplied. Apart from the “filmy” reasons, I now also want to go to these places (or “our places” as the romantic in us would have called them) to feel the way it would have felt if we went there together. Now, Delhi is not just Delhi from Delhi-6 or from Love Aaj Kal’s chor bazaari song, but it is now the Delhi (your favourite city) that we were going to explore together.

Maybe it sucks for others to see us pining for those who have already gone, but hey, sometimes the heart wants what it wants, no matter how stupid it sounds and looks, and there is nothing you can do about it.