Whenever I think about my Calicut days, the first emotion I remember is just emptiness. I wish I could word it better. In a city as kind as that, it might just be a me issue.
This may very well be a diary entry of a girl with a sheltered upbringing — and I know there are people out there like me. So, full transparency, here are my pre-sales credentials: a driver whenever I wanted to go out, never taken a flight alone, never Uber-ed, never lived alone, never done my own laundry. Little did 20-year-old Maanya know, all of that was about to change. I’ve spoken a lot about everything sales taught me, but there’s a bigger chunk that Calicut taught me. And oh boy, was it a rollercoaster.
The thrill of independence wears out in about a day. And all you’re left with is a huge, eerily silent hotel room. Long showers became therapeutic, and Blinkit became my best friend. I started rewarding myself with a Diet Coke at the end of a rough day, and even today the can takes me straight back to the tiny kirana store below my hotel where I always got it. There was a fish market nearby, and I swear there’s still a tinge of that seafood smell in the can. Pavlov and my 12th-grade psychology teacher would be proud.
I love joking that Calicut was payback for not engaging enough with Malayali culture back in college — because little did I know, Onam was so much bigger than white sarees and good food. The dancing and festivities felt all too similar to Diwali back home. The entire sales team got the week off, deservedly so, but that just meant sitting in my sad little hotel room staring at the fairy lights outside (cue: the scene in friends that has Chandler staring out his window at the rain because home’s not home without Joey).
Here’s a fun story. Some context, my hotel elevators were painfully slow- I’d gotten used to it. But once, I bumped into a guest at reception who was clearly in a rush for the airport. The elevator doors opened and he went, “This one’s too slow,” warning me — in Hindi. I smiled at him. It wasn’t intentional. Just a sentence in my mother tongue, in a city that never spoke it, made me cry in the lift. I hadn’t heard it in two months. I know this is a rite of passage, and it truly does get better with time, but home is home. “Castle on the Hill” by Ed Sheeran will always make me want to cry, and every golden retriever will still make me want to book a flight back.
I know for a fact that my 21st year was when I learnt the most. But it’s also the year I broke down the most. And in between those moments, I quietly grew up.
