Leaving Katihar this time felt different.
One and a half months at home has a way of slowing you down, softening you in ways you don’t notice until you’re packing your bags again. Life there runs at a pace that doesn’t demand anything from you. Mornings begin with familiar sounds, evenings end with familiar faces, and time doesn’t feel like something you’re constantly running out of.
Shared meals, small conversations, routine arguments, unspoken care — nothing extraordinary, yet everything that matters. These moments don’t announce their importance while they’re happening. You realize their weight only when you’re about to leave them behind again.
Living in Katihar for this long makes relationships feel fuller. Conversations stretch without urgency. Meals are shared without hurry. There is a sense of being present, of belonging without effort. Somewhere along the way, this slow rhythm starts feeling normal — comforting, even necessary. And when you stay long enough, you forget that this calm is temporary.
Then comes the day of leaving.
Packing feels heavier this time. Every folded piece of clothing carries a pause, a hesitation. You realize you’re not just leaving a place — you’re stepping away from a version of life that allowed you to breathe freely. Katihar may not offer convenience, but it offers something rarer: time with people who matter, without distractions.
The hardest part isn’t the goodbye itself. It’s the promises that come with it. We’ll call every day. We’ll talk regularly. In that moment, the intention is genuine. You believe it. You want to hold on to the closeness, even as distance grows.
But life in Bangalore doesn’t allow slowness.
Work takes over. Days blur into each other. Calls get postponed. Conversations shrink. What was daily becomes weekly, then occasional — not because love fades, but because life gets loud. And that realization carries guilt.
Coming back to Bangalore — my karma bhoomi — brings its own weight. This city has given me work, identity, independence, and purpose. It has shaped who I am. But it also asks a lot in return: speed, ambition, deadlines, and distance. You return knowing that life will switch back to schedules and responsibilities, while home continues without you, patiently.
The hardest part isn’t the distance itself, but the feeling that time is moving differently in two places at once. Here, days rush by. There, days quietly pass. And you are always choosing which rhythm to live in.
As the flight moves away, there is no drama, no tears — just a familiar heaviness. The kind that sits quietly in the chest. You promise yourself you’ll come back soon, to call more often. You promise not to let work consume everything. Some promises you keep. Some you try to.
Back in Bangalore now, unpacking not just bags but emotions. Carrying the calm of Katihar into the noise of this city. Carrying my parents’ presence into days where I will mostly be on my own again.
Maybe this is what growing up really looks like — learning how to belong to two worlds at once, and knowing that each departure takes a small piece of you with it.
