Rahul Bhandare

Abstract

2  

Rahul Bhandare

Abstract

All the lonely people

All the lonely people

2 mins
78


It was another day at the hostel and I again felt those same doubts creep in as lunch hour approached. As the feeling came, I tried to crush it, ignore it, and run from it. But there was the question as clear as ever in my mind – Who would I be sitting with during my lunch?

I realise that it sounds so simple. Silly even. Why should I be so nervous about fitting in during a simple lunch break? But somehow ever since I had left engineering behind and begun my PG course in advertising, I felt these tremors of anxiety and insecurity.

Looking at the people around me who were from a much more privileged background, I felt that they all seemed so confident in themselves.


What am I doing here? Do I fit in? Do they like me?

These were some of the things quite regularly creeping through my head.

To be able to even look at this anxiety again took a lot of time. This meant that I had to notice the many ways in which I was unknowingly seeking approval.

But at the heart of this struggle there was also something important. The thing is, no matter how much we may think of ourselves as independent individuals, we do still need people. We do need friends, family, and colleagues around us. The crisis seems to be that all these relationships have become strained. So we are forced to rely on ourselves.


As the pandemic restrictions ease out, more and more people may now be returning to some form of a social life. Maybe it’s going to become clearer that we didn’t like things the way they used to be.

Yet people do find a way.


Getting through my PG course, I went on to meet people from different walks of life. We worked together, we shared a bond and yeah, even many meals where a lot of my earlier anxiety wasn’t around.


But more worryingly, it seems like we don’t know how to fix this on a collective level. And with a world that seems even more divided and lost, we must think hard. Where do we go from here?



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