Memoirs of Stockholm

I write this after almost 3 months of returning from Stockholm. It is not easy to put into words more than 3 years worth of memories. I am bound to miss a lot of instances, gloss over many details and not convey my feelings to the fullest in this short piece of writing. 

Happy thoughts just flock my head as I start thinking about Stockholm, the place where I fully understood the meaning of ‘absolute independence’. It is a two-edged knife, this independence, thanks I had someone at every corner to point me towards a sane direction. It was a wonderful experience to be the captain of my soul and master of my thoughts. 

From pulling all-nighters for projects to preparations for exams and lab sessions, to collaborating with classmates on reports, a wave of sudden emotion sweeps over me as I think of how much I miss those memorable days. 

Autumn leaves, amateur cooking, Swedish TV, kitchen-sharing, fencing, parties, sensor-manufacturing, salsa, Helsinki cruise, Aurora, Arctic trip, Geneva for CERN, cricket on frozen lakes, Munich, Salzburg, Amsterdam, mugging, night spent in telephone booth, missing Stockholm, inter-country road and rail trips in mainland Europe, Greek guardian angels, A1 hostel, Erasmus parties, autobahn drives, scaling Germany’s highest peak, Harry Potter, souvenirs from Lord’s, Munich times, SLR cameras, Olympic stadiums, archery lessons, thesis, Oktoberfest, birthday in midair, near-coma, surgery, super-speaker, Sherlock, tango classes, magazine cover, VaPiano dinner, couchsurfing, Australians, Vasteras, Valborg, friends, Mom visit, movie marathons, Copenhagen, concerts, composing music, midnight walks, long talks, lake visits, job applications, visa appeal, thesis defense, legal defense, kickboxing, James Bond dinner, that one all-night Skype chat, chai-chats with corridor mates, music performances, Injra bread, TV shows, loneliness, piano lessons, Diwali, more friends, hummus, international dinners, snow fights, poker games, coffee shops, ice cream pubs, city hall graduation, more hummus, bedbugs, Carnatic music lessons, Nobel museum, Russian paganism, photo walks, all the more hummus and finally, an eerie sadness that creeps into my heart when I try to recollect anything remotely associated to my life in Sweden…

Five years ago, if someone had said I’d experience just one of the above, I’d have laughed at the notion. But here I am today, summarizing and bragging about, ‘Been there, done that !’, pretty sure that I’ve missed mentioning a lot more, and realizing it is going to take way too numerous and longer posts to properly mention about the people who made these memories special.

Blessed I was to have had those moments, to still have those people in my life and blessed am I to have these memories to cherish forever. To capture them in the mind’s eye and store them in the heart, my precious memories...