The Strangeness of Comfort

I’ve been sick for a few days now, possibly just one of those things that knocks you out for a while. I haven’t really had the chance to slow down enough to know. The last two days, especially, I’ve felt completely beat. Like I’ve been to war and somehow still have emails to answer.

This is usually the season when everyone seems to be sick with either the flu or Covid, and this time, I haven’t really given myself enough rest to feel better.

I work through the weekdays, and weekends are usually the only time I completely switch off. Saturdays are also our cleaning days, although we’ve been putting off a proper clean for months because life has been particularly hectic.

This Saturday, I woke up feeling exceptionally exhausted. And I still do. But I decided to push through anyway.

Clean the house. Water the plants. Dust the fans. Rearrange the wardrobe. Eat lunch. Then, finally, do absolutely nothing.

I usually love the middle of the afternoon and the early evenings at home. When the sun gets a little duller and the house feels quieter, I pick up something hot to drink. It’s been a few years since I quit my evening coffee. I switched to herbal tea. It was difficult at first, but eventually, I grew into it.

So there I was, cleaning the house, feeling completely exhausted, when I realised there was music blasting somewhere outside.

It had probably been going on for a while. Normally, I would have been irritated. I was tired, sick and already dealing with a week's worth of mess. But this time, I just stood there and listened.

The previous day had been Varalakshmi Nombu, and I live right next to an Amman temple. For the last five years, around this time, and during other festivals, I’ve heard loud music coming from there.

Initially, I hated it.

It was loud and relentless. There was always someone shouting into a microphone, invoking Lakshmi or Amman, and I remember thinking, how does anyone live with this?

And now?

It’s just part of the sounds of my everyday life.

It made me think about how many people must have been there, celebrating their tiruvizha, doing something that probably feels completely ordinary and familiar to them.

And I realised that sometimes, you just have to let things be what they are.

Because one day, when they change, you’ll know.

We watch things change all the time. Streets. Schools. Houses. People. The little routines that we never thought twice about.

Some changes make us nostalgic. Some are probably better left as memories.

But I think I’m learning to let things exist exactly as they are, because I don’t know what I’ll miss when I no longer have them.

For years, I’ve had this vision of moving somewhere quiet. A little house in the hills. Trees, silence, maybe a garden. Somewhere far away from traffic and people and the constant hum of the city.

But when I lived in my parents’ house, I never appreciated it quite as much as I do now.

The early morning coffee in the garden.

Opening the door and seeing my dad watering the plants.

Or finding him shaving while looking into a tiny mirror tied to the window with a brown rope, even though there were perfectly good, much larger mirrors inside the house.

Some habits never change.

And sometimes, it’s those little things you miss the most.

I miss being woken up early in the morning by our dogs.

I miss my dad walking all the way upstairs to give me my coffee and biscuits.

I miss my mom screaming at me to get my laundry done.

I miss my grandparents having completely random banter with each other.

You know, it takes just one change to completely alter the equation.

But that change is also temporary.

You become a slightly different version of yourself, and you learn to define home differently.

I miss the quietness of an independent house.

I miss the chaos of a joint family.

I miss everything about that place.

And now, I live in the exact opposite.

An apartment connected to a market on one side and a dead end on the other. There’s traffic, school bells, vendors, dogs, people shouting across balconies, and sometimes, the temple music that I once found unbearable.

There’s a strange mix of chaos and silence.

It took me a while to get used to a smaller space, apartment living, and all the people around me.

But I love it now too.

I love the convenience. I love living next to a market where I can get fresh produce. I love that there’s a school right opposite my house, even though it makes absolutely no difference to my life.

For years, my husband and I have talked about retiring somewhere quiet. A small town. A house we build from scratch. A slower life. Silence.

And maybe we will.

But who knows?

Maybe one day, I’ll miss this Amman temple.

Maybe I’ll miss the sound of people unloading vegetables from trucks.

Maybe I’ll miss the smell of fresh vegetables mixed with the not-so-fresh ones.

Maybe I’ll miss the playful dogs that seem to belong to every vegetable shop.

Maybe I’ll even miss the noise.

Maybe I’ll miss all of it.

And perhaps that’s what home really is.

Not necessarily the place you want to stay forever, but the collection of ordinary things you don’t realise you’ve grown attached to until they’re gone.

So, for now, I think I’ll let the music play.

I’ll water my plants, make my tea, listen to the sounds outside my window and let this little apartment be exactly what it is.

Because someday, this would be a distant memory. :)