I remember a conversation I had with a friend several decades ago. He told me that people need “apnapan” and he then remarked that the English language doesn’t have an equivalent word for the same. My underdeveloped mind at that stage thought well “intimacy’ comes rather close to apnapan, but he is right, intimacy feels like naked excitement where you think your darkest secrets are secure with another human being. But apnapan has no enthusiasm, it doesn’t set your pulse racing the word “intimacy’ does. Apnapan feels like an old blanket, it is extremely useful but hardly exciting.
In my life, I have been chasing intimacy over apnapan, so I have failed to grasp the importance of sustaining relationships. As soon as the intimacy evaporated, I was bored and wanted to move on. This is true for my work also. I like the excitement of the news.
The last time I felt ‘apnapan’ was being around my Dad. It felt like I was just a fly on the wall who was accepted around him. He didn’t want me out of the house. In all other relationships, I feel I am an object or in some cases a prop. I am supposed to perform a function in that person’s life and then leave as soon as that function is done.
I feel I don’t fit anywhere, I don’t belong anywhere. I feel I am suspended in a crowded space called Mumbai with no one to call my own or make me feel their own.
I feel, there is another problem. Psychologically having spent so much time alone, I have become undistinguishable from the place where I used to belong (my roots). I cannot be now bracketed, in that “category”. People have trouble categorising me, people feel like they want to accept me, then they feel there is something about this guy, they cannot figure out. I feel no one can outgrow their roots, eg, If I am from Mumbai, from a middle-class upbringing, it would take decades of education and building a well-maintained facade to pretend that I am from New York or otherwise Bhiwandi. I have stayed in small towns for a decade in my 20s, Jalgaon and Ratnagiri, I felt, I couldn’t fit in there, A Mumbaikar can only feel at home in Mumbai. It feels to me that the city is more welcoming to me than the people in it. No wonder, I would just roam around, Sobo or Bandra and get lost exploring the city for days on end.
Mel Robbin a best-selling author says that we cannot make friends after the age of 20’s because everyone after 20 who comes into our life is of a different stock. For eg: Before the age of 20, most of our friends were almost the same age group, before the age of 20, we most of the time we spend with people of the same age group. After the age of 20, the time we spend most is at work where people are from diverse age groups and backgrounds. I agree with her, as it does feel like the talk between two men after the age of 20 is about competition between them.
I am not sure if I can distill the essence of “apnapan”, but at the end of this post, I feel, it is perhaps possible only till innocence lasts, before the age of 20’s. Maybe at this same age for men, women come into their lives, and instead of forming friendship bonds, men get enticed into (s) exciting intimacy bonds.
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