The beauty of the constant in Nostalgia

Nostalgia is a beautiful feeling and there’s a lot of emotion associated with it.

You usually look back at the past with fond memories associated with less intertwined and complicated lives than today.

The past doesn’t necessarily need to be great. We tend to believe that things were always better in the past and associate the past with positive emotions.

Childhood photos or photos of younger days are a perfect example of this. There’s a sense of innocence linked with them and a feeling that things were perfect in the past.

Even the negativity of the past is usually played down and often written off as immaturity associated with the younger versions of our present selves. After all, you can’t do anything about the ill feelings you nurtured ages ago.

On the contrary, the present often comes with the anxiety and pressure of having to do something rather than enjoying the moment or the real-time experience of doing it.

Similarly, the future is always associated with uncertainty. While you hope for the best to happen in the future, you are always worried about things not working for you.

Nostalgia comes with no such baggage. If it wasn’t good, brooding over it now doesn’t make you feel any better. If it’s good, It’s often looked at with fondness and a feeling of craving that it is no longer there.

I am writing about nostalgia since I visited the Hitech city in Hyderabad yesterday and it had changed so much. I moved out of Hyderabad in November 2013 and haven’t had the chance to spend time in this part of the city which is where a lot of development has happened in the last decade.

Durgam cheruvu is perhaps the most prominent change that has happened in the Hitech city area in the last decade. In the initial days, it was so unknown that was called the Secret Lake.

When offices started coming up, it was often a less crowded route for vehicles and a post-work walking road for us freshers who were just getting used to corporate life.

We even used to click photos back then, but it was more of a secluded space and nowhere close to the must-see place in Hyderabad that you see right now. Durgam cheruvu is now a popular movie shooting destination and I often look at it with disbelief and happiness when I see it in movies.

Durgam cheruvu for me is like the idealistic future that you desire and crave in the initial days of your career only to disappear in search of greener pastures and not experience it when it’s ready.

What triggered me into writing this post is however not Durgam cheruvu. It’s the JVP building that you see in the picture above (a very casual one that I clicked from the car).

I was hired by Kanbay (now acquired by Capgemini) in my 4th year in 2004 and it was my first job. The JVP building was where we worked back then, and I was overwhelmed by a strong sense of nostalgia when we drove past it yesterday.

It reminded me of my FLP (Fresher Learning Program) days, the calls with an on-site coordinator in the middle of the night trying to fix a program that aborted, working in the office running batches at night ordering biryani or Pizza, the evening walks talking to colleagues on the mobile phone, planning and organizing the annual day parties at work and a lot more.

What’s amazing about the JVP building is that it’s perhaps the only thing that has remained constant in the entire space where everything else has changed so much.

Its distinct colours – Yellow and blue always made it easy for people to find it but, remarkably, the owner has chosen to paint it with the same colour for almost 20 years now.

It’s as if the JVP building is lazing in a bean bag without any bother and nonchalantly telling the rest of the Hitech city that it’s special and unique the way it is without needing to change or modernize like the rest of them.

There’s something very interesting with things, people and places that don’t change along with the times and remain the way they are. It’s like Mohammad Shami bowling test match lengths in the recent World Cup without bowling slower balls or other variations of the T20 era and still emerging as the best bowler of the tournament.

Nostalgia around a place is beautiful but perhaps what’s more beautiful are elements from the past that remain the same and transport you back to the times when they were a part of your daily lives. I feel change is overhyped and the constant is underrated. With Nostalgia, change is usually the norm but what remains constant when you look back with fondness is very special.

The JVP building is one such thing that transported me to the happy times of my first job. And I am sure that I am not the only one feeling it right now!