You know – every crowded place has this section. They don’t put a noun behind it. Just adjectives – lost and found. For it keeps a track of lost and found things and people.

It is specially interesting to observe that places of worship with a lot of belief, have elaborate lost and found sections. Albeit, only literally. Not figuratively.

For thousands throng those floors and doors – but they only go to the lost and found section for their shoes or kids, never for their souls. That’s not what temples are for. Probably.

Dakshineshwar, Calcutta – is my all time favorite. I just love that place. It is not just a tranquil place but a deposit box of memories for me. And every time that I have been there, I have found myself more at peace by the ghats than while at the line for Deity Darshan. The divine feels more around on the solitary banks of the mighty Ganges than the hustling, bustling, jostling line for the temple.

Come to Banaras (Varanasi). I have found myself more on Shiva while sitting on Assi Ghat, than I have inside the Kashi Vishwanath Temple. I am not saying darshan is not great. But the true meaning of Darshan is to realize the divine in you. How will that happen when you are being kicked from all sides inside the Bihari temple in Vrindavan, that too if you choose to go there during Holi 🙂

You know – we are the biggest lost and found items on earth. If you go into flashback and rewind mode you can count – the number of times you have lost yourself and found yourself. Sometimes the alleyways are huge and it takes times to come out. But you invariably, mostly do.

My campus did that to me. I see most people coming here and losing themselves. The environment does that to you – the parts of you that you were pretty sure you will never lose – you do. But if you try hard enough, they also come back to you. For this place has a lot of silence – within the lot of noise that is there on the surface. It takes away, but it gives back a better version of you – if you give yourself an opportunity.

Guess – life is the same. A series of lost and founds. Every time you lose something of yourself, you realize the parts that you can do away with and should do away with. And every time you find yourself – it should be a slightly better version – a good repair work that you do on yourself.

But I think what’s really important is – to not lose it twice in the same dingy by-lane of life. Not twice. Once is enough. Why be stupid enough to get lose twice on the same road?? And the question is – where do you find yourself really? Where is that lost and found section of life?

It is inside you only. When you look for answers all around but you don’t find them – you know the last place is where you will find it. And it is within your stupid little soul only 🙂 … It always tells you deep down – whenever your detours are not right. But you shut it up. For you want to enjoy the detour, even though you know it will later bring you misery only.

Amidst all that chaos inside, deep below there is silence. And that is where the ‘found’ part is.

Guess what I am trying to say is – no matter how crowded a place you lose yourself into – you will find yourself only in silence. And it is the quietest inside you 🙂