Recently I was in a hospital, visiting an uncle who was sick. I don’t know why I went or why I felt the need to but I just did so I didn’t question it. I left with no agenda, only to keep him company. I hadn’t been inside a hospital in Mumbai for more than 5 years, so naturally, I was nervous. Hospitals are big, eerie spaces, one corridor leading to another, blue and white walls which reflect nothing but melancholy. It is a workplace for many but also a strange hell for others. Nobody is happy in a hospital. The liminality of this strangely monoscopic and painful place made my voice quiet and my hands clammy. Donning my surgical mask circa 2020, I ventured in. What stood out to me was the emptiness in a packed hospital. Even though it’s brimming with people, somehow, it’s still eerily empty and hollow. Nothing about the desks lined with people ready to see a never ending bill or a dirty lift that stops on each floor had anything to say. It was blank and mute. I said nothing and it said nothing back. The silver metal made me shiver and my confused expression got me where I had to go.Â
I’ve always been curious about liminal spaces and this experience pointed me in all directions towards liminality. What does it actually mean? Apparently, it indicates spaces that one passes through, it’s never the final destination, just something used in transit, in pursuit of being somewhere else, a temporary stop-over and a fleeting occurrence. But aren’t we all only passing?
I’m passing through life. Jumping from one trampoline to the next, excited for whether the next phase will be an obstacle course or a pretty meadow. Passing through is by no means strange or creepy, indeed it’s all life is. I will walk through and try to make little noise. I'll meet new people, however fleeting they might be, and hope they think of me 3 years later. I’ll whisper and tip toe, but make my footprint felt. I’ll pluck each leaf and rose I can, keeping them with me as a memento. I’ll wish the stray cats find a home and the man I passed on the street will find peace. I’ll touch each person that comes my way and make them touch me back. I’ll be felt, I'll be seen and I'll be heard. I’ll escape the liminality and exist in excess. I’ll throw cake and smother my face in whipped cream. Because is that not what life’s all about? I’d like to be known and I'd like to go to the temple. Wanting to be known by one and God. I’d like to know what you see when you see me, what do you think when you hear me? Do you perceive the cracks in my voice as sadness? Do you notice when I shift focus and my attention goes to the prettiest cloud instead of your eyes? Is it difficult to see that or do you?Â
Will I find my kindred in this liminality? Or will I have to make 100 phone calls and 20 trips back and forth to northern India to understand my heritage? Will the words unspoken ever make sense to me and will I ever be able to connect the dots?Devouring every crumb left behind for me by my mysterious kin. Will it get easier or is this the meaning? Work till you find it and then once you do it’s the end. I try to step foot on the bridge, each time being flung back but I'll keep trying because no matter how much I cry, the bridge doesn’t listen and the water below me doesn’t care. It’s daunting but it has to be done. And when the rain comes, will I hide and take shelter or will I brave it out? A comically large leaf above my head, my shirt red, emulating my very own Mowgli.Â
Apparently liminal spaces are when you're at the threshold, almost there but not there yet. A familiar feeling. Perhaps an airport best describes that. In the last 3 years, I have taken more flights than I ever have, which is great for my airline points, not as great for my swollen feet. In the last 2 years, most of the times I’ve taken a flight I feel a strong sense of dread. I start to cry, even if it’s not a full blown sob, I have shed a tear on most flights, leaving or coming back. Perhaps it is the overwhelming feeling of leaving lots behind or it’s something coming to an end; an experience, a relationship, a tenancy, multiple friends, a version of yourself. In hindsight, I look at it romantically. I wonder what a deeply feeling person I am, everything that goes through my head is felt through each pore and freckle in my body. In the moment that it’s happening, it is incredibly overwhelming and intense. Why am I crying? What do I have to be sad about? Not only does it feel foreign and weird, it also feels unnatural and extreme. Just go through the waves of life without feeling so much. And I think that’s where liminality comes in. Feeling is also a liminal space, there is no end or beginning to it, you are simply passing through. At that moment, it feels like it’s all you’ve ever felt and all you’ve ever been through but once you’ve taken off, it’s suddenly all in the past. The liminality of it is that the feeling is fleeting but at that time, it’s all that’s there. I think this is what I’ve been trying to say: every feeling is momentary yet wholly permanent.Â
How is an all-conscious and hyper aware young woman, with sweet brown eyes and gentle fingers supposed to exist in a simulacrum of never ending and self perpetuating madness and sadness? Does it get easier to feel your heart being ripped out of your chest or does it just stop happening? To see a heartbreaking sight and feeling a heavy smoke settle in your chest? Every sensation that happens to me, happens tenfold, I will experience it whether I want to or not. I will be aware of every single thing that happens to me, and ponder it five times over, making sure that I’ve understood and intellectualised it as much as I could have. But I am tired now. It would be nice to simply exist, moving through the motions. Perhaps this is the real liminality that I occupy?