From the memoir: Journalist Lalita Iyer writes of the joys of ‘aloneness’

I used to love being a host. Setting the table, choosing the right colour palette, flowers, planning the menu, the sequence in which I would serve things, the music I would play. But maybe I loved the part after people left even more. Somewhere beneath all that activation energy, a quieter part of me always longed for silence.

The man I was married to loved having people over and when they came, they either drank so much that they didn’t eat the food (did I mention he specialised in cocktails?) or they never left.

Soon, I got tired of the man and the people. In the rest of my life as a single mom, hosting took on another dimension with play dates, sleepovers, birthday parties, and whatnot – all so that an only child could turn out to be socially well adjusted and have “friends”. I could not wait for this to be over. When my son turned 10, I announced I would not be hosting any more birthday parties and that was that. In the next two years, I also donated our Christmas tree and lights so that there was no room for temptation.

I now find even the idea of having people over tiring. So I have learned to specialise in being the guest. I get invited to homes for lunches and teas in the hill town I now live in; since I come from a different world, having worked in media, written books etc, they find me interesting and exotic and want to hear my stories. I show up, knowing full well that I will not be returning the favour, not because I am a recluse (which I allowed myself to believe I was for a while, but it is a lie) but because I have learned over the years to lower the bar for myself and also listen to that little voice that says I don’t have to do anything just because someone else is doing it.

I come alive with people. I always bring interesting gifts – a dip, some sourdough bread I baked, home-made lemon marmalade, or peanut butter, or fabric doilies, or just my stories. They always have me back. My mother calls me “an interesting item”. But I am interested in people too.

As far back as the working women’s hostel days of my 20s, I remember having a trunk-full of things that I imagined would eventually make my home – coasters and ceramic cats I had picked up on my travels, a sunflower tablecloth, pottery from here and there, curios, a red tea pot, a spoon rest, an egg cup (I did not even eat eggs). They were all carefully wrapped in fabric and tissue, hoping to be released one day. My friends teased me that if there was ever a fire in the hostel, my trunk was too bulky to escape with. I smiled. I was too much in love with the idea of a home, even though I wasn’t quite clear who to make it with.

As a child, I used to lie to my friends in school that I lived in a house with many rooms and that my mother had to yell to get us all to the dinner table (we were a five-person household crammed into a one-bedroom apartment at the time; there was no room for a dinner table, we ate on the floor). Since I never invited anyone home from school, I assumed I would never be caught, until I was. During the long summer break after grade 10, my best friend from school decided to surprise me one day. She had found out our high school exam results before they were officially announced and I had topped. When she arrived, my mother opened the door and the three of us (my siblings and I) were sleeping on the floor after an afternoon meal. I woke up, embarrassed and exposed. She never brought it up. I still remember the many meals I had been party to on her dining table, when her mother dressed up immaculately in a chiffon saree (my mother never wore chiffon), her hair all coiffed up in a stylish bun. She wore bright red lipstick all the time, and always had serviettes on her table.

At Dave and Dixie’s high tea last week, there was a pot of English tea, scones with clotted cream and fresh strawberry jam, savoury muffins, cucumber sandwiches, a quiche, cookies. The roses on the serviettes matched those on the teapot. The spoon rest was in the same rosy colour palette. I was reminded of my trunk.

When I moved to my home in the hills, a friend gifted me a set of serviettes from Pottery Barn in a summery print featuring lemons, sprigs, and blossoms. “I imagine you will be hosting a lot, now that you have a house with a garden.”

Every time I looked at them, I was reminded of something I was not doing: Being a host.

And then I wondered, do I really care about the placement of spoons and forks? Or whether my serviettes match the cutlery, or are themed for the season or the occasion? Does it matter to me if anyone other than me has tasted my honey and mustard dressing with perry vinegar? Or that I have mastered the art of warm salads in winter? Or that I have figured how to use cauliflower and beans and shallots in a salad? Do I need any more validation that I am a good host or that I keep a good home from everyone, even the ones who have good homes kept for them?

And on the occasion that such a homeowner (who is getting her sixth bedroom done) ever says, “I would love to have you over, it’s just that I don’t have help right now,” all she means is that the lady who dusts her collection of teapots from all over the world is absent from work today.

I can’t believe that I – a total city worm who has spent most of her life in matchbox apartments where often, the kitchen has sliding doors merely because there is no space to open the door in or out, or where dining tables (even beds) often slide back into the wall to convert it into a place where people can be seated by the day – am even in the company of such people and such homes. Because what else is there to do at 7000 feet other than be house or garden proud? Because it is no longer the case of moving to the mountains to write a book (that is a very expensive proposition).

My career as a guest is going pretty well, I must say. The best part of being a guest is you can leave when you want. The worst part of being a host is that sometimes, people take forever to leave. And this is one of the reasons I switched from host to permanent guest mode.

Because, much as I like people, I can’t wait for them to leave. Even my own people. Sometimes when my son goes away for a field trip or an exchange program, I rejoice. I wonder if I will break into dance the day he finally flies the nest.

Aloneness suits me. I often crave the wholeness of being alone.

The opposite of loneliness is not company. It is aloneness.

Excerpted with permission from Aging (Un)Gracefully, Lalita Iyer, Simon and Schuster India.