“It is unmistakable”, I thought to myself cycling to the newspaper stand in the little railway town, having forgotten to wear my woolen cap, I looked up towards the source of all energy on this planet – “The warmth, there can be no doubt. The winter is receding. The sun is making a comeback.”
In college, we all waited for that elusive “academic comeback”, semester after semester, which didn’t come for many of us, but we did fine (mostly). One of the most hilarious brand of memes I have seen is the famous picture from the scene of Geeta Updesh from Mahabharat. The picture of Lord Krishna with Arjun, with something so ludicrous written on it that one can’t help but chuckle. In one such (meme) photo, the lord answered the question for us: “Parth, comeback is just a myth”.
So today, as we step from the old year to the new, we must examine – Is comeback just a myth?
To begin with, I want to return to our sun. In a world so full of periodic rhythm – the seasons, the tides, the festivals that repeat after decades, day and nights – the linearity of time feels almost misplaced. An anomaly, a bug. An ending is inevitably accompanied by a beginning.
Perhaps that is why we have had so much trouble comprehending our own mortality. In most cultures, death is not seen as the end. This is most evident in the Vedas, where the time itself is cyclic, kaal chakra. Cycles of birth and death, creation and destruction, succeeding each other indefinitely. In ancient Greece and Egyptian cultures, we see this idea in Ouroborus, the serpent that bites its tail, symbolising eternity, cyclical renewal, unity, and interconnectedness of the creation and destruction. This leaves infinite space for a comeback, in theory.
On the contrary, later Buddhists point towards the evident momentariness of things. “Sarvvam, ksanikkam ksanikkam”, they would proclaim – everything is momentary. We are in a constant state of flux. The thought is beautifully captured by Heraclitus in this famous quote, “no person steps into the same river twice, for it is not the same man, and it is not the same river”. Is it possible then, that life can go in a certain direction, downwards, like a Kafkaesque story, and end?
But these philosophical investigations yield little result. We have to examine what comeback means to us, in this world, practically.
To me, a comeback can denote two things: one, a return to an earlier state of glory (think grades, or fitness), or two, stopping our decline, reversing the downwards trajectory and aiming for a stage that perhaps, we haven’t even experienced before
The first type, I would argue, is a form of longing, not too different from nostalgia. Sometimes it comes with a tinge of guilt, a soft pang in our hearts, for letting it happen, for losing ourselves in the process. To those of us who find ourselves in this place, I have only one piece of advice: to let it go. To forgive our-not-so-perfect-selves, and begin again.
The second kind, I feel, is more related to the ambitions of a person. It is about believing in the possibility of a reality that exists so far, only in our imagination. I believe if the goal is pure, and resentment and jealousy is not the fuel, this fire can burn warmly and brightly, and lead us to a better future.
That said, the past does have a crucial role to play in our comeback story. During the nationalist struggle, the freedom fighters evoked a vision of the past to build nationalistic feelings and unity. In the last year, we saw many such invocations of the past. At its best, it can lead to revolutions for ideals and dreams once cherished and prized by the society, such as the recent protests in Iran led by women, defying the state’s oppressive laws. But we must be careful, for at its worst, it could lead to exclusionary visions, such as the MAGA campaign in the USA. We must keep constant vigil while thinking of our past: Who is telling this story? Who is being deliberately left out of it?
The past can be a guiding light, but the future must be forged anew.
If 2025 was your year, I wish your good luck follows you to this year as well. Chances are, however, for most of us, it wasn’t. A year is a long time for life to not show all its shades to us, the wonderful and the terrible.
Perhaps the comeback we are seeking will arrive more gently. Not as a complete turn around, but rather a look back to all the lessons and pieces we have picked up of this puzzle called life, as we move forward. In picking up a small hobby and doing it again, not to build a career out of it, perhaps, but for its own sake. And in reaching out to old friends, not just to have those same conversations, but to build on new ones, acknowledging the changes that have come in all of us.
So maybe the question of whether a comeback is a myth or not can only be answered personally. Then the correct question would be do I believe in comebacks?
The answer: I must.
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