ONE FOUR NINE

It is a lazy Sunday morning, and I crave stimulation; something beyond watching mind-numbing videos on YouTube and reels on Instagram, away from the screen. I walk to the shelf that houses all the Board Games I own, with the plan that I would pick up Scrabble or Monopoly, and play on behalf of all players. But as I bend down to look for the box, my eyes fall on a puzzle I had purchased years ago. It is a Harry Potter puzzle and I take

it out, feeling excited about solving it. I return to my room and clear away my table, dumping all one hundred and fifty pieces onto it. First Rule of Puzzle Solving: Start with the Outline.

When you are around three or four, and have gained much information about the small world around you, you start to develop the foundations of a personality. You start by identifying who you are, your name, your gender, your age. You look around and create a map of your surroundings, the significant people in it, their role in your life. For the next five years, you outline it. Early experiences and interactions set in stone your basic ideas about yourself, and you use that as the base for everything that is to come.

It takes me fifteen-twenty minutes to finish the borders, and it gives me a sense of how big the puzzle is going to be. It is about the size of a medium sized pillow, covering half the table. I feel at ease, because all I have to do now was fill in. As I look through the pieces, I sense doubt filling me. There are too many pieces, and they seem too similar. So, I decide to start with the carpet, the easiest corner to finish first. Second Rule of Puzzle Solving: Build on Familiarity.

You are in middle school, and you start to face what feels like an identity crisis. You are going through so many changes that you fail to recognise yourself. Your taste in movies, books, food, people changes and you start to believe that every pillar you built during your childhood is breaking down. You sit in dark room, and pull your hair out, when it hits you. You are not completely different. There are still aspects of you that have remained consistent, so you hold onto them, you nurture those to give texture to your personality.

After the rug and chair are done, I pick up the box and look at the picture on its backside. There are three people in it, and the pieces that made them are clearly visible to me. But the sides are not developed enough to fit in the characters. Realising that I will be able to work on the other three corners properly once I have finished the characters and kept them aside, I get to work. Third Rule of Puzzle Solving: Don’t Ignore the Misfits.

You are nearing the end of your teenage and are an adult. During these years, you have met people, developed interests and passion that, at the time, does not fit into your day-to-day life. Your love for photography has nothing to do with your STEM career trajectory. That stranger you met in the library, whom you have grown to treasure as a friend is nothing like the rest of the company you keep. That is okay. Not everything fits immediately. That doesn’t mean you should let go of it, because it will all make sense, one day.

There are too many dark spots in the puzzle. I look from the pieces to the picture trying to decipher what goes where. I roll my eyes in frustration, and decide to guess. I start placing random pieces, and by trial and error, try to fill as much space as I can. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I end up nearly destroying the entire thing by trying to fit a piece too small for the cut-out and then yanking it free when it doesn’t work. Fourth Rule of Puzzle Solving: Wing it.

You are in college, flitting from class to class, trying to find what you like. There are days when you love all the courses you are taking, and on others, you fall asleep during the first fifteen minutes. Somehow, you graduate and you try to seek a job, work that makes you happy. It takes one, two, sometimes five switches before you discover your thing.

Everything is finally coming together. The characters I had kept aside fit in; the corners are all filled. I feel warmth spreading through me as the spaces reduce and there are only two pieces left in the box. I gaze at the one final space left in the puzzle and reach into the box to pick up the piece, only to find it empty. Final Rule of Puzzle Solving: Beware the Missing Piece.

You did it. You followed all the steps, did all the right things, made the right friends, studied the right subject, got the right job. You are sitting in your bedroom, on a Sunday morning, and your mind finally succeeds in forcing you to acknowledge this unexplained emptiness within you. It feels like you have everything, but something is absent. You don’t know what it is, and you don’t know where it is. After playing by all the rules and being perfect, you are still incomplete. So, what went wrong?

I want to scream. I just spent an hour completing something that was destined to remain undone. I feel desperate to fill the space. I go the shelf again, and pick up another puzzle, trying to find a piece that might fit. I find one, and it almost does. If you look closely, you can see the gaps between the pieces, but from far, only I know it exists.

So, there it is. Our life. Us, trying to find all the pieces, and then fumbling at the end. Some of us have all 150, and feel fulfilled. Most find a spare, a back-up. A few spend the remainder of their lives missing a piece of themselves, 149 pieces pining after the 150^th. Which one will you be?