It was just that stretch outside Vishwavidyalaya Metro Station.

The kind of place you don’t even register until you leave it behind.

Rows of tapris and food stalls squeezed against each other like overbooked memories — someone frying samosas in oil that’s been bubbling since morning, someone else expertly tossing bhel puri with pappad and red chutney, that familiar “chai le lo!” echoing from a corner where steam rises like it’s part of some old ritual. Momos steaming, bottles of thumbs-up stacked like colourful trophies in ice-filled crates.

And always, always, the e-rickshaw drivers calling out, “Kaha jaana hai? Patel Chest? Kamla Nagar? Miranda?”

Students everywhere, laughing, hurrying, dragging tired feet after a long day, or lingering near the stalls just to avoid going back to reality too soon.

That’s where I used to wait for someone who doesn’t text me back anymore.

And yet now, when I pass that chaos, it’s not the person I miss.

It’s that moment. That particular, first-year college student version of me, standing in the middle of it all with a paper plate of bhel in one hand, and a heart full of expectation.

Strange, right? How a crowded, noisy metro exit can somehow feel more personal than the people you shared it with, how bits of metal and concrete can leave a deeper mark than someone who once mattered so much.

It’s made me wonder — do we sometimes miss places more than people?

The Echo of Empty Spaces 

Ask anyone about their childhood, and they’ll start with a location.

“There was this gali behind our house where we used to play cricket…”

“Our school canteen had these terrible aloo samosas but we loved it anyway…”

“Dadaji’s house had this tiny window near the kitchen where winter sunlight used to pour in…”

It’s always a space. A room. A corner. A bench.

Not a name.

Maybe it’s because people change.

They grow, they forget, they move on.

But places? They sit still. Waiting. Holding stories. Softly fading, but never betraying.

Places Don’t Unfriend You

You can’t get ghosted by a park.

You can’t get left on read by a gully.

That chai tapri right beside your college doesn’t judge you for growing up, for not visiting, for losing touch. It just sits there quietly, waiting. Maybe it’s now serving a new generation of students with heartbreaks and bun maskas, but in some way, it still remembers you.

People leave. Places linger.

Maybe that’s why, when we return to our hometowns after years, it’s not the people we first want to meet, it’s the places.

“Let’s go see if that dosa guy is still there.”

“I just want to walk past the school wall again.”

“I want to stand on our old terrace one more time.”

Even if the people have moved on, those spaces carry the echo of us.

Like time folded itself neatly into the corners.

The Version of You That Still Lives There

Truth is, we don’t just miss places.

We miss who we were in those places.

That narrow staircase in your old apartment building where you sat and chilled out with your OG friends? You weren’t worried about deadlines then.

That metro ride back from college? Cramped, sweaty, headphone wires tangled like your thoughts, and somehow — comforting. You’d stand half-asleep, leaning against the door, watching the city blur past in yellow line silence. Tired, yes. But also weirdly full — like life hadn’t even properly begun yet, and you were already living it.

The corner table at that overpriced café where you had your first date? You were full of hope, maybe even wearing perfume you couldn’t afford.

When we revisit old places, we’re not chasing people.

We’re chasing versions of ourselves.

That’s the real nostalgia, a longing for a “you” that doesn’t exist anymore.

The Delhi Metro Test

Here’s a fun experiment. Go to your nearest metro station and just sit. Don’t look at your phone. Just observe.

Chances are, you’ll remember:

See? The station remembers more than the person.

Why It Hurts in a Beautiful Way

Missing places is gentler than missing people.

There’s no heartbreak, no arguments, no “what ifs.”

Just soft ache. Just distant music from another room.

Maybe that’s why we find comfort in old buildings, dusty libraries, rusted swings, forgotten benches. They ask for nothing. They just sit with us, quietly grieving too.

Because if grief is love that has nowhere to go —

then nostalgia is memory that just wants to sit down for a minute.

So What Do We Do With This?

Honestly? Nothing major.

Maybe just this:

Sometimes, the most healing thing we can do is go back. Not to people. But to pavements.

Because Yes, We Do Miss Places More Than People.

And maybe that’s okay.

Because in the end, places don’t walk away.

They stay.

Even if the lights change. Even if the people don’t.

The bench will still be waiting.

And so will the version of you that once sat there —

laughing, dreaming, crying, living…

Quietly, fully, completely!