Open wound

Trigger warning: SA / CA

They say it happens to

everyone.

Every one of us has been through this, it is claimed with an

assuredness so assured you'd expect guarantees of it but

that's not how it works, no. There are no IOUs and receipts to prove that

it's happened to everyone; there's no way of estimating,

calculating how much oxygen you've inhaled per second and

there's no equation to measure how many cigarettes might kill you and

there are no scars to show for open wounds

ever.

Adolescence is a funny era if you have a sense of humour.

Your skin is horrible and your emotions are gridlocked within the labyrinthine 

jungle of the trappings that is your fading childhood.

Adolescence is funny because you stumble upon feelings you didn't think existed;

you feel a pimple bursting and

you feel a friendship blooming and

you feel the warmth of puppy love and

you feel the grotesqueness of heartbreak and 

you get felt up.

Consent means permission.

An explicit affirmative allowing the requester to

borrow a book or

play Holi or

ask you a question

or touch you

instead of

stealing a book or

dirtying you with colours or

interrupting your sentence or

molesting you.

Consent means not having your boob groped by a relative you grew up around.

Consent means not having your boob felt up again by the same relative.

Consent means not hating the touch of another person and

and

and

AND

CONSENT MEANS RESPECT.

It happens to everyone, they say and

nobody will believe you after all these years, they say and

forget about it, they say and

move on; leave the bitterness behind and

let karma do its job, they say.

They say so much and

they feel so little.

They do not feel

the foreign fingers groping my pubescent breast and 

they do not feel the confusion and shame in my heart and

they do not feel the rough and coarse joy of the alien touch and

they do not feel dirty.

THEY DO NOT FEEL DIRTY LIKE I DO.

It happens to everyone. It shouldn't.

Nobody will believe you. They should.

Forget about it. You shouldn't.

Move on. You can't. 

Karma is busy and karma does not mean

vengeance. 

I do not want karma.

I do not want their kin to pay.

I do not want your sympathy and

I do not want your rage and pity.

I do not want anger and I do not want an apology.

I want a childhood where a relative's face doesn't evoke defense mechanisms.

I want a childhood with hugs that don't feel awkward.

I want a childhood without a resting angry face.

I want a childhood without an aggressive gait. 

I want a childhood where I don't hate my body.

I want a childhood where I don't feel dirty.

I want my childhood back.

To miss.

I sometimes miss people so much that I worry about crumbling under the intensity of it all. Miss means so many things. An unmarried girl. A failed train ride. A lost earring. A dropped wicket. Drop a letter and it becomes 'bear' in Polish. Drop another and it's 'my' in Spanish. Add two to that and it's 'place' in French.

There are so many kinds of missing.

People are mostly capable of only one though. We miss people. There are no answers because there are no questions. We just miss them. Sometimes these people are the train we were too late to board; sometimes they're the shiny red ball that Wankhede's sky belched all too soon. Mostly they're the earring someone plucked out of your ear at Dadar or one that fell out of your lobe in a Virar fast.

Missing people is a strange concoction of feelings so diverse that no language in the world can singly claim to explain it. English isn't enough and Hindi won't suffice either. Kashmiri might come close and Urdu too, perhaps. But broadly speaking, no sentence can be strung together cleverly enough to encapsulate what it means to miss someone.

Because missing people isn't about missing them at all; it's about missing yourself. A LOT of rom-coms will say this without knowing it themselves, but it is true. You may or may not realise this – and it's fine either way – but missing anything is an act of missing yourself, not another; just you.

You miss a friend for how cool or silly they let you be. You miss a parent for how protected and loved you felt with them. Cities we miss for how wide their horizons stretch when we unfurl our arms into their nothingness. You miss DDLJ for how naive you were when you first watched it. You miss Michael Jackson for how inclusive his music could be. You miss a lover for how much more of yourself they compelled you to be. You miss how you could dance at a wedding with a friend and how lovely your smeared kajal looked the morning after. You miss how reaching the last page of a book redeemed you. You miss your parent's hands that were the right size and temperature for a hug, irrespective of snow or sun. You miss none of them; you miss all of them.

Ninety percent of our nostalgia is about missing who we were with someone, someplace, or something. It's corny, but it's also very true: if even one person remembers you with warmth – doesn't need to be an immense feeling like gratitude or subservience – just enough warmth and a smile or two, then you've done your bit for a couple of decades on this planet. Ninety percent of your life is about missing who you were or could have been; ninety percent of your identity is how much love you gather along your journey of self-love.

The remaining ten percent is all that. The way someone smiled or the way their eye lines scrunched up mid-grin. How loud and boisterous someone was or how spiteful their words. The way they buttoned their collar, their long and bony hands, their soft, soft skin, the undulating jugular under their fragile necks. You miss it, you miss it all with a ridiculous pain that shouldn't be allowed to exist. You miss their kindness and you miss their humour. But that is the ten percent of what you're missing; you're missing who they were around you. Sometimes you see who they were, mostly you don't. You miss none of it; you miss it all.

In my head.

You have this funky little tooth inside your spunky fat-lipped mouth
that you lick each time you have something really important and significant
EARTHSHATTERINGPATHBREAKING
to say between an argument about, for instance the right guitar pick or Masterchef US's
d r a m a a a a a a 
or even your views on ZLAATAAAN and Partition and
Honey Singh w000000t (you know you like him, I've seen you drunk) and
essentially every damned thing between the vast transparent sky and horrendous
horrendous horrendous horrendous damned earth
and you lick this tooth licklicklicklicklicklick
UNTIL
you have finally found the words to say something you
didn't even know you had inside you and that's so goddamned confusing, i know,
i know what it's like to not recognise what's inside your mind because i have believeitornot –
– I HAVE been inside your mind and it is clean and organised and partitioned and orderly and so so so
n o r m a l
that it makes no sense to me how anybody with a mind like yours can even tolerate a microsecond of
my presence and my existence because you are the football to my cricket and the lettuce to my bacon
and your goddamned head makes no fucking sense and i know this because
as i said –
i've been in it –
and it's no fun
it is empty and unwelcoming and has no place for
me.

More than once I have wondered what it is you're thinking between
the licklicklicklicklicklick and the blablablablablabla and what it is that has
so
fully
consumed
your identity that you no longer have one that is exactly your own but is instead
reflections of a tiny billion little shards of mirrors picked from garbage cans from
around the whole wide world
with no space for an original thought or a second person because honestly
it is so sad how full and complete you once were (or seemed to appear to believe you were) when
we went for that movie and i let my head fall on your chunky shoulder or when we bought
that ice cream cone and that customised t-shirt and those ribbed condoms and my beach shorts
and when through all those seconds not once did that shrill loud little voice inside me ask
"ARE YOU WORTH IT?"
until the dim muted quiet deep crisp voice inside you said
without my asking
without really saying in so many synonyms
"NO."

in my head you're mocking me with the threat that you'll
shave off your beard and we're nestled
somewhere within the big bed under the bigger duvet and it's
really, really, really nice and cold out and you're
really, really, really nice and warm and we're singing screaming
AIN'T NO SUNSHIIIIIIIIIIIIINE WHEN SHE'S GONE and
and and and and and
Julia Roberts is just a girl standing in front of a cheeky funky spunky cute English guy asking him
to love her but
but but but
this is all in my head
and you're not here and neither is
your guitar pick or football or your Hulk boxers or your customised t-shirt
or your funky little tooth inside your spunky fat-lipped mouth.

I'm in my head a lot these days.

Book review – The Thirteenth Day

Author Aditya Iyengar
Language English
Publisher Rupa
Vendor Flipkart (India)
Length 260 pages (paperback)
Read dates 24-27 May, 2016 

Oh boy.

I've had a remarkably unhealthy obsession with the Mahabharata for nearly half my life now. As a teenager, I was fascinated by the ethical and strategic shifts that led to one of India's greatest wars between one of her greatest families. I haven't landed on a decision about the veracity of these events. I don't know whether Arjuna's impeccable skills or Bhishma's might ever existed in flesh and bones, but I will admit to sometimes hoping they did.

Regardless, Mahabharata's grandiose cannot be denied – the epic is too rooted in its own magnificence to ever be dethroned from its spot in the world of literary excellence. Aditya Iyengar's The Thirteenth Day is a marvellously-penned peek into the mechanics of this saga.

Reading debutante authors can be a mixed bag. Some have a tendency to be clunky; others are word wizards whose future works will forever pale against their first. Iyengar sits snugly between these two extremes. While The Thirteenth Day may seem wordy in some places – rarely so, and something I'd blame on inefficient editing than bad writing – Iyengar's skill for weaving intricate imagery is as spectacular as is the magnanimity of his subject.

I'm thoroughly impressed by how cleanly he's built the book's plot line. Three days of Kurukshetra are busier than they sound and are, in fact, crowded with characters that cannot be ignored for their role in the conflict. Iyengar, it appears, has not forgotten this – The Thirteenth Day, before everything else, is the story of Abhimanyu during Kurkshetra.

Mahabharata does not have a protagonist; it never could. All its major characters have personalities that are too imposing to not be the protagonist if there ever is one. So the Mahabharata does away with a person leading all activity, and instead makes Kuru land the central character of its story. The war takes place at Kurukshetra, for control of Kurukshetra, and between those to whom Kurukshetra matters most.

In that sense, The Thirteenth Day is a clean record of one of this war's most familiar and decisive characters, and Iyengar does justice to the development of his protagonist's life and death.

The vernacular versions of Mahabharata speak of Abhimanyu as the hapless child stuck in the Chakravyuh. These descriptions usually do the job they're meant to – nominate Abhimanyu (and the Pandavas) as the good cops, and dehumanise the Kauravas as the heartless demons out to slay their kin.

Iyengar doesn't do that, and I love him for this decision.

Abhimanyu isn't a little man-child stuck in a circle wielded by his cruel uncles. Abhimanyu, nephew of Bhima and Yudhishtra, Shikhandi's friend, a Dwarka boy, is a man at war. A young Kuru raised to be a powerful Kshatriya who, until the war's thirteenth day, finds himself on the sidelines of his family's greatest conflicts.

But above all, Abhimanyu is the son of Arjun, and that's why he's in the Chakravyuh. What he has been and will forever be remembered for are just these two things. If it annoys or shames you that these events are all Abhimanyu is associated with, then Iyengar's words might assuage your feelings. I'm humbled by how I (finally) have some closure about Abhimanyu's life, and I owe this to Iyengar.

I loved reading The Thirteenth Day. It is an elaborately-written book that is paced as it ought to be – writing about any part of Kurukshetra within 140 pages deserves an award – and it does justice to every sword, arrow, relationship, and soldier it touches. In my ideal world, Iyengar is already working on the next Mahabharata retelling (hopefully one that touches on Arjun and Krishna's relationship!!!). Iyengar must write more about the Mahabharata, because modern-day India needs a better moral compass to guide her philosophies – one that isn't ashamed of the emotional vulnerability and diversity of its people. 

Marriage and its meaning.

I must document this joy before it vanishes.

Today, leading from a discussion about how reading books is better than small talk, I ended up understanding my feelings about marriage.

Here's how it went:

"I'd rather walk and read than have my head buried in my phone looking at Facebook updates of which friend is getting married next; oops, no offence, I just noticed you're holding your phone."

"Haha no it's okay. I get it. I see it all the time. My friends are having kids now and they're onto their second, and my wife and I constantly get asked about when we're having another."

"So you know what I mean! This silly unnecessary pressure which on one hand is totally unjustified because you know you're happy where you are, but you're also inundated by these posts and questions and after a point you start wondering if you're really not doing enough! If having a good job and being good at it and having a decent life outside work and romance isn't life enough."

"Depends on how you see it. Like, after a point, it shouldn't affect you because you know what you want."

"Yeah but I see my friends from school getting married or engaged and it's such cognitive dissonance because hell you're 24! You're my age! How are you already happy with everything and everyone? Don't you have conflict. This weird inner dissatisfaction that fuels your hunger to want more? And want better? Like, be really really good at your job? Or make money? Or something? Look I don't want to rain over your parade; I'm thrilled if you can find true love and want to marry it. It's a brilliant feeling, I'm sure, but is that all there is to your life? Planning your wedding attire and sangeet dance steps? Like, don't you want more? To own a company? Build one?"

"Depends, I guess. I don't even care who does what; just stay out of my stuff."

"That I have to admit I don't get a lot of. But it's so weird how all my peers seem to be getting engaged and or knocked up. I think it's helped by the fact that India has a very supple arranged marriage system; I mean sure, it's frowned upon a lot, but it still works. We know its technicalities and how to swing it in our favour. And it's so weird because these girls meet someone and just boom! end up engaged to this guy or the one after, and it's like, hey, do you even know him? Do you know how much money he saves or how he splurges it? Like, do you like him? Is he good enough?"

"Hahahaha exactly, you don't know whether you like someone unless you've been with them a while."

That's when I realised; I don't need marriage. Sure, I want it. I'm that kinda person, I guess. I think I believe in marriage being a larger commitment of sorts. But I don't need it. What I do need is someone who understands me. Someone whom I understand. Someone I know well. Someone I genuinely like and want to be with. Not someone who ticks boxes.

Yep.

Writing a book about arranged marriage should be fun hehe.

U-shaped drying tubes and the heart

I know, I know. It's been longer than a while. I apologise. I do.

It's been an overwhelming few months, which is helpful in context with this post's analogy, but maybe not so much otherwise. I've struggled to find the emotional balance I'm capable of, but I think  I have it again. Not too sure at this point, but hey, I've still got my sanity and a couple-hundred words somewhere inside me. I reckon I'll be fine.

And why shouldn't I be fine? Why shouldn't anyone? How long can we allow a not-too-major-but-not-so-minor-either thing affect us anyway? Where – and why – must we draw the line between acceptably morose and annoyingly dreadful? As a species, we've prided upon ourselves for being able to discern and determine the data running amok amidst our nerve endings and, not only creating, but even reading its resultant cohesive messages. Why then are we so afraid of being anything but happy?

Let's take the case of u-shaped drying tubes. Ever used these? Great entertainment. I speak from experience.

These science lab toys are known for, I'm sure amongst many other things, their ability to help understand equilibrium. Because of their symmetry, u-shaped tubes allow for equilibrium to be achieved – and, therefore ergo hence thus, identify and understand when equilibrium isn't present.

Try filling up one of these tubes with gunk to the brim on one side; naturally, then, the other side will fall short.

You can do two things to achieve equilibrium here.

You could fill up the tube with clean water, for instance, from where the gunk is brimming. More likely than not is that you'll get little water into the tube, with most of it bouncing off the gunk and out of the tube.

Orrrrrr, you could go from the other side, and fill up the tube with clean water until the gunk's all out. Admittedly, this is a more time-consuming process, and requires much more diligence and dedication. But it's a near-guaranteed approach to getting all the gunk out.

This u-shaped tube is your heart.

We all do things to make ourselves happy – some go shopping, some buy a nice car, some hoard books. This is an endless list, as it must be if we are to enjoy the life we've been given. It's nice to not be too hard on yourself, you know? You are more than what restricts your spirit.

But it pays to be pragmatic about how to heal ourselves. Broken hearts don't always respond to glue. A bad career doesn't necessarily get fixed by a better job. A rich partner isn't a guarantee of love. Size 22 isn't the end of the world.

There is so, so, so much more to life than being happy. Happy is as much one side of the coin as is black to white, constipation to diarrhoea, and rich to poor. Unless you're that hot robot from Ex Machina, you're going to feel pain. You're going to feel like shit, and you're definitely going to wish you had someone else's life, friends, job, nails, boyfriend, or all of that.

And that's fine. Because life's about being fulfilled. So long as you're not dishonest with yourself about what makes you sad, sick, vulnerable, or pathetic, you'll be fine. You don't owe the world any answers, but you do owe it to yourself to be honest about what you want.

Never ever ever leave yourself alone. Find some clean water for your u-shaped beaker instead.

Why Diwali must be happy.

Like most Indian families, mine too celebrates Diwali with an unmatched ardent fervour each year. I've never really given it much thought, truth be told. Diwali's always been an occasion to be — mind, body, and soul — with the family, and to me, that alone will forever be reason enough to enjoy the holiday.

This year got me thinking, however. Why do we pray? The whole Lakshmi pooja setup does, of course, theoretically make a truckload of sense, and quite frankly, the backstory to Diwali's origins is pretty engaging too. But what truly is the concept behind Diwali? Is it just a day to ask for and look forward to more prosperity and happiness during the upcoming year, or is there more to it? I've never really been vocal about my religion, and that is perhaps why I felt like I needed a concrete reason to pray.

So I ended up celebrating a reflective Diwali this year. I cannot take credit for this, because this was entirely my sub-conscious's idea. Diwali day 2015 was about being grateful, not unlike the spirit of Thanksgiving, which is nearly here too.

Turns out prayer is much easier when you know what you're grateful for. It's almost a scientific formula — knowing what you appreciated about Year X helps you streamline precisely what you want during Year Y.

And boy, I do have a lot to be grateful for this year —I've lived an incredibly well-rounded eleven months so far! There was the sabbatical from work that I could not be more happy about if I tried. There were new tattoos, and new friends. There was an entirely new bond with the family and the parents. There was young love and heartbreak. There were old friends who walked away. There was closure too.

As I walked up to Lakshmi this year, I realised I have so much to pray for, mostly because I'd like her to know what she did right. I don't want too much for next year. I'd like balance. I'd like smiles. I'd like courage and I'd like love. I want the poise to handle what I need, the strength to chase what I want, and the heart to accept what I deserve. For everything else, there's a book. 

Review — A Court of Thorns and Roses, by Sarah J. Maas

I'm not a big fan of fantasy-fiction, in that I've definitely never committed myself to reading one of the genre; ever. This book fell into my lap by sheer luck, and boy, I'm absolutely grateful it did.

A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTR) is a lovely repackaging of The Beauty and the Beast. Protagonist Feyre's life undergoes a mammoth transformation when she encounters an animal, and some more, in her (quite literally) spine-chilling village. Tamlin's existence comes to life when he sends a friend to death. How Feyre and Tamlin's lives intersect forms the delectable, romantic, and passionate crux of this novel.

Both characters are, in their own right, the beauty, and the beast too — that struck me most about the book. It's not often you find characters as grey and lovable as these. Author Sarah J. Maas has done an impeccable job of ensuring the book's largely-gripping plot is constantly buoyed by the characters and imagery of Plythrin, the town which becomes the story's theatre of war.

Maas also deserves credit for the imagery in the book. Reading the book did, in fact, transport me to the gardens and forests and galas and bedrooms she's written about. I could see the characters; when they're beautiful, when they're not so much so, when they're naked, and when they're wounded. I'm especially impressed by this because I'm not the greatest fan of nature-centric writing, and don't particularly enjoy having to read about wildlife and flora and fauna, but ACOTR kept me hooked throughout.

I have to admit the writing contains a fair bit of Americanisms in some places. The setting of the book is beyond words like "shit" and "ass", so I'd have rather Maas had avoided those terms, because they did, unfortunately, take away some of the ornate charm the book very effortlessly conjures up.

Nevertheless, I can confidently say I'm in love with Tamlin, and given how judgmental I can be about the literary male characters I fall in love with, I'd say Maas has accomplished, even if only a small part of, what she set out to with this book.

Will I read the book again sometime? Maybe, yes, even if only to meet Tamlin once more. Will I read its sequel? Undoubtedly so. Should you read this book? Right away, if you're up for some casual delightful reading.

PS — Tamlin is my seco third favourite now, after Khoda and Darcy. Yes, he's THAT good.

Veteran.

You

are broken.

Broken and mangled

and tattered like

a rag doll tossed away by

a rich princess on the street

and accepted and then 

abandoned

by the street urchin

an illegitimate daughter.

You went to war;

a big, bad, long war

and you were wounded

with a bullet lodged so

deep within your body it felt

like one of your bones

but it wasn't.

oh no no no it wasn't 

because it was only

pain.

the deep dark sorrow

almost self-inflicted

(was it? you wondered)

by the one you let yourself

to be loved by.

they always hurt the most and 

their bullets always

shred your flesh the deepest

and finest.

you let him love you

and

you let him break you into pieces

and smithereens of pieces

whilst you laughed and smiled

and cried

and held his hand with your clammy paws

you let him break away 

first

at your wall of defense

the great big tall wide wall

you'd put together brick by brick

over the years — decades —

to keep out exactly his brand of intruders but

how were you to know indeed

indeed!

that even intruders like him wear smiles

of reassurance and

do, after all, have hearts

of gold

(or silver?).

but you let him break you

and wound you

and destroy your innards

and now you were broken, and wounded,

and destroyed

with a wound, a gaping bullet wound

but you pulled the bullet out

oh yes, you did!

and you stopped it from

breaking you any more,

and the bullet leaving you hurt

so much more than it did when it entered you

but you pulled it out and you

stopped the bleeding;

you still bled, and bled, and bled enough

to make you pray

and as you prayed you threaded the needle

with great difficulty, of course

(threading the needle is hard enough without shaky, bloody, clammy paws)

but you threaded it eventually and you drew blood to 

stop the blood

you sewed.

one stitch

- one pathetic, shoddy stitch at a time -

you sewed.

and after what was definitely days, if not centuries

you had a patch. 

a dirty, raggedy, ugly patch

which could've done with some finesse and care

but which finery and caring could save you?

none.

so you walk now

with that ugly patch covering your wound

and 

you will keep walking until someone 

anyone 

wants to fix it but you know

that even if no one does

and especially if no one does

you will walk around with

that ugly, raggedy, dirty, shoddy patch

covering the deepest, darkest wound on

your body,

because you are a goddamned

VETERAN;

and you went to war when you fell in love;

and you were wounded;

but you plucked out that bullet;

and you sewed yourself;

and you walk the world with that ugly patch;

and you will until you die

(unless someone cleans it up, of course)

but it's your wound, and you fixed it, and

it's your patch,

and your war, and your memories,

and your only undoing

is that you defeated the war

and your only misfortune

is that you survived the wound.

Joker.

I hope you smile
Laugh, celebrate
But
I also hope you cry
Weep
Howl and wail and mourn
And shriek
Like a hurt and angry dog
Plagued by arthritis and something
Food poisoning; old age
Anything, everything
I hope
A spate of monotonous days
And lowly nights
And quiet hours and
Haunting minutes
Lampoon you for as long
As your memory can retain
The minutiae of it all
And I hope that when it's all done
And finished and over
And when you know the abyss is coming
To relieve you and transport your
Mindless mind to the land
Of vast and peaceful emptiness
You remember that the only time you
Were ever - in the entirety of your
Existence and life,
(Your dull and bleak existence and life) -
The only time you were ever happy
Was never, except
One hot sticky deathly summer
Now a golden jubilee of summers ago
And that in your seventy years
Of nothingness
Besides dullness and bleakness
Of course
Your only joy
Was I.

PS. this is as fictional as fiction gets.

Review — Autobiography of a Mad Nation, by Sriram Karri

I knew I was going to love this book when I found references to Plato, Kafka, NATO, United Nations, Indians, and a delightful ode to the author's mother, all within the first 10 pages of the book. 

Autobiography of a Mad Nation may well be the time capsule we've all been looking for. You've probably heard enough about how this piece of fiction travels through India's many significant historical moments, ranging from Independence and earlier, to the Pokhran nuclear test of 1998 and later. The striking feature about the journey is its pilot, the author, who has, with utter magnanimity, held the reader's hand, almost, and walked him through the effects of the poignant cornerstones of Indian history — contemporary and ornate. 

For most of its first part, the book is a grand thriller, and boasts every element you want to romance in a riveting thriller-mystery piece of fiction. Delightfully, Sriram Karri has embedded the book's fiction in India's reality — and how! The characters are relatable; the events, unforgettable for any Indian who's read a newspaper in the last twenty years. 

Thankfully for the curious reader, Sriram makes it rather clear fairly early in the book whether Vikrant, the book's first protagonist, has committed the crime he is due tol be hanged for. To believe him or not is entirely your decision, and it might be a frustrating choice to make; it's the price you pay for reading a good murder mystery. 

But the book has no one person as its protagonist. Part two within the book sheds some names from the previous one, and brings with it many new characters, some of whom, I'll admit, are a tad difficult to keep track of; this section, however, fleshes out the real protagonist of the book for you — India; in a way, making up to one billion people the central characters of what in part two is a piece of contemporary young adult literature. 

Part two raised important introspective debates for me: What is the Indian democracy? Is it fair to give birth to my children in the Indian democracy? Are India's notions of 'fair' and justice in dire need of a revamp? Who really revamps India's make-up, and who has so far? Should it, if it does already, even matter as to which dynasty reformed India since its formation 50,000 years ago? Are the questions asked by me, an average citizen of India, or any other like me, going to make a difference at all? If our opinions don't and won't, then whose will?

Believe me when I say these are questions you will ask yourself, even if you didn't intend to, as the book progresses. The jump from being a murder mystery to political commentary might be a rough and bumpy one for some readers, but persevere, and you will find it was worth the discomfort. 

Part three within the book is what every dead relationship and residue emotions need — closure. You might hear a chink of your heart break as the book draws to a close; I know I did. 

For 259 pages until I reached the third part, I'd lived through, laughed at, and cried for India's struggles and events, and idiocy and intelligence with sheer joy. It was a flight I didn't want to disembark; a place I didn't want to leave. 

Sriram held my hand as he took me through my country, and I wasn't willing to let go. 

I read the book in its digital format, but I'd definitely pay the marginal premium price and buy its hardback version, if one exists, or a paperback too. This one's for the bookshelves. This book needs to be a part of the legacy you leave behind, if you are an Indian — and if you don't know what your own personalised legacy is going to be, then that's more reason than any, to read Autobiography of a Mad Nation right away. 

PS — thank you, Qaayanat. You knew I needed this distraction, and for you, I am grateful.

Pies and Tarts.

The guests left 

the champagne bottles clinked in the bin

water rings dried into glass tables like 

the imprints of dew on the flowers in her hair

now strewn across the floor around the house after

hours of dancing and laughing and

gaiety and scrumptious 

mince pies and creamy tarts 

washed down through the throats of some

50, 500 guests 

who were too hungry and thirsty 

and happy

to notice them making love

and crying and talking 

and trying to heal themselves like 

the wings of a broken bird, and failing

fighting, weeping, begging for 

mercy on each other, themselves,

for salvation by euthanising 

what could not live and would not die

not in Spring, not on a marriage bed

not in an exuberant party 

with tarts and pies and champagne

where everybody danced and sang 

and ate and drank

but nobody heard them crumble and tremble

not unlike the crusts of the pies and tarts they

seduced their tongues with, 

and nobody saw the flowers in her hair fall 

and wail and cry

tears of a premature death 

to commemorate the stupendous birth 

of yet another set of tattered souls and

tainted memories and powdered hearts

and a relationship broken

forever.

Baltichitth.

Not sure how or why, but I just realised I've never really had a bucket list. I've had to-do lists, but never really a bucket list.

So here goes.

• Hang in a city/country known for all-year winters.
• Live in a city with all four seasons.
• Own a Patrol/Jeep/Mercedes G series
• Have a house in Kashmir.
• Adopt a baby (from Kashmir). 
• Own at least 1,000 books.
• Learn the violin, piano or guitar.
• Write about the Kapoors.
• Own a cafe/restaurant.
• Get interviewed for a journalism career.
• Speak Kashmiri. Fluently. And Urdu.
• Fluently speak three languages, besides English, Hindi and Sindhi.
• Have a house filled with babies and monkeys and cats and dogs and bunnies.
• GO ON A ROLLER COASTER FFS.

That's all. For now. Hm.

.

It's not fucking fair. It's not okay that the very people

It's not okay that I can't describe it without sounding like an utterly idiotic doormat who deserves what it was dealt. It's not fair.

.

Hell

Bombay is my own personal customised hellhole. That's why I hate being here. The city, I think, cursed me when I left her.

Bombay is awful.

Leaving

Leaving Dubai was never easy. Leaving Dubai didn't hurt. Dubai was left. Bombay was had. Leaving Bombay never made sense. Leaving Bombay never seemed fair. Leaving Bombay was the most difficult thing in the world. Bombay was left. Dubai was had. Dubai became home, again. Leaving Dubai became difficult again. Leaving Dubai hurts. Seeing Bombay hurts. Leaving Dubai hurts more. Leaving behind reacquired familiarity hurts. Leaving behind my baby; hurts. Leaving Bombay seems fair. Leaving Bombay seems worthy. Because leaving behind my baby means walking towards a lonely existence; a loneliness scarier than most others in the world.

Life is so odd.

T Minus 10

I'd promised myself I wouldn't do this. Well, not so much promised as, maybe, kinda, told myself I didn't need to do this anymore. A-letter-a-year to myself should suffice, and you'd think it would (I know I did); but I clearly have more than a knack for building up a birthday much much much more than I need to.

So here it is — a tiny inconsequential log of my 356th day as a 22 year old. Nine days from now I'll definitely be a year older and maybe, just maybe, a tad more enlightened ‚ in some way, than I was earlier.

Today was by all respects a pretty fantastic day given I didn't really have to move from my comfort zone (my bed) to do much. Saturdays are kind; pizza was definitely the proverbial cherry on the proverbial cake. This is such mundane writing.

But all good, bad and ugly things come at night — this pun is ...seriously unintended and very shameful too. Oh well. Watching an old classmate's wedding video — shot on what I would guess is a proper silver screen camera — made me want to cry. A whole lot, for many reasons. For one, I don't understand how some people seem to find what they've been looking for. This is a cliché, I know, straight out of a romcom no less, I'd say. But it is a very valid question indeed and I can truly see with utmost clarity now why the romcom literature/cinema industry thrives as it does. A billion people on the planet and, you just ...find someone? Who works? Fits like a jigsaw piece? Becomes your big Bollywood bash? HOW? How does that even work?

I mean, I know placing myself in this particular classmate's shoes makes no sense. We're definitely fairly different girls, even if only on the surface. She's definitely more ...delicate and sensitive and emotionally open than I am. But then, she doesn't really have attachment issues with her family; nor has she, as far as I know, had her heart broken by a city before. Then again, maybe she has. I'm no one to judge.

I have rambled and it is healthy. Much better than having it bottled up inside me. But I do realise through all the ruminating that perhaps the greatest mystery of Life is seeking what we can't have — and seeking the answer for why we can't have what we want. Perhaps all our living — long, short, fulfilled, unfulfilled, comfortable, difficult, happy, sad, whatever — is about finding the one thing we want more than we can remember wanting anything else; the one thing which even in its absence lends a sense of certainty and finality and peace; and then knowing that, despite all our greed and desire and adoration for it, we can't have it. And then, maybe, the purpose is to find the answer to the question of why we even began to want something we never could have. Or can seem to have.

Maybe Life is all about finding the puppeteer and wringing its filthy little neck into multiple knots of tight asphyxiation as payback for all the sad, dull nights we spend wanting what — or who (whom?) — we can't have.

I'm talking to you, Universe.

<insert loud thud from mic dropping here>

Occupants.

There are days when 

everything is fine, just fine:

(fine is a misleading adjective)

until out of the blue

a memory returns, pregnant with

a billion other memories

and each pregnant with a million other, screaming

shrieking, banging the walls that keep them

out, away;

they are insolent, shameless, futile

scars, bruises

evidences in a murder scene

FOOLS!

they break down the guard

and shatter some more and

ride in on the high of defeating

a dead shell

a decaying mind 

a desolate life and 

they worm and claw and wriggle 

their way in towards a heart struggling

fearfully

quietly 

pointlessly (oh, so pointlessly) 

to guard itself against

invasion; their specialty

their exclusive

CRAFT 

with which they crawl in

and infest the many 

tattered, torn, twisted corners 

of a heart bursting 

at its seams 

from the torrent 

of the maggots of memories 

with which 

my heart is heavy.

Letter.

Traditions are important. Their presence must be as steadfast as their nature transient and evolving. Traditions are very, very important.

That is precisely why I write a letter to myself every year — well, that, and because nobody else really writes letters these days. Nor do I have anyone who would, but oh well. I do sometimes write them online too, but that is a practice I am proud to have refrained from with the diligence I have.

I usually handwrite them, as a letter must be. I then place it in an envelope, address it to myself and leave it in my favourite book for me to find next new year's eve. Each year, I write a letter to myself, seal it, post it, and read my letter to myself from the previous new year's eve. It is a tradition. My tradition.

I can almost never remember what these letters contain. I may remember the colour of the ink they are written in, and know with certainty the paper some are written on too, but I do not remember what the previous year's letter, to be opened in the present, says to me. Writing the letter is a way to teach myself new lessons for the upcoming year; reading the letter is how I review my hopes and effort.

It is a good tradition. It is a way for me to be slightly less alone.

Go. Write your letter now. Bye.

Był Tam

I'm happy to report that I have both, sweet and bitter memories to report for my annual letter writing ritual for 2014/2015. I'm also happy to report my retention of the superpower to create nutty, intricately-woven sentences which continue to sufficiently report my tautological prowess (ha ha).

I miss him. I miss my boy from Warsaw. Pride fills me to know I was there at the right time. The right place. The right app too, haha. I am so proud I was there, taking a chance I had never before and might never again. A chance which, until my last day in the city, I didn't think myself capable of taking ever again. I'm also proud to have walked away despite the many delusional alternatives my mind (heart?) tortured me with. I hate that I had to leave, and I hate that my courage to do so is a source of pride to me; but it is also a soothing answer for the other half of my existence which will perennially ask me many questions about the night and its succeeding morning, each of which will begin with 'what if'.

I will live through these questions if and when they present themselves. I will remember the pride of having met him. I will remember his kind heart and gentle hands. Every pore of my body knows how difficult, if not nearly impossible, it will be to forget his warm, welcoming smile (this, I shan't try to accomplish).

He isn't the only one, but he is a significantly massive reason for why 2014 has been special. Different, at least. I may never see him again. If science fiction has taught us anything, I may not find him again even if I were to return to the past through a time capsule. A man, whom I will  never see again, never touch again, never hear again and never, ever hug again, received a part of my heart and soul across the sea in a beautiful and chilly part of the world this year.

And I will always have a part of him with me.

Memory is a funny thing indeed.

PS - the title is colloquial Polish for 'he was there'.