Growing Apart

Losing a friend is like losing family. It hurts in the beginning, rips your heart through as if it were a break up. Except that with a friend, it is never a true break up. You still call each other up – in the beginning it’s a habit, then it is out of some kind of nostalgia, after which you grab the instances when you still see a ray of hope, and eventually, things turn formal and stiff. That is when you know you have lost a friend, that is when first it hurts and then you just learn to get along your way without the ‘best friend’.

Somewhere between growing up and getting married, having a kid and running a house, I lost one very close friend.  She once told me that a best friend is a really childish concept and that as we grow older, we should understand that. I think it was a very polite way of telling me that we were done.  But I think the concept of a best friend doesn’t grow old as we do. 

I am a big believer in having a rock solid pillar of support. I would like to imagine I can be that to someone too. In this case, I may have faltered as much as she. But I still feel a twinge of sadness every time I see a fleeting activity on facebook, I feel a twinge of anger when I don’t quite understand what happened, I still feel a twinge of envy when I see another friend from college bond much more with her and advertise that fact quite often on a public forum. And I hate that I actually measure my words and think about what I am saying when I talk to her.  I miss my best friend but with a kind of latent anger that I don’t understand myself. 

I see these pairs of women - everywhere – on television and movies, in books and in coffee shops, in weddings and in conversations. I see them amongst people I know. I spot the sheer comfort they share, the way their lives are open to each other, the fact that there is no need to hide and project. And I miss having that. 

No, I don’t think one can entirely blame a marriage that changed a life, or a city one shifted out of, or a baby being born. Best friends stick together – that is what they are supposed to do – it’s a part of the job description. And me – the eternal sucker for this best friend business – I am just grateful that my closest school friend and I are still the same – I am just happy that I wasn’t careless enough to let go of old friends to make new ones. 

I like a few things about myself and one of them is loyalty – I still have a bunch of shining stars in my own little personal sky and I haven’t lost touch because I temporarily lost a number or missed out on a phase of someone’s life. I am incredible lucky to carry forward these friends with me from each phase of my life – school, college, workplace and my second masters. But I am also immensely sad that one of the brightest stars faded out. 

But sometimes losing a friend is a learning lesson – it teaches you to let go. Sometimes it’s a hopefully hopeless juncture – you hope things will be the same though you know they won’t. Sometimes it’s a lesson in self improvement – you will bitch about it because it is cathartic and then you will feel like shit about it and promise not to do it again. And sometimes it is just what it is – it is a realization that it wasn’t that strong in the first place. 

Growing apart is an excuse. Yes, it happens. But it shouldn’t happen.  And if it has happened then it isn’t called growing apart, it is a heart wrenchingly sad break-up, it’s like losing a part of your family. It happens, yes – but we learn to live with it. 

Pregnant Confessions

Another one of those series-of-unfortunate-events day and I don’t know what else to do but vent here. So this has become that anyway – a dead, stagnant remnant of what used to be a blog, a link whose address I still like too much to give up, a place I still prefer, on some days, to revisit, to know how I felt once upon a time. And then on rare days like these, when even calling a close friend and cribbing seems to be so much more of an effort (and who wants to hear so much complaining anyway), then this is my only outlet for unadulterated bitching.

But to begin with, some background, and some information that deserves a happy paragraph before the seething in anger begins. I am going through what I think is one of the most difficult yet fascinating experiences of my life – pregnancy. Yes, it happened and it’s been a while and I am a healthy mixture of confused, happy, anxious and what not. Apart from having major body issues initially, and seeing the once flat stomach convex itself out in the last almost 7 months, the feeling of another being inside you is not quite explicable. It is like you are never alone – no really – think about it! And hell, I haven’t been so detoxified since I was 18.

Initially it’s just something that seems to happen on the white stick with two pink lines, followed by a paper prescription and a bit of paranoia from the parents with their list of dos and don’ts. On some days, when you feel nauseated and sick, it just seems like a day of bad indigestion. On other days, you tend to completely forget that you have another life inside of you. On those days I have almost had an x-ray, climbed a jittery ladder, driven recklessly and craved a drink. On other days, things are really quite the usual – the daily routine, the reading, cooking, driving, watching mindless television. And then in a few months, when you outgrow your clothes, it only just begins to sink in. What really hit the fact home that I am going to be a mom is the kicking. Well, honestly, initially I didn’t understand what it was – strange bubble like movements begin and I thought I was going to have a bout of really bad diarrhea but then that didn’t happen and these tiny movements continued. And then I realized that the baby is busy with some serious acrobatics in there. And now the stage is well beyond that, now she/he makes her/his presence felt regularly, getting over excited in my literary theory classes! You go kid – go kick the shit out of that insane Freud who calls pregnancy penis envy that got me a deluge of funny messages in class.

But all said and done, with the speculation on the gender, the googling of the names, the scouting for larger clothes and the scary escalation on the weighing machine, I am not sure if I am quite so ready for it yet. Pregnancy is not pretty, like motherhood isn’t supposed to be easy. Things which are tough to deal with are mostly over glorified in the world. It may be beautiful but it has its share of ugly and that what makes it exciting as well as scary, sort of like a monster roller coaster ride. But a friend recently told me that she thinks I will be a good mom, I have the nurturing instinct for others if maybe not so much for myself. I like how infrequently we meet yet how profoundly she sometimes understands me. She will be a kick-ass aunt to my kid, however infrequently she does get to see her/him.

However, getting back to today and to the general flavor of the recent days, I am going through helper-horror at home. With both the cleaner and the cook being on leave, I am having to make do with two incredible incompetent, slow replacements. In normal circumstances that wouldn’t be a problem but with me soon becoming a teapot and with my final semester exams looming over me like some sort of a bad omen, I am cantankerous all day. What really helps me is going to college, meeting these bunch of fantastic friends that I have made who make me feel happy again, and sitting for some fun classes where I get picked on for saying that the text has demonized the mother figure, and the ending the day with a long long lecture on Julia Kristeva which makes my day.

But today I didn’t have to go to college, and in an attempt to study for the exam, I woke up early, only to be rudely welcomed by this loud noise coming from the neighbor’s house. I waited for a few hours, hoping that it would die down but the continuous dham-dham-tak-tak-tong-tong didn’t stop. At 7.15 in the evening – yes after 12 hours of mind numbing noise and a half failed attempt to finish reading Marquez, when I finally did tell her that the noise should stop as per society regulation of 7 PM, and that I have my exam and its very disturbing, the dumb bitch told me that it will go on for another 2 weeks. Ugh. I could kill the retarded toad right there, she with her loud Punjabi way of articulating everything via yelling, and her really strange 19 year old daughter who hasn’t been able to adjust in a hostel for a year now, because of whom they have actually rented a weekend flat in another town where the toad goes to so that she doesn’t get homesick. I mean really – I went to a hostel at 8 – who behaves like that at 19. I only knew that my neighbors were complete unsocial loud fools, now I think they are a bunch of really dysfunctional people who have some creepy family secrets stashed in their closed home and locked cupboards. Bloody inconsiderate family of ugly nincompoops.

I will not attribute my annoyance to my pregnancy though. The hormones making a woman crazy was a theory I never bought anyway. I never did blame a bad mood on pms neither did I ever hanker for extra attention during pregnancy like they show in those retarded tata sky ads where the woman wants to watch some movie scene at some ungodly hour. No, women are not crazy, only these myths and advertisements and movies seem to promote this kind of hysterical behavior. I think these are days which are testing my patience, maybe a tiny rehearsal for the sleepless nights to come, maybe an indication that I have a very low threshold for any kind of pain, physical or mental, and that I have a very low level of tolerance.

But all said and done, I do get all teary eyes when I see a video with a new born squirming in sleep, or when I see a baby in the colony, smiling at random people, unaware of what miseries adulthood brings. I like seeing the sheer innocence and sometimes even stupidity that do make children so endearing. Having my own little smiling-crying-yelling monster to tame would be fun. All I hope for now is that the love does overflow from the moment I see her/him, but that’s another 10 weeks to go and who knows, the Maa in me might just surface well on time.

For now, it’s worrying about exams that keeps me occupied, reading Joyce keeps me intrigued, imagining how my first drunk day will be after this dry spell keeps me excited, and once in a while, a really strong kick, does make me smile.

Palimpsest

So I won’t intrude in your life and you don’t intrude in mine. Facebook is a voyeur’s paradise. Every month I get at least one request from a person I never spoke with in college – mostly my first post grad college – random women who used to sit at the other corner of the class ,short fat overdressed richie-rich girl from koregaon park, mind-numbingly dumb-now-married-to-some-NRI girl who exchanged one line with me in two years, the guy who gossiped about me in a not-so-nice way, the ex’s close friend who I was fond of but now don’t really care about, etc etc. What is with this bunch? The bunch I don’t give a shit about, the bunch that makes me squirm when I run into them on some not-so-fateful day in a crowded market. Why can’t you walk away? Look the other way and pretend that we don’t know each other? Because really I don’t. Apart from knowing your name and that we breathed in the same space for those two years, I really don’t know shit about you. I don’t understand this compulsive need for people to come and make small talk, really pointless pleasantries are shared when all that both parties are checking out is who has put on more weight and who looks more miserable. Numbers are exchanged – this annoying age of cell phones, how can you not have one, even my plumber has one – and you are trapped – you have to give your number. But then again that’s not really important because in spite of all the fake smiles and the “ooh we must catch up” business, no message gets dropped, no calls happen, so after getting that missed call also I don’t bother to save it. Let it fade away in the next few days from my list of calls and hope to never run into that person again.

So why do I hate meeting / accepting facebook requests / chatting with these people so much? I don’t know. Maybe it is because I had the most horrible two years of my life in that shithole course. Pune is no student’s paradise - it is an orgy of recklessness and pettiness. Woman stabs woman over a boy. Boy fucks girl and then he fucks her best friend. Roommate gives a crying shoulder and then complains about the weight. Boy wakes up in the morning and says he is commitment phobic – never mind that at night his brain was in his balls. Almost-best friend suddenly appears in boy’s room in his night clothes. Thankfully the ‘almost’ turns to ‘never’. And the usual jhingbang. Really there is nothing so liberating about a college and a place like that. If anything, that place makes you question your own sense of self. It makes you feel helplessly trapped. Anything that made me not want to face my own self in the mirror is pretty much better-best deleted. And so I try to delete the episodes, the chapters, the primary and the auxiliary characters that are associated with the phase. But no – facebook is a bitch that will keep trying to make you get in touch with people you are actively trying to erase. I wonder sometimes if erasing my account is the answer. I don’t know. I like being in the loop with people I know and want to know further. Why should I be the one erasing myself? Talking of erasing, there have been recent erasures which have surprised me, not because the erasing happened but that it happened so easily. Kurtz is a person I used to know who is trying very hard to mend his old ways and turn into a new leaf. But I think spring is over and soon it will be time for autumn and things will begin to change colour and fall. For me he is fallen already because flimsy leaves are fated to fall one day or the other. His flimsiness is legendary really. One day K wants to be friends and the other day he finds an easy way to get out of it. One day he sees me as this unrealistic image in his head and the other day it shatters so easily he walks over it with sigh of relief. I don’t know whether erasing is an activity he indulges in frequently but give a man a rubber and he will find ways to use it almost immediately. As for me, I’d like to think of my two years of that crappy phase as an unpleasant parchment on which I have begun the process of palimpsest. Because I don’t just like to erase, I like to rewrite.

The Do-Not List

I do not like the colour grey.

I do not like it that my brilliant second cousin got brain fever at the age of 12 and never recovered.

I do not like sympathizing with her.

I do not like others lending me their sympathy. Though sometimes I do whine for it.

I do not like lukewarm conversations that start with a polite hi and end with a politer bye.

I do not like it that losing weight is such a pain and sweet cravings, uncontrollable.

I do not like it when people pluck flowers only in the day because one shouldn’t pluck them at night. Why pluck them anyway?

I do not like sugar coated responses to my mistakes. I wish people were more honest.

I do not like never ending chatter of intensely self centric people. I have my bad days too you know.

I do not like getting a zit. I am too old for this kind of agony.

I do not like it that I wonder about my choice of friends and if I could have chosen more prudently.

I do not like spending hours reading Anna Karenina when all I want to do is stare at the blank sky.

I do not like blank skies. This city is full of smog. My home town is full of stars.

I do not like that I am indecisive, unstable, obsessive and neurotic.

I do not like it when a certain someone is happy.

I do not like myself for not liking that.

I do not like early mornings.

I do not like cats.

I do not like non-sweet alcohol drinks. Except beer.

I do not like it that my closest childhood friend lives in the land of the Gujjus. I need her back.

I do not like the nomadic life I lead. Some day I’d like a house without a two year lease.

I do not like Delhi as much as I like Mumbai. Yes I confess.

I do not like summer.

I do not like it that my ‘like’ list might be shorter than my ‘do-not-like’ list. Who would have known?

The Kaleidoscope

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, inspiration comes knocking at my door. I look around, I glance behind my shoulder, I like being alone, I confirm my solitariness. And then I begin to write. But nothing ever materializes beyond a page. Then thoughts get arrested by the anticipation of an audience and the inappropriateness of it all. And then I stop.

This has been happening for many months.

J.S. Mill was right. One has to write poetry (in this I include fiction) assuming there is no audience at all. “Poetry is feeling confessing itself to itself”. But what kind of a confession is that then really? Even Catholics need the confession box and Calvin needs a Hobbes. What is the point of anything confessing itself to itself? Pray tell.

And yet the fear of being read and read into, the uneasiness of misinterpretation, the lack of courage is a reality that suffocates me. Where is my Hobbes? I used to have one. I don’t have one anymore. It is tragic. My Hobbes and I drifted apart when more than just distance came between us. Life happened and though it isn’t as tragic as it seems, it is tragic enough.

But I am digressing and I should try not to. So writing with an assumption that one can be read is a really scary proposition. I admire the guts of authors who write autobiographical works and get published. I admire the guts of blogs that chronicle a personal life without giving a damn. And hard as I may try, I don’t think I can even become it. That is sad. And have I lost out on you already? Yes you – you who reads my blog once in a while, my fortunate patron, the known and the unknown, the blurred past and the etched forever, the berating friend and the appreciative acquaintance – have you taken me off your RSS feeds already? Did you not have me in the first place? Did you plan to have me initially and then wrote me off as just another person who got married and became boring? I don’t blame you if you did. I haven’t tried to redeem myself much except just write a “oh-i-am-going-to-vent” post and then chickened out. Yes that’s all that I have done. Characteristically enough I haven’t carried out what I claimed, I have announced and then disappeared. It is unusual if I do finish something I take up till the end. I am the queen of incompletion, of half-heartedness, of initial euphoria and immediate disillusionment.

But I really do want to write for there is so much to write about. I want to pen down pages and chapters from my life. I want to mention the twisted story of the man with the heart of coal, I want to confess my lack of feelings for the boy who died, I want to say how sometimes when death doesn’t move you, you can question your monstrous self for years. For years and months that have passed, I have had moments of madness, euphoria, disillusionment, depression, betrayal, elation, fulfillment, epiphany – notice that there is nothing banal about these emotions, nothing as simple as happy, sad, indifference, no – these are the big words, the specific adjectives, the things that express the precise state of mind – I like it that things have been dramatic, larger than life, immensely exciting – things that can be recalled in an anecdote or make a fit subject for a late night confessional chat, things that can still make my gut twist, that can still make my throat knot up. I like it that I have had a fairly exciting life where I didn’t let impulse cower to the mind. Sometimes I regretted, sometimes I didn’t. But mostly I am just glad that the youth was a kaleidoscope and not a microscope where I didn't sit back to analyze but somersaulted with the colors.

And I want to write about the people and the episodes, all the shades of the kaleidoscope need to splatter across the white sheet of paper, the fear needs to be covered with a splat of dark humor, the puns and the digs need to be highlighted with a fluorescence.

So why do I fear the interpretation, the detailed investigation, the repercussions of such scrutiny? Why do I fear the microscope when I have already played in the colors?

From the Laugh of the Medusa

An excerpt:

“Time and again I, too, have felt so full of luminous torrents that I could burst-burst with forms much more beautiful than those which are put up in frames and sold for a stinking fortune. And I, too, said nothing, showed nothing; I didn’t open my mouth, I didn’t repaint my half of the world. I was ashamed. I was afraid, and I swallowed my shame and my fear. I said to myself: You are mad! What’s the meaning of these waves, these floods, these outbursts? Where is the ebullient, infinite woman who, immersed as she was in her naivete, kept in the dark about herself, led into self disdain by the great arm of parental-conjugal phallocentrism, hasn’t been ashamed of her strength? Who, surprised and horrified by the fantastic tumult of her drives (for she was made to believe that a well-adjusted normal woman has a … divine composure), hasn’t accused herself of being a monster?”

-Helene Cixous. (The Laugh of the Medusa) - Read it!

Die Blog Die

I’m officially sick of writing about the weather, the season, all things happy and all that la la la! No, I do not know what to write about these days. I want to make this blog more personal than it is. Then I want to write about how, what and when I really feel. Then I want to be somewhat like my tall friend whose writing has this sharp, acidic courage that mine could never achieve. I really want to vent. But this blog is now not personal. And that is excruciatingly annoying. It is only my fault that I let myself go. I think it was the greed of getting some comments on my erstwhile no-hit blog. I think I was a bit tired of wallowing in that anonymity which now seems to be such a luxury. In between all of that, I have resorted to another privately tucked in scrap on the internet, but this one is still my oldest, my favourite. Blogspot is still comfortable. Tumblr is a step sister of blogspot. I was never much of a fan of wordpress. And this red and white and black header is still what is typically me. This strange, senseless title of schizophrenicsalad given to me long ago by a friend is also a part of me. And with this blog now becoming a yawn-inducing machine, I don’t know what to do to revive it again. How I miss the venting and the bitching. Being older sometimes comes with a disclaimer. Politeness and all the shitty jazz sometimes just strains and drips itself into your writing. And this is how we all become dull and insipid. And this is how a perfectly good blog dies.

I am almost tempted to let it die. And restart again. But like a nagging, incomplete story of the past, this blog also seems to have the last 6 years of my life. A lot of it has been deleted for god knows what politically correct reasons. My curious cousin discovered this blog thanks to my negligent brother who discovered this blog thanks to my negligent internet history. So all the sex had to be erased. All the smoking had to be gotten rid off. All the bitching, the drunk episodes, the stoned scribblings and the massive stupidities I have done in my first post graduation days and after had to be let go of. What is left then to write about? The god damned weather, the city and more of the bloody city, the monsoon and so much of the monsoon, my annoyingly unpredictable health and maybe some food and ofcourse the oh-so-often swimming posts? No wonder I had to resort to a new link. Who wouldn’t? Who can live with this boring crap?

So even though I do want to kill this blog, I am going to try to let it stay. And maybe care a little bit less about appearances? And write a little bit more about the strained relationships and the blooming ones? Maybe I can write about the fantastic poems I come by thanks to some friends? Maybe I can post interesting videos I come by on days? Maybe I can light up a bloody cigarette and not wonder who is reading about it. Oh by the way, if you listen really hard, the lit cigarette is not quite so soundless. The small noise of the thin paper burning really does make me want to pull out another one. It’s like diwali in your mouth.