31.12.18

The Annual Recap.



1. What did you do in 2018 that you'd never done before?

- Got certified as an open water scuba diver.
- Won my first advertising award.

Leaving it at that for obvious reasons.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

No.
No.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

No.


4. Did anyone close to you die?

No.

5. What countries did you visit?
I am not a white person on their gap year so I didn't visit any other countries.  
Places? Goa and the Andamans. 

6. What would you like to have in 2019 that you lacked in 2018?

Energy.

7. What date from 2018 will remain etched upon your memory and why?

April and November/December. For being incredibly happy. 

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

That inner peace thing I've been ranting on about for ten years? That. 
Oh and getting my Aadhar card. It took more effort than studying for ISC. 


9. What was your biggest failure?

Being incapable of doing anything productive on the domestic front.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Two sprained ankles. 
One that resulted from drunk hopscotch (which should probably go on my failure list).

11. Whose behaviour merited celebration?

No one's.

12. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?

No one's.

13. Where did most of your money go?

Swiggy :( 

14. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Next year.
(Optimism.) 

15. What song will always remind you of 2018?

Saint Raymond's Movie in My Mind.

16. Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?

I was happy last year.
I'm happier this year.

17. What do you wish you'd done more of?

Something, as opposed to nothing really.

18. What do you wish you'd done less of?

I wish I'd spent less money on that fucking Swiggy which I am banning myself from.

19. How will you be spending Christmas?

Christmas is over. I spent Christmas Eve alone with some wine and Christmas Day with my brother.
Both were nice. 

20. Did you fall in love in 2018?

Yes. 

(Whoa.)

21. How many one night stands?

None. 


22. What was your favourite TV programme?

The Peep Show and Luther. 


23. What was the best book you read?

The Diary Of A Nobody.

24. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Saint Raymond. 


25. What did you want and get?

A break from work.

26. What did you want and not get?

This is too private to talk about. 

27. What was your favourite film of this year?

It's an old film. 
Birdcage. 


28. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 27, had my first birthday away from home, with a few close friends in Bangalore.
It ended with a sprained ankle, but it was still great fun. 

29. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Again, too private to talk about. 
(This blog was so much more interesting when I was a teenager wanting to share every fucking thing with the world.) 

30. What kept you sane?

Jimi's Beer Cafe. 

31. Who was the worst new person you met?

No one.

32. Who was the best new person you met?

Ditto.

33. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learnt in 2018.

Patience. 

34. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

Nine years and the answer is the same - no. 

18.12.18

The Andamans: Part I

A couple of months ago, I got a call from my mother asking whether I wanted to go to the Andamans with her and her boyfriend Addu. (Not his real name, thankfully.)

Now, under any other circumstances, I would've jumped at the opportunity. But...

"Yuck," I said. "Why would I want to be a third wheel on my mother's romantic getaway. Honestly, Mummy, you have no imagination or empathy. Absolutely none. Why can't you ever -" 

"Well," she said, interrupting me as she always does, "we're going to Havelock for a couple of days and carrying on to another island. But there's a scuba diving centre in Havelock that Addu knows about and I thought you might like to stay on there and do a proper training course. It's an early Christmas present and..." she paused, trying to justify her incredible generosity, "...an educational experience." 

Something very rare happened then: my mother had to listen to a series of shrill shrieks. (Usually she’s not the one on the receiving end, if you get my drift.)

I’m going to skip ahead – past my profound thanks to my mother, the tickets being booked, my last day at work, Mawii coming down just before I left, the trauma (I use the word loosely) I went through during the switchover at Hyderabad, my forgetting a parcel I was extremely proud of remembering to carry in the first place, and more – to the bit where I was on the plane as it began its descent to Port Havelock.

(I was on it before it began its descent as well. Obviously. Which reminds me – there was a point where I looked out of the window - I frequently do to make sure parts of the plane aren’t falling off – and saw what I firmly to be the triangular tip of India, perfectly canopied by pearl-like clouds, floating [along with the rest of Asia one hopes] on the ocean. Weeks later, in Shantiniketan, my father would insist that it wasn’t the tip of India, it was just any old coast, and spent an hour looking up flight routes to prove me wrong but, I’m happy to say, he failed to do so. )

Where was I? 

Oh right, flying over the Andamans towards Port Blair.

When it comes to seas, I’m used to Goa. I’ve been to Thailand quite a few times, but usually during the Monsoon. So I’m really not used to seeing the sort of turquoise blue that I saw from the plane, dotted by coral reefs and islands with white sand. It looked like the photos you see of seas on Google images, at the risk of sacrificing poetry for precision.

As we descended even lower, I saw a miniscule black shape gliding effortlessly through the clear water and for a brief and magical moment, thought it was a huge shark before realising it was, unfortunately, a boat.

(There would be a couple of similar moments, especially when I was on ferries, desperately peering into the water, hoping for a glimpse of a shark-shaped shadow or a smooth grey fin cutting through the blue water but it was not to be.)

After getting my luggage (Belt No. 1 they said, which was completely unnecessary because Belt No. 1 was the only luggage belt), I headed outside to wait for my mother and Addu. There was no place inside.

There followed a boring hour of sitting on my luggage and realising, as I stared at my phone, how dependent I am on wifi, 2G, 3G and 4G. There was no sign of any of them. Thank god for Two Dots. 

At one point, a middle-aged French couple swept past me, smoking cigarettes with the all-too familiar look of people who’ve been parted from inhaling tar for just far too long. I mention them now, because they’re going to return later.

Anyway, time crawled by, as it does in these sort of situations, before I finally got a call from my mother – she was louder than usual (which is saying something) because the line was bad (islands are not conducive to any signal, let alone Internet).

“WE’VE [static]. WHERE ARE YOU?”

“Outside,” I said.

“WHY ARE YOU [static]? WHY NOT IN THE AIRPORT?”

“There was nowhere to wait there,” I said. “I’m outside Gate 1. Is there a Gate 2?”

“WHY NOT IN [static] AIRPORT?”

“I’M JUST OUTSIDE,” I finally yelled, causing a bunch of heads to swivel in my direction. Honestly, only my mother can cause that sort of crap to happen.  “OUTSIDE. GATE 1.”

“GATE WHAT?”

At that point, I saw Addu ambling towards me with a cheerful grin. At the same time, as the shouting through the phone continued, I became aware of simultaneous shrieks coming from behind me. I waved at Addu, turned towards the shrieks and saw my mother standing just a few feet away, across a railing, rolling her eyes as she made noises that would not be out of place in somewhere like, oh let’s see, Hell probably. 

“I’M HERE!” I shouted, putting down the phone.

“WHERE?” She shrieked, holding her phone even closer to her mouth.

“HERE!”

“WHERE THE HECK IS HERE?” (She did not say the word 'heck'. She used a much ruder word and though I use it too, I can't bring myself to type it when it's coming out of my mother's mouth.)

Anyway, that last sentence was shouted so loud, I swear to you, the entire airport winced.

A gentleman quivering behind her, tapped her on the shoulder and – as she spun around to give him a piece of her mind – pointed nervously in my direction.

I waved.

Her frown melted into a smile and we ran towards each other and hugged and started (or rather, continued) shrieking.

The airport winced again and thankfully watched us go.

*

As we put our luggage in the taxi, my mother asked me why I was carrying such a huge suitcase. (I usually travel light.)

“I’m away from Bangalore for three weeks,” I said defensively. “Also, I’m carrying all my dirty laundry so you can get it organized in Cal.”

“But you have a washing machine!”

“Yes, but this way, I can get everything ironed as well.”

*

The resort we were staying in was, ironically, named after a kind of bird – the Megapode. The name literally means “large foot” in Greek and a board put up in Reception additionally informed me that they are aggressive and completely independent from their time of birth.

“Ask the receptionist if they have these creatures wandering around,” I hissed at my mother, vividly recalling a certain resort in Puri from my childhood that had peacocks doing just that. One attacked my cousin Rajeet. I escaped because I had the presence of mind to cower behind my grandfather’s knees every time one of those feathered spawns of Satan came in sight.

The receptionist reassured us that they didn’t have live mascots of the bird the resort was named after and I relaxed.

We dumped our stuff in the room and headed out to buy tickets for the ferry that was supposed to take us to Havelock the next morning.

That turned out to be an experience so long and traumatic, I’ll save it for Part 2.



22.2.18

Lessons from a dusty shelf.

Lesson 1. 

First tilt the head,
then raise the nose,
a cautious sniff,
a brow pulled up.

Then open mouth,
then lick the air

(it tastes different in your bones).

Lesson 2.

Is there poison in your soul?
Do you know?
Do you know?
I found some in mine.
(It took some time.)
There was more than I expected
to find.

So now I'm exterminating it.
Overhauling my soul a bit.
And I think it'll be fine.
Though it might take some time.
(There was more than I expected
to find.)

Lesson 3.

I hope that I will never
consume love in table spoons:
measured doses of mundane medicine
designed to
refresh
rejuvenate
re-something.

I want to choke on love.
Hold so much of it in my mouth
that it spills out.
And when it falls from my
lips - I am sure about this -
may it look like
what gratitude does.







9.1.18

The wedding.

I went back to Calcutta for three days at the end of December for the wedding of one of my oldest, dearest friends.

Here's an extract from a post written nearly ten years ago. Sort of captures our friendship a little.

"I didn't have a Last Assembly. I was late for school and I had to stand outside with a lot of people. Tanvi was one of them. Appropriate maybe because it was the tail of her dress that I clutched when I walked into Assembly for the first time." 

Funnily enough, my first memory of Tanvi is of her not being there. It was the first day of school. Lower Nursery. I was barely three years old. (By all accounts it was a spectacular day. Apparently I cried so much, I threw up. Twice.)

I remember being held by my mother and scanning the white-washed, high-ceilinged room, looking for Tanvi. We were already friends from the Miranda Hall pre-school days - although I only have vague memories of that.

The crying started when I couldn't find her.

I was a needy child.

Anyway, so she was getting married and I went for the wedding. Just about managed snatching leave for it. I landed the night of the Sangeet. My mother picked me up at the airport. She was late as usual. So I gave her a cold kiss instead of the usual crushing hug (she was seriously late, ok, and I TOLD her to be on time. ) But, as usual, five minutes later, I'd forgotten that she is the most maddening woman I know, and I felt the home love kind of love wash over me. 

The point I'm trying to make is by the time I reached the Sangeet it was nearly midnight. I was so excited, I rushed into the place in cargos and a leather jacket, forever cementing myself in the eyes of those who saw me as Cool. Until I changed into a beautiful, ethereal Greek Goddess kind of gown, and spent the rest of the night tripping over the hem and trying in vain to contain the cape behind me from billowing like Batman's. (I love Batman, but I didn't particularly want to look like him just then.)

I spent the rest of the night downing shots, dancing reluctantly, and dragging poor Pandey out to one of the little lawns so I could sneak a smoke without Tanvi's parents seeing me. Strange, that. I'm perfectly ok with my parents seeing me smoke, I really don't bother hiding it from most people, but her parents - I don't know, it's just weird. 

Anyway. 

The next day was the Mehendi. I was going to put some on, but then I realised what it looks like when it starts coming off. Like skin disease. But I couldn't say that to the people who kept coming up to me and urging me to join the throng. So I said I was allergic. 

Allergies are so useful, man. I'm going to start saying I'm allergic to seafood, instead of telling people I don't like it. It will cut down on some of the judgement that is passed on me, as it is on us all. It's weird though, I really have tried to like it, and some things I'm okay with. Like sushi and sashimi. I love good sushi and sashimi. I also like Windsor Pub's crab rasam. And the Aunty-in-Goa's fish cutlets. 

Back to the point. 

Actually, I'm quite far away from it, so I'm going to skip ahead - past the haldi (that was emotional, man, that was so emotional, it was the first time the emotional hit me), and straight to the wedding on the third day. 

I was supposed to meet the bride where she was getting ready. After two people (Mum and Briho) wrestled me into my saree (oh my god, it was my Thakuma's, and it was yellow silk, and so beautiful, I'm going to wear it again at my wedding, if I ever get married), I sped off to the wedding venue. 

Got there to realise that she wasn't getting ready at the wedding venue (ITC), she was getting ready at the Taj. Why, I don't know. 

So I sat in the lobby for the next two and a half hours and stalked the following people on Facebook:

1) Exes and past crushes
2) Teachers from school
3) Ex colleagues
4) Random people I haven't thought about since school 

I managed missing the groom's arrival, and then, the bride's - and I only just rushed out in time to join the procession behind the bride, as she was escorted by her brothers to the wedding mandap. 

Saw the ceremony. (Wonder of wonders, my mother arrived in time for it.) A little bit of weeping happened. A lot of weeping would have, but I made myself think of work instead. I did still feel like weeping, but it was a different kind of weeping. On the inside. The tears, at least, dried up.  


Just after the ceremony, I was chatting with Tanvi's ayah, Chachi. Chachi is a delight to us all - when we are not the ones facing her bullet. For instance, I don't think Tanvi's mum was delighted when Chachi hid the keys to her cupboard after they got into an argument about something. I certainly wasn't delighted by the following conversation I had with her. 

Chachi: So. They're all married now. Tanvi. Avantika. Sonal. Roli.

Me: Yes. 

Chachi: When are you getting married? 

Me: No clue. 

Chachi: *eyes widening* But you have a man in your life, don't you?

Me: *shrinking visibly* No, Chachi. No man. *Pause* Not even a boy. 

Chachi: WHAT ARE YOU DOING? YOU'RE GOING TO BE THIRTY IN THREE YEARS. GET A MOVE ON. 

I told Tanu the story later and, in doing so, dug my own grave.

It was time for the Vidai - which is the going away ceremony. Technically, the bride was only going to her hotel room and then going back home for dinner later, but no one was thinking of technicalities then. Most of us were howling. I thought about work, I thought about fat puppies, I thought about other unmentionable things to distract myself. But all I could think about really was the little girl, often mistaken in school for my twin, whom time and distance had never been able to fade for me, not even a little bit. 

So yeah, man, I was sobbing away to glory when she turned around (she was sobbing too) and called for me to go up to her.

There is a tradition where the gold jhinguts on the bride's wrist are shaken over the heads of unmarried girls. If a piece breaks off on one of the girls, it's her turn next. 

I was, unfortunately, the only unmarried girl singled out. 

No gold piece, predictably, broke on my head. 

But Tanu didn't give up, oh no. She thrashed the jhinguts on my poor head until a piece gave way. It had no option. It was no match for her. 

Man, that was hilarious and embarrassing. 

And reassuring. Because if I ever want a husband, I shall just shake it, and one will appear. At some point. Apparently.

I'm going to stop telling this story to everyone though.

The other day, I was recounting it to a friend's flatmate who told me, very reassuringly, "don't worry, you will get married." 

"That's not the point," I said, annoyed. "I don't want to get married, I've never really cared about getting married." 

"It's okay," he said, not realising it had been okay until then. "I can tell. You'll get married. One day."

I kept on trying to convince him that I wasn't telling the story for reassurance, I was telling the story because I thought it was funny. 

But no. 

It is going to be okay. 

And there's nothing I can do about it.


Us. Dec 2008.

The yellow silk saree. Oh, and Mum. Dec 2017.