Goodbye, Anonymous

 Anonymous has been this blog's most faithful reader and its most prolific commentator. 

Anonymous never failed to point out spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and punctuation blips. Anonymous often called me while I was at work, knowing I was at work, to tell me about a misplaced comma. 

Anonymous thought this blog demonstrated my sense of the ridiculous and my ability to laugh at myself. He was proud of that — mostly, I suspect, because they are qualities I inherited from him. 

In the years that I stopped writing, Anonymous would frequently and irritably ask when I would start again. Anonymous had a lot of free time, and he enjoyed spending some of it reading all my nonsense. 

Anonymous was the most exasperating, maddening, outrageous, eccentric, generous, egalitarian, sharp-minded, soft-hearted person I have ever had the misfortune to lose. 

Anonymous was my father and this is the first time I am writing a post that he will never read. 

May the gods we never believed in bless and keep you safely, Dad, until I find you again.

What I've learned about love -
it's everything you think of.
You've spent all your life,
peering over a wall.

And then, next to you,
someone peering over too.
A brief glorious second where
you turn your face
Then that heartbreaking moment -
meeting a blank gaze. 

1. What did you do in 2019 that you'd never done before?

- Became self-employed
- Quit drinking for three months and never hugely went back to it.
- Quit dairy (kicking and screaming) because of severe lactose intolerance. 

Oh, and written this before Christmas instead of after. 

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

No.
But for next year, I need to stop smoking (at some point). 

And I want to finish writing a book I started.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

No, but a very dear friend is going to next month. 


4. Did anyone close to you die?

No.

5. What countries did you visit?

I didn't. 

But Thailand next month and now that my passport's been renewed, more places hopefully.

6. What would you like to have in 2020 that you lacked in 2019?

Fulfilment of hope that I've feared will not materialise. 

7. What date from 2019 will remain etched upon your memory and why?

October - for happiness. 
November and December - for the opposite. 

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Growing up.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Laziness for most of it, but that's been conquered now.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Nope. 

11. Whose behaviour merited celebration?

Pria. For four years of incredible hard work that has made her Dr. Ghosh.

12. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?

Don't want to say.

13. Where did most of your money go?

Indulging myself. 

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

Nothing really. 

15. What song will always remind you of 2019?

Wish You Were Here.

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

Sadder.

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

It's hard to answer this because I've had to do so much I never wanted to the past couple of months - it obscures whatever I did want to do, but didn't.

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

See above.

19. How will you be spending Christmas?

I'll be in Dehra Dun with family.

20. Did you fall in love in 2018?

No, but I stayed in love. 

21. How many one night stands?

None. 


22. What was your favourite TV programme?

Mindhunter.

23. What was the best book you read?

The Silk Road

24. What was your greatest discovery?

Boroline.

25. What did you want and get?

I always pictured myself not working in an office, but working from home and writing for multiple projects while earning enough money to shop at Zara.
I got that this year.

26. What did you want and not get?

Same thing as last year. 

27. What was your favourite film of this year?

 I don't know if any of them would be a 'favourite'.

28. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I turned 28 and brought it in with the person I love best.

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

Being able to eat cheese. 

30. What kept you sane?

Pria. 

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 2019.

I learned to live with despair. 

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

Never. 

The Andamans: The Last One

I had two dives left to get my certification and both were happening on the same day. From a boat, this time. 

The sun rose early, I rose soon after and was very happy to see it. Better weather means better visibility which means better dives.  

We left from the beach behind the resort, carrying our equipment and navigating our way through those pain-in-the-ass rocks, to where the boat waited. There were quite a few of us. Myself, a girl from Chennai (who was going to be my dive buddy), a spotty teenager and a middle-aged French couple - the same French couple I'd seen at the airport in Port Blair, the ones who'd lit their cigarettes as soon as they exited the airport. There were also two instructors. 

We settled ourselves on the boat, the instructors took turns to tell us things that I no longer have any memory of, and after about fifteen minutes of speeding through the sea (warm sun, cold wind, astringent spray, absolute bliss), we arrived at the dive spot. (The French couple very disgruntled because the instructors wouldn't let them smoke on the boat. They sat apart from the rest of us muttering to each other, hissing the way the French do to people who don't know the language. I felt great empathy for them. A cigarette would have been just the thing to round off the aforementioned warm sun and astringent spray.) 

Girl-From-Chennai and I were assigned to one instructor (Kirtan) because both of us apparently needed to do the same dives to get our certificates. The other group were on a 'fun' dive, whatever that is. They jumped off and swam somewhere else and aren't particularly important to the story. 

I rolled off the boat, the way I'd been told to, and managed a fairly dignified entry into the sea. We did a couple of exercises and down we went. (I had to wait at the surface for Kirtan and Girl-From-Chennai to finish one of her exercises separately and it was a nightmare. I was holding on to the mooring line but the boat didn't seem very moored, if you ask me. It kept floating towards me and I had to desperately kick back to avoid it hitting my head and knocking me unconscious and sending me down to the depths - or something similar.)

I don't think Girl-From-Chennai had been trained as intensively as me and it made me appreciate Rylan's thoroughness. I hated those goddamn buoyancy-breathing exercises but I was more in control of the dive, being able to stay low without much trouble. I sent him a silent thank you as I inspected a small hollow in the coral. 

The dive went smoothly.

It was when I got to the surface that hell began. 

We were so goddamn far from that goddamn boat which kept bobbing further and further away. And even though the day was clear, the currents hadn't recovered from the cyclone and were - well, nasty. It would have been easier if I didn't have my BCD on but I did. There are two ways to get back to the boat: hold the line and pull yourself towards it or just stay on your back and kick. I kept switching between both techniques: they were equally painful. Honestly, at one point, I just wanted to give up and have someone tow me to the boat but my ego wouldn't let me.

By the time I dragged myself on to the boat, coughing up the sea water that I'd obviously managed swallowing, I was done. Except I couldn't tell that to anyone really so instead I asked how far we were from the last dive site. Fifteen minutes was the answer.

We were on our way when a boat with cops pulled up next to us.

I regret to inform you that my first thought was please let there be something wrong and let them send us back to the resort because I will die from tiredness if they don't but as usual, nothing was wrong (nothing ever is wrong when I want it to be) and before I knew it, I was rolling off the boat a second time.

The minute I was in the water, sinking down in a perpendicular line to the sea bed, I felt fine. And I made the most of that last dive, trying to create picture-perfect memories of everything I saw. And then I was done and it was over - I haven't seen the bottom of the sea since but I hope I will again soon (voluntarily obviously, I don't mean I would like to 'see' it by drowning or something).

I came back to the resort and slept.

In the evening, Kirtan sat me down and gave me my assessment and took a photo of me for the card that was to proclaim me eligible to dive in open waters up to 60 feet anywhere in the world. (Baha.)

I've already talked about my last morning there so I'll stop writing now because there's nothing more to say. After the morning at the beach, I took an auto to the ferry that took me back to Port Blair. We crossed the sea in the evening and I had a window seat (positioned, this time around, to allow people to look through it).

I watched as the sun slipped away and the blue water turned gold and then black.

"Goodnight," I said softly.

Understandably, there was no response. 

The Andamans: Part V

My first reaction when we reached the dive site (a short drive from Barefoot Scuba) was disappointment. It was a cove with a narrow entrance that spread itself into sea. All over, waist deep (and waists bulging) in the water, were my Bengali brethren. I used to think that overweight Bengali men look their most unattractive when getting married. But that was until I saw them in wetsuits.

We waded our way through the crowd and nasty, hidden sea rocks to our boat to dump the equipment. (I'd spent the previous two hours learning how to take it off and put it on: it's a very precise and intricate step-by-step process and more than six months later, I remember almost nothing of it.)

Back to the disappointment. It was intense but also short-lived: Rylan and I, equipped with snorkelling masks, swam far out to where there were no people.

And so my training began.

He taught me how to free dive first.

"Watch me," he said, and I put the mask on and stuck my head dutifully under water to watch. It was my first glimpse of the reefs: a medley of shimmering colour dimmed slightly by the silt in the water.

He swam impossible far down before re-surfacing.

"I wish I could do that," I said enviously (and also regretfully, thinking of the two cigarettes I'd smoked that morning).

"You are going to do that."

There is, obviously, a technique to it but I didn't get it right the first couple of times. But on the third try, I did it. I went down, down, down and more importantly, I managed staying there - long enough to see a clown fish and family swimming through the tentacles of their sea anemone home. (They're much smaller than I expected.)

My training sessions comprised a series of exercises. I had to finish one before being allowed to move on to another. One of the early exercises was simply staying afloat for fifteen minutes.

"Really?" I said to Rylan. "You know I can swim."

"Tell me how you feel after ten minutes."

Ten minutes in and I was feeling queasy as hell.

"It's sea-sickness," he said.

"No!"

"Yes!"

I was taken aback because I've spent hours in the sea, floating the way I was now, without feeling sick at all. But it turns out, the storm and position of the cove created deceptively strong currents though I could not feel them. The damn fins didn't help either. How I hated those fins.

The fifteen minutes passed and I managed not throwing up. We swam back to the boat to get our scuba gear. My tank was already strapped to my BCD which Rylan helped me slip on. I strapped myself in, put weights in my pocket and put the mask on.

"Your primary regulator needs to be arranged this way, remember?" Rylan said to me.

Everything needs to be arranged in a certain way when you're scuba diving. The main reason is if something occurs while you're under water, you can - despite possible panic - know exactly where to reach for what you need. It should be instinctive, Rylan told me. Like changing gears in a car.

The man has obviously never seen me drive a car.

"Okay, let's try breathing under water."

Down we went. (I say down, but really it was just sinking to my knees because we were still by the boat.)

I wish I could explain, really explain, what it felt like...breathing normally under water for the first time. It should have been mundane - I didn't see anything spectacular, just a lot of sand and Rylan. All I had to do to break through the surface, was stand. But it was a moment I don't think I will ever forget.

We swam out to the site where we'd been snorkelling and free diving. A few more exercises and Rylan thought I was ready to go under.

"Ready?"

"Ready."

Down we went and there I was, skimming over the sea bed (careful not to touch it), discovering a world of coral reefs and brightly coloured fish, feeling that I was now a part of it. I felt wonder, of course. But I also felt gratitude. Gratitude to the sea, more than anything else, not only for housing such splendour but also for allowing me to access it - even if for a little while. (And some gratitude to my mother as well, I'm glad to say.)

We swam for about half an hour and then re-surfaced for further training. Here are some of the more memorable exercises:

Taking off my equipment while kneeling on the sea bed and putting it all back on again. On. The. Sea. Bed. I had to keep shifting the weights from hand to hand to make sure I didn't float up once my BCD was off. I didn't manage doing it right the first time but Rylan caught me and pulled me down before I went zooming up to the surface.

Rylan shutting off my oxygen tank so I'd know what to do if I ever ran out of oxygen. He told me to be careful not to panic and I could see why. Even though I knew it was coming, even though I knew what to do, even though he was right there, it is extremely disconcerting to have no oxygen when you're that far under water.

None of it was particularly hard, though, until we started practicing buoyancy control. You have to adjust your breathing pattern and combine it with the inflator/deflator buttons on the BCD to hover just inches above the sea bed, all the while remaining absolutely upright. It took a long time - a really, really long time - for me to be able to do it without rising too high or sinking too fast or losing my balance and falling over on the sea bed. (The irony of falling over underwater did not escape me.)

Anyway, at one point, while I was standing with my feet planted on the ground, just about to try another three-inch ascent, Rylan started making the calm down gesture. (One of the many signals divers use to communicate since talking, obviously, is not an option.) This surprised me because I was calm. But then he pointed to something on my left. I looked down and saw a sea snake about a foot away from my, er, foot - and slithering steadily closer.

I've always found snakes very fascinating. They're right up there with sharks and crocodiles in Trisha's Unwritten Book of Animals That Fascinate Trisha. Despite that, if I saw a croc or shark heading for me while I was defenceless underwater, I would have a fit, try to escape, presumably fail and be eaten. But I figured that even if the snake was poisonous, Rylan would get me to the surface for treatment in time. (He would not, perhaps, be able to do that if my limbs were being bitten off by a shark or croc.) Also, I was wearing thick rubber fins and I assumed it was unlikely the snake would bite through them. We didn't take a chance however and swam peacefully away to another spot to start practicing again. Although I did make it a point from then on, to carefully examine whatever stretch of ground I was going to touch before touching it.)

My training went on for about three or four days. The weather was terrible because a cyclone was passing through the area (typical) so by afternoon, visibility was always, well, non-existent. That meant I could only train for about four hours a day.

I say only but it was enough to keep me asleep for most of the remaining twenty hours. Anyway, I was finally done with most of my training and logged my first two official dives with Rylan.

The next two - the last two, the two that would certify me - happened a couple of days after the snake incident.

That day deserves a post dedicated only to it and nothing else (also I'm tired now), so I will write about it in Part VI.

The Andamans: Part IV

That first morning was beautiful. I emerged from my hut early but the sun was already out and so were the breezes. There were coconut trees all around me and, as I walked towards the beach, I sent them admiring glances, not unmingled with suspicion. (They kill 200 Indians a year.)
I was to be in a state of trepidation throughout the trip despite my mother informing me that I have an abnormally hard head that will probably survive a coconut dropping on it. I never accept what she tells me blindly. She is not like the mothers in books who are always right about things.

I reached the beach but it was low tide and that first evening had taught me how conniving rocks can be so I didn't wade in. I sat on the sand, drinking the moment in, but then I saw a couple of large crabs scuttling around me so I choked on all of it, spilled some of it and hurried back to the "restaurant" for breakfast.

After I was done, I had to report to a Diving Instructor (it's a specific designation) who assigned me to a Dive Master - a lower designation though it sounds like it should be the opposite. My Dive Master's name was Rylan and  I was disconcerted to learn that he was a couple of years younger than me.

What I like about Barefoot Scuba is they take their training very seriously. (I can't remember if I mentioned this in a previous post but I'm too lazy to go back and check.) I had to pass a bunch of theory tests, Rylan told me, and once I was done with that, I could start my open water training. Many places tend to have the training in swimming pools but very sensibly, Barefoot believes in starting with the sea since you're going to end up there eventually.

"How long will it take for me to finish the theory exams?" I asked.

"That depends on you."

He explained the process to me. First I had to watch a bunch of video tutorials grouped into five sections. After finishing a section, I had to answer the questions on the test in front of me before moving on to the next one. Once I was done with all of that, he'd quiz me on them.

I was determined to be a diving prodigy so by the time he checked in on me a couple of hours later, I'd only just started watching the second section. They were all very technical and had a disturbing amount of physics in them. Physics and I have never had an easy relationship.

"Why is it taking you so long?"

"I've been re-winding bits I don't understand three or four times until I do understand them," I said. "So I can do well on the tests."

"Oh these aren't the tests."

"What do you mean?"

"These are to make sure that you're going to be ready for the test."

Well, fuck.

Things did get faster but the videos got longer so it was 4.30 by the time I was done. Rylan came and quizzed me on all the answers. I got some wrong but most right.

"Cool, you're ready for the exam." He said.

"I take it tomorrow?"

"No. In an hour."

Excellent.

I made Mum quiz me while I was eating and I seemed to know, well, everything so when I reported back to Rylan and he gave me the test papers, I was fairly confident. I was right to be confident. I kicked ass. I even managed getting through the physics sums. I realised that whatever numbers they were using in the problem needed to be added by a 10. (E.g. If something was 40, the answer was 50.) Or something similar anyway.

I only got one question wrong and it was the tutorial's fault. The one thing the tutorial stressed on was that you are responsible for sticking to your dive buddy. The onus is on you, it repeatedly told me. So when the test asked me what I'd do if I were diving with two buddies and one got lost, I naturally wrote "Stick to the dive buddy I have and let the lost one find us."

Man. He acted like I was a sociopath.

"You're supposed to spend at least a minute searching for your third buddy together before heading to the surface and raising the alarm....you're not supposed to ABANDON him."

The only other hiccup was when I ended one of my (verbal) answers with, "I guess."

"There are no guesses when you're under the sea," he said ominously.

"So have I passed or are there any more tests?" I asked cautiously. (Keep in mind that by that time I'd answered at least three hundred questions on paper and gone through two rounds of verbal exams.)

"You've passed. We'll start your training tomorrow."

Yes, oh yes.

That night there was a huge storm. I sat on the little platform outside my hut and got soaked. The wind howled. I could hear the sea crashing in the distance. It was almost primeval. But then I remembered the goddamn coconuts and scurried back inside (after making sure that there wasn't any chance of a tree falling on my hut and crushing me to death before my first lesson).

I could see the lightning between the bamboo sticks. Bangalore seemed very far away. I fell asleep wondering what on earth I was doing, living in a soulless city when experiences like this were to be had. Somewhere, vaguely, the shape of a coconut threatened to answer my thought.

But then Bangalore has coconut trees too.

The Andamans: Part III

Writing the last post made me want to write more about the trip: an online diary to preserve it as much as possible. Also, if I'm completely honest, I'm supposed to be writing scripts for a project I'm working on (my life is distressingly millennial these days. It's 10 am and I'm at a cafe drinking iced lattes and typing on a Macbook that isn't mine) and as usual, I don't feel like working. I wonder what life is like for people who do. 

Anyway, I'm going to mostly skip the first day at Port Blair although it was eventful. Here's a brief summary though: 

Port Blair reminded me of a crowded mountain town. This was because it was a) crowded, b) mountainous, c) a town. Many parts of it smelled very strongly of fish. Understandable, considering it's by the sea and populated by numerous Bengalis.  Sens, Ghoshes and Boses had their signs plastered everywhere. 

We spent most of the day trying to get tickets to Havelock. Apparently the government doesn't like people going to Havelock (there was also some festival happening) because they made it as difficult as possible. If you're a tourist, you can't use government ferries anymore which was very disappointing because they're the open ones, with no roof. All the private ones were booked but after five hours of walking from travel agent to travel agent, we found one who fell victim to my mother's pleas. 

(My mother is very good at pleading when she wants to be. Her usual aggressive and dominant personality is cloaked by this helpless woman sort of persona and the poor fools who fall for it fall over themselves trying to help her.)

We left for Havelock early the next morning. It was a private ferry and you had to sit below the deck. The windows were carefully designed to obstruct the view and nearly all the passengers (mostly Bengali) took out egg sandwiches and started eating them. I finished my own egg sandwich within the first fifteen minutes and took a short nap. When I woke up, the boat was moving and I joined Addu on deck. 

The deck was not large but I found a corner and leaned against the rails, facing the sea. Give me that vicious salt-laden wind over the heavy, comatose scent of mountain pines any day. I spent the next ten minutes admiring the way the boat sped past some clouds, while others valiantly kept up with the sea - as well as examining the deep blue water in desperate hopes of spotting a shark fin. (I knew no reasonable shark would be swimming close to a ferry at 9 in the morning but I was hoping for an unreasonable one.)

Something that left a very sour taste in my mouth happened after. People started coming on deck but instead of enjoying the wind or looking at the sea, they just started taking selfies. I swear to you, not one person looked at the view. They were too busy capturing themselves instead of something so much greater. 

People suck. 

And then they made all of us go down so a second batch of people could come up to take more selfies. I was furious and disgusted and went back to sleep until we reached Havelock. 

Barefoot Scuba Resort is about ten minutes away from the docks by auto. Addu, Mum and I got into one auto. Our luggage was put in a second auto that followed us. Both autos drove recklessly which is why, for those ten minutes, I was subject to my mother leaning across me, sticking her head out of our auto and shrieking, "OHMYGOD. LOOK AT THE WAY THAT AUTO IS DRIVING. I CAN SEE MY SUITCASE. EEEK! IT'S GOING TO FALL OUT. OHMYGOD." 

She only paused to shriek about our own auto whenever it took a violent swerve. No words, just shrieks and gasps. I don't know how Addu handles the woman. Seriously. 

Havelock reminded me of South Goa. Slopes, seas, trees. Fresh air and not too many cars. After what could have been a delightful journey, we pulled up at Barefoot. Mum and Addu had a cottage - a lovely big room with a verandah, dressing room and open-plan bathroom. And I had a hut. - a tiny, dark room on stilts with enough space for a mattress and not much else. It sounds like I'm complaining but I don't mean to. It was charming and comfortable and I spent many happy hours there, nursing my aches and bruises after a hard day's dive. (Although I did use their bathroom for as long as they were there.) 

My course was going to start the next day. We spent that first morning in the sea. It was beautiful but disappointing because the tide had gone out and there were too many rocks to swim properly. Coming back to shore was a pain - it was the first time I realised how painful and difficult rocks can be to navigate. Unfortunately it wouldn't be the last. 

We had lunch at another beach resort down the road. Addu had been there before. When we were halfway there (it was hot and I was hungry), he stopped and said, "Hm. Come to think of it, we should have walked the other way." I wasn't forced to strangle him though because he checked with a local cigarette-wallah and was told we were going the right way after all. 

The sun had set by the time we finished eating. (I also started smoking openly in front of my mother, I am just too old to slink into a corner and light up and it is so pointless when both she and I know that I smoke. Plus, I am no longer financially dependent on her which means she can't use the whole "technically I am paying for those filthy cancer sticks" - bonus points for originality, mother - as an angle of attack anymore) 

Anyway, I was in bed by 9 pm, ready to start my course the next day. 

And I swear I'm going to write about it soon. 

The Andamans: Part II

Honestly, I didn't think I'd ever write a Part II to the Andamans holiday because I just don't enjoy writing anymore. Not really.

But I was talking to my father just now and he started telling me about this one time he visited Penang in 1989. Or maybe 79. I don't remember. What I do remember is how clearly he described the crescent beach and the clear waters. His mind has photographed it forever.

And that made me think of this one afternoon in the sea just off Barefoot Resort: the place I was staying at in Havelock.

It had been raining a lot which was frustrating because it affected vision during my scuba diving training but that particular day, the sun was out and the sky was clear. I'd finished my course the day before so I didn't have any dives and I decided to spend as much time as I could just swimming, floating, chilling, and all the etcs.

I'll never forget the colours: the sky and sea dressed in shades ranging between silver and blue, clean and bright under the sun. And then a storm started rolling in from the sea, and I could see it approaching because I was facing it.

I believe that one day we'll develop a mechanism to take photographs just by blinking our eyes. I'm not looking forward to that day. But that afternoon, I'd have given anything to have been able to take a lasting image of what I saw.

Clear blue sky being steadily and ruthlessly eaten by tumbling black clouds and the silver water turning into an emerald green. This blue and black and green were almost geometric in their separation - clean lines interrupted only by an empty blue and yellow boat quite far down from me.

Scuba diving was one of the richest experiences I have ever had. I don't like sounding trite but it was magical. That first moment you draw breath underwater - even though you're probably standing somewhere shallow and not seeing anything dazzling in particular, or even anything at all - creates a feeling that's a mixture of awe, humility, gratitude, excitement and serenity, and yet is separate from them all.

And then being underwater? I'm not going to describe everything I saw, not right now anyway, but it all added up to feeling that I belonged, temporarily, to another world. Everything above the surface ceased to matter.

(I'd probably have felt differently if I'd run out of oxygen or something but I didn't. So.)

But despite all that, I don't know whether I'm always going to remember what I remember now. Most of it is still so clear in my head and will be for some time. I find it strange that even though what I saw underwater was so impactful, I can't guarantee them being photographs in my head forty years from now.

The blue and black and green sky and sea and the blue and yellow boat, I will always remember. I know it instinctively.

I don't know why I don't like writing anymore, come to think of it.

I'd never tell anyone over a drink about what I just wrote here. I'll tell them about the time I saw a sea snake instead.

That was also very cool though.

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. 

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.

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.

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.