ghum hai kisi ke pyaar mein

i am now turning inwards. i am going to get inside of me until i find the best part and i will give it to you as a farewell present.

Dec 12, 2021

Have you ever played pretend? When I was young I would spend a lot of my time thinking I’m a bird. I would jump from the sofa and the bed, moving my arms up and down like a foolish human baby chick. After a while I realised this was not going to work, I would have to find something a human child could do. I could jump and land on my knees, right?

That’s how a painful game started, of jumping down the stairs and on hard marble floors. I think I was possessed by someone who wanted to see me break my kneecaps. That game stopped when my younger brother was born. My parents gave a party a month after he was born, and everyone who came chose to look at him instead of me. When I was addressed, I wasn’t the smart girl who knew a lot of things anymore, I was a sister now, I was now a part of a duo.

And I had no one to blame except myself - I had spent the previous year threatening god that if he did not get me a baby brother I would jump in the well near my Naani’s place. And now he was here, the new baby chick of the family.

I loved him, I really did; the first person I had started loving without any conditions or connections, loved him just because. But when no one paid attention to me when my knees were bleeding because of my jumping game because everyone was busy with the party, I realised I was not all that special. I AM ORDINARY, HOW PAINFUL, HOW SAD.

And that’s how my streak of going out with boys who had an older sister began. I “date” them in the most casual meaning of the word and then eat them for dinner. Then I proceed to throw up. Net zero gain.

(Speaking of eating, I am listening to Hot Knife by Fiona Apple. I just decided to nickname this person my Hot Knife. Not just, like three, four days ago I think. It’s a nice name right?)

My neighbour has two sons, one is 15 and the other is 8. When the younger one was born, he was terribly sick, the kind which requires an ICU. The older one was left with his grandma at home while the parents tended to the baby. Well, this grandma joked around a lot, and told this kid that his parents did not love him anymore, that they had gotten a new boy to love and play with. And it stuck. Now he fights with his parents everyday and is a sad child, the kind who are loud and oversharing, you know? Whenever he is over, he tells me one fucked up thing or the other about his life, and for a moment, I am also 15, and I am on the verge of telling him all those things which happened to me when I was 15 too. Only I don’t, I tell him to keep moving and shut the door. I am now in the possession of a body which tires easily - my head hurts at every minor inconvenience. What I am trying to say is, I am willing to give up at any given moment.

A lot of people have told me I tend to romanticise things way too much. Maybe I am just trying to make it digestible for myself, and it’s none of anybody else’s fucking business. But life doesn’t work that way. I should stop being so rude and defensive. I am not fifteen. I am not fifteen. Tell that to yourself everytime you are about to fuck up - YOU ARE NOT FIFTEEN ANYMORE. YOUR ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES.

Here are a few things you can do in the remaining few days of December - own up, man up, chin up, fuck up. I am going to send out little prayers for all of you so that it’s a gentle way out of this shitshow. I have a couple things and people from this year that I would like to take with me to next year, but whatever I was myself, I want to get rid of that guy. I don’t want to be this person, I want to be a neat and clean boy, I want to be the woman who waits for you at home. I think I have done enough of waiting around, and I am not going to ask anything of people anymore. Yes, I don’t know how to, but that’s besides the point. 2022 is all about giving. Giving until I run out of myself and then I have to collect new pieces to build myself. The first thing I am going to gather is courage.

if i had a friend in real life who indulged me this way, i wouldn’t have to fake interviews in my head. i mean i would still do, only they would be about easier things.

Nan Goldin. *Mary and David hugging, New York City.* 1980

Here’s a poem whose opening lines have killed me over and over whenever I think of it

my original prompt was - are you mad at me? and then i fed the result into the prompt and got this.

दिल ना-उमीद तो नहीं नाकाम ही तो है

लम्बी है ग़म की शाम मगर शाम ही तो है

Dil na-umeed to nahi nakaam hee to hai,

Lambi hai gham ki shaam magar shaam hee to hai

Written by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, this is an excerpt from one of his poems. It can be roughly translated to -

This heart may be of no use right now
but at least it’s not irremediable
This melancholic evening may be stretching beyond belief
but it’s still just an evening to live through

MEMORIES AGAINST THE GREEN OF SUMMER

The stairs at the back of the house. The smell of cigarettes from twenty minutes ago, lingering in the air just like my loneliness. Someone has turned the radio on; an old hindi song comes on. I know the lyrics, the lyrics know me; we were introduced to each other on our old LG television set by my mother. I love this song, she confessed, about ten summers ago. I had learnt the melody and I had tied her words around my ankle. Anything to hold onto - that’s how you are when you are ten.

There’s a child screaming in the distance, if I pretend hard enough I can picture a seven year old me on the lawn, screaming because she lost her anklet. A bright silver thing, cool and beautiful against my warm brown ankles. I can hear my aunts in the kitchen, the window is overhead me - someone is getting married, they don’t like the groom. The pots and pans are louder than their voices, announcing the making of dinner. What time is it? Seven already? I move away from the empty lane, down the three steps, out to the front door, where a cat has established itself right at the entrance. I sit in front of her and stare at her for a while. I am twenty. Time is a lie. I allow myself this moment of nothingness. I am not sure if I can do it, but I am twenty, and I am not allowed to ask childish questions anymore. I turn back to the lane, letting the cat be, just like my loneliness.I see you standing there, waiting. Not for me, but something. I stand next to you, and we look at the sun making her way home, gliding down the stairs in the sky, a young girl in love, making the sky blush with her youth. I too am waiting for something of my own, but in this moment, we suffice.

I have to tell you,
there are times when
the sun strikes me
like a gong,
and I remember everything,
even your ears.

- Dorothea Grossman

सोचा है एक दिन / मैं उससे मिल के / कह डालूँ अपने सब हाल दिल के / और कर दूँ जीवन उसके हवाले / फिर छोड़ दे चाहे अपना बना ले / मैं तो उसका रे हुआ दीवाना / अब तो जैसा भी मेरा हो अंजाम / गुम है किसी के प्यार में / दिल सुबह शाम / पर तुम्हें लिख नहीं पाऊं / मैं उसका नाम / हाय राम

I am thinking of meeting her one day, and letting her in on everything that lives in my heart. After that, my life is hers, whether she wants to accept me or throw it all away. I am in love with her, and I don’t care about the conseuquences. My heart is lost in the sea of somebody’s love, it doesn’t know day from night. I wish I could spell her name out for you, but I cannot, oh dear.

Written by Majrooh Sultanpuri and filmed on Rekha and Randhir Kapoor, it’s a song from the movie Rampur ka Lakshman, which also stars Shatrughan Sinha. I have not watched it but my guess is that it’s a love triangle set amidst class differences. The beauty of the song is, it has a very childlike innocence to it. Remember when a guy would start playing the guessing game with you or in a movie or whatever, about who his crush is, and he would say something like, “oh you know her very well,” or something to give you the hint that it’s you? Imagine that but in a more beautiful, less hormonal way. The best part is, Rekha is literally in front of him. And she does confess back, in her own way. She tells him - the one you are in love with shares similar sentiments.

Let’s just assume a happy ending for these people and move on.

It is December 12th here right now. Succession ends tomorrow, at least according to my timezone. This season was something else, wasn’t it? I am trying to not let it get to me but it is getting to me. I cannot wait to wake up tomorrow and watch it and feel like something final has finally happened in my life, even though it’s literally not my life. Maybe I will then go and stand on the roof, channel my inner Kendall Roy. You are more than welcome to join me. BYOB. No pools.

If you were underwhelmed by this issue, feel free to let me know. I know I haven’t been well for the past few days but I was tired of feeling miserable, so I decided to finish this up. I have watched a few great things, read a couple good things. Maybe after my last issue this year, I will actually focus on writing good things. Sorry for being self deprecating or whatever the word is, I really am trying not to let it all get to me.

Not much to say, cling on to whatever hope you have got, I guess.