humein aur jeene ki chahat na hoti
agar tum na hote... aur tum nahi ho ab / scraps and more, hello
A lot has changed in a year. The desperate cry of my loneliness has settled in; into a rhythm to which I exist. I have made friends, female friends who take care of me and allow me to take care of them without it getting overbearing (where’s the fun then!). But beyond our shared moments, they have lives of their own - boyfriends, loving parents, troubles of womanhood; and I have myself. As usual, I turn inwards and come face to face with my own life that I am slowly trying to create. It is very isolating, being my own person. Is it stupid of me, to disengage myself from situations, from people, from my life that was given to me and birth a new version myself? It takes up all of my courage and feelings, which is actually better than spending night after night driving myself sick about Hot Knife.
I used to dwell on such questions when I was eighteen, hoping to reach a Socratic conclusion, a new theory for loners. But I am so much more now - older, lonelier, more understanding too. I will try and build a life for myself, and if it collapses, at least I wouldn’t have to worry about a grave.
It is Diwali today. My father is sick. To see him lay on the bed like a little boy is a little heartbreaking. He woke up a little while ago and asked me how my Diwali was going. I wanted to tell him I am going to fold these words of yours and keep them in a small pocket in my left shoulder, but you don’t just say things nowadays, so I said it was going alright. He is now again about to fall asleep. I am unable to tell you how much this is affecting me, or what This actually is, but then what use would it be to tell you all of this?
Does everything have to have some use? I personally used to think so, but now I have limited this philosophy merely to myself. I need to be of use to people, I have to be indispensable, or else there’s no point. Other people, other things, they are free from this. And such is the nature of this world that eventually everything and everyone gets used up. So, that’s fair in a way right?
It is very loud right now, but the festive feeling seems to be dimming with each passing year. I cannot help but think about last year and that has never done me any good. I wish to be away next Diwali; where, I can’t really say. I don’t have any preferences anymore, I just want out.
(written in September)
Everything is moving but I am stopped still in my head because of how all of it might be a cruel joke. There is nothing I have to prove it, and no idea why this thought has appeared out of thin air, but it is now the focus of my existence. After all, why should I not be the perfect person for a cruel joke? The universe has already been playing unfunny jokes, giving me something almost only to take it all away from me and leaving me stranded in the middle of nowhere. I wish the pattern stopped, but it has only gotten stronger and now it’s a quilted blanket that is on top of me and I am out of air. I could try building a small world under this blanket, and curl up and die.
I was travelling a lot recently. I was city hopping, meeting people, eating food, stopping at every shady corner. I was doing this on the outside while on the inside I was swatting away the small beast who wanted to cut my throat and come out. Not today, not right now. Of course, the foolishness on my part was that I was trying to run from it while forgetting that it was latched to me, heart and soul and everything that the mystics are trying to control. I hate naming it some technical term, and I get scared when it
I met people with well-adjusted parents, and a life in which they did not have to do damage control everyday. It made me jealous, for a split second but then I reveled in the fact that we all have different lives and some have it better.
Whenever I see someone have relatively normal things that I only pretend to have when among friends, I feel like I have not aged at all. About a year ago, Hot Knife asked me about when I had a good meal with my family and I just made up something on the spot because I wanted him to like me So Much, and in order to be liked That Much, you need to have that factor of amiability. Let the record show that I am not a liar, I am merely trying to be good to my father. So I just painted my father and I in the same portrait of familial bliss for someone whom I had pinned all my hopes on. More on that later.
With these things being recurring in my life, there’s an inconspicuous voice inside of me that has been whispering “why not me?” since before Mitski, when I was twelve and weepy and it gets increasingly strident every once in a while even now, even when I don’t need to run to daddy for every problem.
The thing is, to an outsider, it might seem like I am having fun, living, travelling, seeing things. I am, yes, I am. But the inner truth, which always exists beyond the dinner table, beyond conversations with friends can be divided into two parts -
a. I am running away from my loneliness and hiding among people is one of my solutions for now
b. I don’t know how to live my real life, so I am doing everything else but
I wish I had some profound explanation, some artistic inclination that could help justify my actions. But this is all there is, a rudimentary approach to life. Live fast, do things that other people are doing, don’t spend a lot of days full of nothing in continuation. Because we all know how that ends, it simply ends everything.
Things I love - a list made at 12:00 pm in Bombay
Kissing
Watching city lights at nights, picturing my life as one of the many stationary small planets on this earth
Standing on the edge of things
White copier paper
Wall clocks
Dilapidated office buildings where time turns into a sluggish beast whom I can beat if I wear the right shoes
Here’s a thing I am going to do this year. I am going to bring in changes right now. Don’t ask me what kind, I don’t know (yet). But my reasoning is - for once, I don’t want to enter the new year scrambling for myself. I want to have methods to my life, because if I don’t contain myself in small compartments that open into each other, I will end.
The thing about all hypotheses is there’s always the question of choice. This could happen but that might as well. Who knows, I will enter the next year as a casket for myself.
Sometimes I want to berate myself for being so hopeful. Foolish. I have not had one thing go my way in a long time (can I be edgy and say twenty years or so?). I am preparing for the inevitable. I have nothing left to hope for.
This brings me to a couple lines from this one song from Agar Tum Na Hote. Written by Gulshan Bawra, it is a confession about how much the other person means to them. Sung by Kishore Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar, I am sure this song must have been the companion of many lonely nights for some heartbroken spurned lover in the 80s. Or maybe two lovers finally coming together. Who knows.
तुम्हें क्या बताऊं के तुम मेरे क्या हो
मेरी ज़िंदगी का तुम ही आसरा हो
मैं आशा कि लड़ियां, न रह रह पिरोती
अगर तुम न होते, अगर तुम न होते
How am I supposed to convey, what you are to me
You are the only shelter in my life
I wouldn’t have strung loops of hope
Had you not been there, had you not been there
There’s a lot more to say. I will be back again. Everything is a process, an arduous one. Happy Diwali.
Love,
Heera
I envy your writing, it’s so vulnerable and intimate yet you always come out of it with such strength and grace 💕
You say things I'm too scared to recognize in myself—I envy you. I applaud you!