inebriations

sach kehte hai log ki pee kar, ranj nasha ban jata hai

Sitting on the rooftop a couple of nights ago with beers gifted to us by my friend’s boyfriend, I went through a series of thoughts. I promised myself I would remember it all the next day and beyond. As I sit here to ruminate over it, all I can remember is the chill in the air, the haunting call of birds, and songs on a low volume, punctuated by my friend droning on about the same thing she has been letting herself get eaten by for weeks. 

Of course I understand anxiety, I understand feeling wronged. It is January 2025, but January nonetheless, with its own history in my life.

Exactly a year ago I was on a train, back to university, and I knew life was over. I knew I would not be returning to things as they were. I sobbed under the IRCTC blanket, feeling disgusting. On one hand I could not stop sobbing, and on the other, I kept fishing in my bag for my allergy medication because I knew a flare was coming. By the time I reached my station, my entire body bloomed red and itchy, and I cried in the cab (or was it an auto?) as well. 

I am full of memories and I was doing pretty much okay with not thinking about the past, until I came full circle. January. The circle is indeed a spiral, but it is bound to have loci that transgress over the plain of my life within the realm of the same 12 months, four seasons, 24 hours, and one heart.

Each year the spiral expands, and there’s more weight to bear for Atlas, a heavier boulder for Sisyphus to run up the hill with, unable to make a deal with god who may or may not exist. Maybe if he studied loop quantum gravity, he could indeed be happy, and the burden of imagining him would not fall upon me, like so many other things. 

Recently, I was told I want things handed to me on a platter. All because I said I do not understand stocks or finance and if somebody else did it for me, I’d be fine with it. I did not get offended, but I also kept justifying myself to my own self. I do things. I have been making my own money whenever. I have been there as a witness in my own life for things that can never be let out.

Witness? In my own life? That is exactly why I cannot take myself seriously. I am too grown, inner child theory barred, to merely be a witness to what unfolds in my life, my heart, especially when I’m the one unfolding it, ironing it, and wearing it on my sleeve.

If  everybody else is also a bystander in your existence, and you too are merely an observer, then who the hell is driving the car? 

One of the first breakaway from innocence, a “spinning” from that trajectory was when I realised what the very popular sweet petha is made from. It was literally in the name, petha — ash gourd. Somehow this fact just did not make sense on the surface , but that sure was the beginning of the universe unravelling itself on my tongue, one sweet sensation at a time. Or so I thought.

When I started translating songs in my head to verify my alertness, one of the first ones I got stuck on was zabaan pe laga re namak ishq ka — the salt of love, on my tongue. I pictured dirt, sweat, grime — lovemaking the way two boys would wrestle in the dust. It turned out to be a very straightforward innuendo, salt on tongue, salt shaker in mouth. 

Translating from my tongue to English has become habitual , so I challenge myself by doing it the other way around. I get tired, frustrated, I feel uneducated and misread, but it keeps my brain from crashing out. 

I often tend to mishear lyrics and continue to believe them until I am listening to the song in the quietness of the morning or during the lull of an afternoon spent alone. Maybe the brightness of the day brings forth clarity. 

One such song is 

ऐ काश कहीं ऐसा होता

कि दो दिल होते सीने में 

एक टूट भी जाता इश्क़ में तो

तकलीफ़ ना होती जीने में 

Ae kaash kahin aisa hota 

ki do dil hote seene mein 

Ek toot bhi jaata ishq mein to

taqleef na hoti jeene mein 

I wish there were a way

to have two hearts in my chest

There wouldn’t be pain in living 

one breaks under the spell of love lest

Luchida Hartado

I would replace taqleef with mushqil. Which would make the meaning spin a little away from the trajectory set by its lyricist Anand Bakshi. Taqleef means pain, discomfort, malaise. Mushqil means trouble, pitfall, hindrance.

Discomfiture and Difficulty. 

Vagabond, Agnes Varda

There would be no trouble carrying on with my life if I had a heart untainted by it all.

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As I kept thinking these things and making myself promise to myself that I would remember it the next day, my friend called me by my name to bring me back to her orbital, to hear her troubles. I spun out again — I have a name. I have a name that people know me by, beyond Heera, Aandhi, whatnot, there is a name that befell upon me as an infant and I have been lugging it around, handing it to people. Everybody who has had something to say about me, to think about me is connected by the string of my name. And so on, in your life as well. 

love,

heera