lagaye koi kaise yaadon pe pehra
magar aapka koi bharosa nahi hai / journal, tipping point
Had a malaria scare a week ago or so. This entire June I have been falling sick on the weekends, soaring temperatures and blindness all over my senses. I dreamt of shows I watch over and over again, getting trapped in an episode, making up the script in order to escape. Five hours of worthless sleep induced with Veep deleted scenes that only exist in my head, it was the wrong turn in my mental labyrinth. I felt soulless.
The malaria episode resulted in blood being drawn out for a test, around eight at night on a Sunday. The prick of the needle pleased me a little, and I wish it kept happening, for a little longer. The blood was red in the manner only blood can be – the colour stays true to the spirit of its liquid state. A solid frozen cube of blood would mean nothing to me, that shade of red as a piece of fabric would do nothing for me. I got my head patted while the guy drew the blood out, and then we sat on uncomfortable metallic benches below the restaurant we frequent for dinners – a small Kerala place, but all the cooks are Bengali, and the food has no staple spice identifier based on a region. I eat vegetables stewed in coconut milk, or bengal gram made the way my Ma would make sometimes. I drink watermelon juice, and then another beverage, and then another, until I feel full. Liquidity fills me up. It allows me to feel softer.
All these health scares resulted in nothing but a depleting bank account. Yet we persisted. Throughout the week, we had dosa for dinner, curd rice as an add on. Found the cheapest place to eat, resorted to drinking only water for a while. Maybe my body understood, because all soda tastes cruel to me now, my throat hurts, and I do not like the sensation. Water it is. It is free, for now. It is free for now, for me, away from places where bad things are happening and I can merely watch, helpless and shattered in a way that contributes to nothing at all.
To be political in ways that don’t count, to sit and look at Whatsapp status and Instagram stories, to read tone-deaf and evil perspectives on the smaller, new idiot box, scrolling until numbness settles in. To think, maybe, praying to the god they believe in might do something. Reading theory and rereading things by people with empathy, realising how futile each paper on Jstor is, it does nothing. The library burned down a long time ago.
Where do I go with these anxieties? What should I do? Hopelessness settles in, the fever is beyond the inner workings. I think of Arundhati Roy in Anand Patwardhan’s Ram Ke Naam, saying something along the lines of hoping that people know that “I was on the right side of history.” We are all so futile, so small, aren’t we. Where should I go with my freedom, my sense of righteousness?
I changed jobs recently, and the new one allows me a greater avenue to practise my adulthood. I realised I can go for a cigarette break behind one of the cars whenever. I don’t have to look around, walk on eggshells, or be scared. I can call people, at any time. I can play Mahjong on the work laptop, winning levels until my eyes get bleary, and then I go out to drink chai. I eat lunch alone, at my desk, not because people are evil here, but because it is comfortable, and I am still shy in the way you are in a new environment. Same lunch every day, in a blue and white ceramic plate, a show I have watched numerous times playing in the background. I eat fast, use my remaining lunch break to walk around. It is a small office, roughly ten people at any given time, and I don’t have to report to anybody. Surely, this can be done. I think I can fare well here.
I dream of becoming smarter, having a house full of books, and I dream of it in the way lust operates – taking over my senses, the possibility so real, so close. What to do when the world falls apart? When I feel anxiety rattling the very insides of me, my foundations? I pick a book; I pick a pen. I pick up the phone and call love over and over.
A new way of being is taking root in me, wherein I am getting better at making decisions. I don’t want to smear hurt on everything in my life; I don’t want to cause pain.
I have been having a tough few days dealing with the matters of the heart, simply because I keep forgetting that I am not that lonely 15-year-old girl with skinny limbs anymore. Some days I still operate like the world is out to get me, and I need to do everything on my own, no matter how badly, just so I can get through the situation.
I still wish I could explain how life unfolds within my heart, and why I do what I do, but I can’t. I will learn your ways, make it easier for you, tell you in all the ways possible that I am here with love, for love.
So many words written in so many ways, yet I fail in all the ways that matter.
I dream of leaving everybody behind, all these people whom I care for, people who want to be in my life, and restarting somewhere new and strange. Strange in newer ways. I know whom to take, I know what all to leave behind. A new chance is all it will take for me to be better.
But, it is not coming, it never is. This IS the life, whether I like it or not. So I wake up, pick my clothes, let you put my socks on for me, and I go out praying that you understand I love you, in all ways that you must understand for us to work.
While discussing how I spend my office hours playing Mahjong, we ended up discussing how I should also play Solitaire. A memory dawned upon me. The oldest house in Delhi that we had, behind which my father had a makeshift office with the first personal computer and printer in our family. He would let me enter twice or thrice a week, and I would make a smiley face or a flower on MS Paint, and he would print it out for me to colour it. I would see him play Solitaire, which he proceeded to teach me, so that I could try my hand at it for a while. I still remember that office, where unknown business occurred. My father in a white or blue shirt, black trousers, not a line of worry betraying his actual state on his face. He had a black windcheater then, to brave the Delhi weather on his Yamaha bike. I remember everything. It breaks my heart.
I called him yesterday to wish him on Father’s Day. We do these things ironically, like a joke, as if we are above it all, above sentiments and matters of the heart. Right now, I am spending my days feeling pained and apologetic about my state, but I cannot open up to him or tell him anything. Five days ago, we had a heated conversation, and it ended with me reminding him I am, in fact, his daughter – only because he said it felt like he was talking to himself during the argument.
He is trying his best, this is his best. I will be unfair if I expect anything more. I will harm myself if I think about him a moment longer. Last night when I cried because the weight of Everything finally crushed me, and a lot of dogs were hounding us at the wrong moment, I also cried for him.
Today it will rain, in bits and pieces. I don’t have a sweater with me, and the office is cold right now. I can get through it.
see you, see you, always see you.
my body is too small to contain the intensity of this
what a delicate slice of life.