paayaliya
dedicated to N, because I declared, and because I love you.
It’s getting cold here. Today I sat in the small patch of sunlight in my mother’s bedroom for a while, and thought of people. I sent out a little prayer for everyone, because in a few days I will become hopeless and won’t have any faith left.
Funny how it is, when I need it the most, credence seems to dissipate from my life, leaving a cold aftertaste inside my mouth. I think my heart would taste like that if you ate it in November.
If you ate it in May it would probably taste like a mango and underboob sweat and some other things which probably belong in a sext.
I have been busy today, doing things for my parents, panicking internally about the coming week which is going to be full of things, both good and bad. With me, the bad always overshadows the good, especially in winters.
I have also been thinking about the brevity of life, of love. I used to think that I knew what I wanted for myself, but now when I have to act on certain impulses, I have no idea what to do.
I make lists, I cross things out. I look in the mirror and hate my arms. I bought a dress and cancelled it last minute. It’s been a tough week for vanity, what can you say, but it’s also been a good week for want.
There’s this poem which keeps coming back to me once in a while, in parts. Endless Summer by Nate Pritts. I love the way it is written - broken fragments, all attempts at trying to confess something while being discreet.
I love when things read like a prayer. Songs, poems, text messages and emails from friends. Sometimes my father says something which sounds almost like a prayer.
Yesterday, however, he said something which sounded like an answer to a prayer. We were in the car, and I was looking outside, pretending I had a good life far away from here. He mentioned his own father.
He said some other things, but I don’t think they belong here. Maybe a book in 2025. What I did enjoy was how he declared it. He did not say I think I lack the capacity - he was so sure of it. I hope to do that. But people don’t give me a chance to do it. I say I think I am not a nice person to be around, and they tell me I am wrong. Well, where’s the rock solid proof? Can you give it to this man?
I think my father was trying to convey something to me, in his own mysterious way. Fathers are our first gods after all. I kept thinking about it yesterday. It’s hard thinking about men, especially more than one, especially when both of them hold the reins of your happiness in their hands. Well then, Byomkesh, stop giving them the power! Only if it was that easy. Only if it wasn’t almost November.
Been listening to a lot of hindi songs. Nothing new about that. My current favourite is Paayaliya from Dev D. I have been cooking, getting dressed, showering, travelling in the metro to this song.
Written by Shruti Pathak (who has also sung it) along with Amit Trivedi, it is a song about longing. The beginning is what always gets me.
Jaanu nahi kaise, jaanu nahin kaise piya ghar jaun
jaanu nahi kaise, jaanu nahi kaise piya ghar jaun
payaliya, payaliya kahe ki, piya ghar jaau, payaliya payaliya
payaliya chan chan shor kare, mohe piya ghar jaun…
I don’t know, how I am supposed to reach my beloved’s house,
My anklets tell me, they want to go to my lover’s house,
My anklets, they tinkle and say, “I have to go to my lover’s house.”
If you have watched the movie, maybe you can understand why this song is mentioned in this specific newsletter (is it really a newsletter? hm). More than everything, Chanda, our protagonist, was looking for a place to belong. Maybe this beloved’s house is not a building but a person. Oh, how nice it would be if you could curl up inside someone’s rib and die there.
While we are on the sound of music, I think bluetooth earphones are terrible. They are the death of FM radio. That is my personal complaint, apart from the whole deal about charging it. Why do we keep assigning limits to things? Why are we as humans trying to provide things with lives, why do we get so horny over power? Mobile phones, laptops, power banks, now earphones - we love limiting things in order to feel in control of our own failing mortality. It’s high time we stopped playing gods.
Anyways, here’s a good memory. My mother and I used to put the wired earphones in our small Nokia phone and play the radio in the afternoon - that’s when Yaadon Ka Idiot Box with Neelesh Misra used to air last night’s story. Neelesh Misra would tell us stories, in a manner of recalling them - like these stories had happened to him. We would listen to it for an hour or two, the entire house silent. My mother would either be doing some sewing or just on the verge of a nap; I would be trying so hard to dunk my head inside the pool of stories in front of me.
This has been a formative memory, now hardened into a motto. It made me want to tell stories which were easy and real, stories which might as well happen to someone if they tried hard enough. Maybe my stories will happen to me if I want them desperately enough. That’s one hope.
I am not sure how long this has gotten, but after some feedback, I have decided to also share one piece of art which I love. Thank you Noa for being the first one for this idea. Love!
and a self portrait in the form of a rombaut ad -
Thank you for reading. Would love to hear from you sometime. Next issue will be all about a crash course on metaphors, if there is a next issue that is.
Love,
Byomkesh Bakshi
Reading this while listening to Paayaliya, cold breeze lolling around my ears, felt like reading a prayer. Loved it so much, dhersara pyaar<3
"It’s been a tough week for vanity what can you say, but it’s also been a good week for want." I chuckled, and also nearly teared up at this. I've had a similar week, it seems!