It was good to know you.

I have always known but very recently dramatically realised that I don’t have to take shit from any of you, anymore. For years, I’ve put up with bullshit from people who matter and the ones who do not, thinking building on my tolerance was a consolation. Now I don’t care much at all about it. If it’s anyone who makes my life living hell, pushes me into an abyss, emotionally saps me, makes me feel bad about myself, it has to be me. NO one else. I will fuck up, screw up, waste my time, not you. I am done, Thank you. You think I’ve become fat? tall? short? ugly? thin? why don't you go write that in your journal? would that make you feel good? I genuinely hope it does. I’m too irresponsible? Lame? Lazy? Wasting my time? Aap jaa sakte hain, namaste. I will not waste my time, emotional intelligence and peace of mind over your bullshit, I'm getting old and it's beyond my physical and mental abilities to stand you anymore. Simply, because I don't have to. I have no energy to fake a smile and pretend to be courteous when you're saying something totally hilarious and crossing boundaries, no drama, no pretence, a very simple-please show yourself out. Life’s short and I’m so done with this. Please let’s just let everybody breathe. It’s not easy for everybody alike. Yes? I don’t want women’s day discounts on make-up, spas and everything you think I should be doing to look like you think I should look like. What a farce. Don’t gift me raspberry flavoured lip-balms on women’s day Please, for fuck’s sake. How can one not see the irony? Why aren’t we tired yet? I am. I am more than happy and respectful of your idea of a daughter, a daughter-in-law, a wife, but why should that be mine? Why should I fit into your idea of these roles? Can I peacefully be a fuck up wife who is clueless about marriage and work my way through, the natural way? Please do not tell me to behave a certain way. I don't know and don't want to know what a good wife or a daughter is/does, I just want to do what I do, the best I can, till I drop dead. It’s not very hard to mind your own fucking business if you try. I’ll help, promise. Till then, don't be seen and definitely do not wish me a Happy Women’s day. It was good to know you.

Dear Brain,

Ssup? Let's cut to the chase. Stop bullshitting me. YOU ARE FINE. Say it, SAY IT. I don't know about you, but I have had enough. At least make up your mind. Be Okay or be NOT. One moment I'm on cloud 9, the very next, I'm in deep frigging dark waters, encapsulated, drowning, and not even trying to swim my way to the surface. It's not even funny. You find it entertaining? Can't even shoot the fuck out of you, because, well, you are me. I can run from the world, but can I run from you? So, I'm just writing in to put it on record that it's not cool. Oh, so not cool. If you weren't me, I'd have killed you. Can't believe I'm saying this, but even the uterus is better than you. Yes, I said it. Oh, despite the fact it's so dramatic on losing one egg which'll be produced again in a few days for the rest of my life (Well, till menopause). There are tears, there's pain, there's blood, it's a fucking crime scene. Hell breaks loose. YET, you are worse.  Stop messing with me. Let me be a simple girl who gets her soul sucked to earn money to be able to eat at an overpriced fancy restaurant only to have a bite or two and leave the rest and feel guilty later seeing the homeless and the unfortunate on the road. Is it too much to ask for?  You be the judge. And I'm not a fan of drama. No, sir. You want attention? You can seek shelter elsewhere. Now be a good boy and let me enjoy my aimless, meaningless existence and in return, I promise to feed you with good reads and steer clear of Ekta Kapoor crap and the likes of it. Deal?

Vulnerability

It's been so long since I've written that it almost feels like the first. I've been kicking myself for not being able to add more noise in the world which, like other things, is not worth a penny, but one does what one does.

I'd be lying if I say, I've been okay. Meet me and I'll do everything to conceal whatever my demons are doing to me. But, I can't write lies. I was caught off guard, to say the least. Struggling since months to not drown, to come out of the fucking goddamned tunnel. I will, one day.

I'm trying to come back. I haven't known anything harder.

Wish me luck, maybe?

Down and Out..

I’m no Padukone, and the world doesn’t give two fucks about what I feel and how I am, yet I decided to talk about it for the heck of sheer documentation so you’d know why I died, if I do. No, I will not kill myself. But do people die of depression? It certainly feels so. Anyway, this monster wouldn’t leave me alone. Never. Worse than pados ki aunties. It sleeps with me and wakes up with me. It pulls me down every opportunity it gets. EVERY. Right now I feel like I’m falling in a bottomless abys at the speed of 1000 kmph (Please be sensitive and don’t point out the technical flaw and impossibility of this, I FUCKING KNOW). Everyday getting up from the bed and showing up is the hardest task. I cannot, just cannot participate in real life, I cannot laugh at your jokes and smile for courtesy, I cannot indulge in small talk. I fucking don’t care. Yet, every day, every day I drag myself out of the bed, put the make up on and prepare myself for the world outside for yet another tamasha. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I could use a mountain and reach the top to shout my lungs out or slap Uday Chopra (fine, I’m sorry) or cry my heart out. I have tried one of these three things and no, it did not doesn’t help. One might ask, what the fuck is bothering me, while I might say that is a very good question and a very relevant at that, I have no answer to it. None. In all probabilities, it’s me. I make people bother me (Lol, what a fucked up thing to say, right? THAT’S my state of mind, Yep.) I feel like I’m in the middle of deep waters, with my eyes and ears shut, and all I can see is jet black of nothingness, you know what I mean, dear non-existent reader? I really hope you don’t. My parents probably think I’m plain sad and generally broken, and oft get irritated about this state, I don’t blame them. For the past one year I refused to acknowledge the fact that I fucking need help because after all you are the master of your brain, it’s all in your control and all that bullshit. 13 months down, turns out the joke is on me. It gets worse every passing day, and I cannot control it, No. I will have to grow some balls to see the damned shrink and hope to get back to normal recovered. It almost feels like a shenanigan; I mean why would I be depressed if I have every fucking thing in place? Parents by my side, a job to pay my bills, amazing food and right education, what else do I need? A zillion dollars? I concede. I need somebody to figure that out for me. It’s sad and incredibly frustrating to realize that it’s out of my hands now. Having said that, I have to have to seek help. I cannot waste another year of my life sulking. No. There are bigger, better things to do. This is one life. Till then, I will try my best to get back to the surface even if it takes everything I’ve got. I’ll try not to drown deeper.  

The light has gone out of our lives

Baba has left. My brain agrees it is probably for his good, he is relieved of all the pain and suffering and that he was ready to go and lead a beautiful content life but my heart refuses to acknowledge. I cannot believe this is permanent. Is this what every book, every scholar, every clichéd drama, dialogue, every person on earth talked about? How does one deal with death? This pain is like the cumulative pain of every loss I’ve ever known. The moment he was gone, stretches unbroken. I’m advised to deal with this like an adult and take care of my younger sister who isn’t doing very well herself. I can’t face her, I can’t. I just can’t. It’ll take me a while to get back to life. To stay afloat. I cannot be the elder sister just yet. There’s nothing I can say that can make her feel better or undo the loss. She took care of Baba selflessly, taking care of his every need, just being there for him when he felt lonely, sensing his tone when he couldn’t talk with an incredible patience and tolerance and she’s all of 20 years old! She’d cancel catching up with friends just to take care of baba. Apart from all the love, she has my highest respect and has taught me the greatest life lessons. I bow to her for doing whatever she did, there are no words. I’m forever indebted to her and incredibly proud of the person she’s become. On the opposite spectrum, I failed. I don’t remember the last time I talked to him, I don’t remember being there for him when he needed the most. And now he’s gone, his stories are gone. I hope he forgives me. I hope I can forgive myself. His absence will be the biggest void in our lives which can never be filled. Is this what life is all about? One calamity upon the next? Let me grieve my loss, I don’t need to be consoled. There’s nothing that prepares one for loss, nothing at all, you have to face the dragon head on. You have to drown, you have to fall. I hope we remember his stories anew every day. I hope we gather the strength to pick ourselves again and live a happy and fulfilled life just the way he wanted. I hope we have the wisdom and humility to realize whatever we are, whoever we have become, is all because of him, because he chose to make it happen. I hope we never let him die in our memories. For me, the next biggest task is to crawl out of this mammoth abyss and move on as they say. Zip up, pull up the sock and carry on. And finally, maybe I can sleep.

Rest in Peace, Baba.

What do you want?

Do you ever ask that to yourself? On that note, I'm back. Back to Delhi. You can't even call me a musafir seeking something or trying to reach somewhere or cherishing the journey. No. I'm running away to nowhere. As much as I love him, I couldn't deal with the identity crises anymore, couldn't look at the person that I'd become. I was a no one. I wanted out. I ran off to home only to realize it didn't feel like home anymore. Where does one go when one does not want to go anywhere or stay? No place feels like home anymore. I'm left with a handful people who're home to me. And he is not with me. I'm home away from home. What do I want? How does one weigh things? prioritize? what is more important? what is lesser? I'm running away from all the noise and madness of the world only to get jolted by silence. Isn't there a balance? Can't I love him and be myself at the same time? me, my fucked up, messed up self, but me nonetheless. I donno if that's a lot to ask for. These lines by Kahlil Gibran touch me at all the right places, strike all the right chords.

      Let the winds of the heavens dance between you. 
      Love one another but make not a bond of love: 
      Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. 
      Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. 
      Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. 
      Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, 
      Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. 
      Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. 
      For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. 
      And stand together, yet not too near together: 
      For the pillars of the temple stand apart, 
      And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow. 

Baba is sick, sans an illness

Baba is sick without an illness. It's called old age. It is shattering to fathom what he must be going through. His brain, over 9 decades old has stopped making sense of things, living— non-living. His memory is wiped out, he’s started hallucinating, he chats with imaginary people, is it because we weren’t there to talk to him? It breaks me. When we tell people, he’s suffering, he’s sick, almost everybody says, yeah must be old-age, very indifferently as if it's okay to suffer if you’re old and weak and fragile. It hurts me, but I know it's not their fault. When I was growing up, he had hundreds of stories to tell us, one can imagine he was born in 1922, he’s seen everything,  he lived in the era that we studied in history! We would sit around him and he’d tell us his college stories, of India’s struggle for freedom, of uniting one India post Independence, of his office days under the British empire, of how he raised his five sons, sans any money but loads of values, one could see his eyes glitter when he used to talk about the bygone era. But now, he remembers nothing.  He doesn’t remember my name. He doesn’t remember what year is it, he doesn’t remember anything that he’s experienced in the past 95 years, they say, it's the old age. Indeed, it is, but imagine the suffering. He was living with memories all his life and what does he have now? Is it okay to suffer if you’re old? I feel helpless, like never before. It sucks. Why not me? Why him? Why can’t I change places? What do I do to make him happy? He has swollen foot but doctors say, they cannot treat it, because it's apparently natural, its old age. It's something to do with the kidneys, they say. Why can’t we help him? The other day, a very independent 95-year-old man shat his pants, and cried of embarrassment, what do we say to comfort him? How? It breaks me in the most unimaginable way. It’s like saying a thousand goodbyes together. Yes, human body is fragile, world is unfair, shit happens, but this is soul crushing. May we have the strength and wisdom to make him feel loved and special while we can. He is a major part of who we all are. He is the root to the tree touching skies, he has nourished us, all his life selflessly, he is the reason we all exist, of who we are and what we’ve all become. May we gather the strength and patience to hold him and not let him fall because old or not, nobody deserves this.