Prose before hos

The art of non-confrontation has reached the ADHD part of my brain; I'm fully in hyperactivity mode. Without revealing the timeline and exact order of business, I found myself attending a meeting on one laptop, sending a voice note, chrome window shopping, researching EDP with base notes of citrus and deflecting difficult conversations with the man of the hour. 

Do you generally ignore topics you dont want to discuss or is it something else?

I don't know, man. 

Do I generally find myself wondering if I should buy a Brazillian bum cream or an EDP I don't need in the middle of an economic crisis and no increase in my comp? Do I find an hour-long solidarity call overbearing cause I have to focus on one screen where I'm screen sharing and explaining workflow and ethos all at once? However, the lord knew I needed to give working across multiple screens a break, a work day that goes on longer than usual with loud noises in the background and a disgruntled dog who won't move. It's been mad real and I intend to stretch this hyperactivity for as long as I can. 

To be honest, I don't want to discuss the benefits of buying perfume over bum cream. I also don't want to write a long paragraph that says we will part ways, sooner than we need to. 

If I ever get a time machine, I would go back to 2014 and choose to restart the ugliest, most horribly lonesome points of my life differently. I think the wisdom of choosing better and not cooler has taken a decade but it's an outtake for life. Everyone who chose to be a fucking sellout and cringe a decade ago is thriving, while the rest of us are maxing the self-imposed credit card limit to buy lipsticks, perfumes and eye make up we don't need. 

Also, a notable addition to my hyper-activity is make-up. I've gone from thinking about it to acting on it to now actively considering a skincare routine. Deflection works on a passion level as well; if I can deflect about honing my existing hobbies by acquiring a new one, then welcome me to your eye-make-up club. I will apply the eye shadow all over my cheeks (ACCIDENTALLY) and wait three months to buy a setting spray. 

I did send the essay out, and did learn about celebrity holograms being a thing and that Happy is a great choice for teenage scent and that my friend at work likes the man I like but doesn't think his music is for Christmas. She did also ask me to start investing, ugh. 

I'm investing in my ADHD practices, babe. 

One of the few constants since the pandemic began, or rather pre-pandemic has been around the weather. For all the chatter in the world around climate change and how we can witness the effects trickling into our day-to-day, I raise you my familiar winter cycle, that's neither a day late nor early. 

Period-0, Weather in Delhi-1.

Winter officially sets in Delhi (for me) from November 14, when the fan on the top speed feels chilly but no fan feels stuffy. You don't need the air conditioner for the workout (even though you feel like death in the last 1 minute of your jumping jacks in the intense training program) and you no longer want to prance around in cotton shorts. You start window shopping for faux leather bombers and wonder if this will be the year when you invest in a Shacket (if I ever do, please feel free to ban my blog and never come back, I need a reality check). 

Winter also runs out fairly quickly (something under 100-105 days) by February 18. You feel the need to retire the tight sweaters and stuffy body-hugging polos. While the rest of the country takes another month, I am usually done by February 16 and bring back the air conditioning from Feb 24 for workouts. 

Three years ago, we marked Winter with the new season of the Crown at a public parking lot where I spent more time than I'd like to admit. Earlier today, when the winter breeze slapped my face in the same spot, I felt deja vu, like I was about to go through the same cycle again. However, there's one notable difference. 

I'm a lot calmer. 

It's like, the person I imagine consoling my younger self to be better and strive to be, I'm there. I spend all my waking hours walking towards my goals, tending to make life fulfilling and in pursuit of that, I find even writing tedious. This is probably the longest writing break I've had when I'm productive otherwise. I spend my time reading, watching and occasionally flirting with the man of the season (I've found a marvelous heartbreak for Fall-Winter '23). I catch up on things low-key, retire to my cocoon and find everything I need there. For the most part, peace lies in the predictability of movement. I've got my back; I've warded every single element out which I felt wouldn't align with my expectations and I've constantly tried to face my fears while doing that. I found myself in a familiar place where entering the apartment complex choked me but not without support. There were dogs, friends and friends like family to handhold me through moments I never thought I'd survive or live to try. 

I'm getting distracted by texts midway (and I'd never tolerate this shit, but it's Winter and we all need someone to hold on to and cuddle with), but everything about the days to follow will be predictable. Days will get shorter, my calm self will get pissed and by January, I'll be so unhinged that I'll intersperse crying with saying yes to all possible events and styling my hair in more ways than I can probably count, that is if situations remain predictable. 

The way in which our world moves and lives are shaped is not inherently controlled by us. The apolitical bunch on dating apps wouldn't know but for those of us who do, we are one inflammatory remark or action away from a full-blown crisis at all given times and 100+ days are a lot to challenge for predictability if the world is unkind to infants on the basis of their geographical location and passport details. 

What I'm saying is, I'm not looking forward to the Winter and I definitely don't want to write. I want to hide in my bedroom with my book and park myself to only respond to 5 people (including my employer because we all need capital). 

Shut the fuck up. 

A puppy died every time someone uttered the following to/around me in the past month (which has been quite a few times now): 

• The top of the funnel has increased
• Automation is a must
• Get it done by AI
• You're gorgeous
• Why do you think we're not compatible? 
• XXX is a very complicated tool
• Let's meet on Sunday
• Are you sure you don't want to meet?
• Let's meet on Wednesday
• Let's meet on Friday
• Let's go to a bar
• If you keep talking like this, I'll wife you up
• You need to get new socks/shoes if you're bleeding after a workout
• Have you understood the platform architecture? 
• Hawa badal rahi hai
• Don't take so much on
• Don't work till 8 pm
• I'm looking for a long-term relationship

It wasn't just that. He was cute. I mean, he was gorgeous. Really dapper. Deep eyes, pixie hair, solid nose, a jawline, the works. He was all that and real talented. If I speak more, I'll give it away so we'll have to contain within these generic, unhelpful filters. 

A year into knowing about him, I ran into him at an event; nothing big. I recall asking him for a picture and I'm pretty sure he didn't think it much of a deal. That shot is still up on my Facebook to this day (good luck trying to find it). I think it was that rare moment when I felt confident enough to do that. The next time I'd do something like that would be 9 years later on my birthday eve with a boy, I was madly in love with. 

A few years later, I heard about him, from a completely different source. If I speak more, I'll give this away but let's just say, we were in the same circle and destined to be friends, one way or another. I didn't think much about it and let the feeling stay. This is almost a decade since we got that shot and to be honest, I'd been with a bunch of writers and wankers alike so he had lost his 19-year-old talented lad sheen. I was between a soul-sucking heartbreak and a dramatic rebound situation so I was unfazed when I realised our paths crossed again.

Much as I avoided the subject of the man, our paths crossed in a way that we finally spent some one-on-one time, a few years later, after the initiation of being introduced to one another formally. He was nicer than I thought him to be; warm, kind, and gentle even though I didn't anticipate any of those qualities with him (I was 19 and wrote him as a bad boy, without knowing a thing about him). We bonded over things that I didn't think in my wildest dreams would happen. 

I shouldn't be surprised because this is not the first time things have touched my life and returned in full swing, in my face. This particular situation is a repeated, regular pattern in my life. I'll come across someone briefly and make an assumption. We'll move on with our lives and boom, one day they're in my life, full-fledged and I realise they are nothing like I made them up in my head. This happens every fucking year, with someone or the other. This has happened with men I've dated seriously, casually, in passing, friends of men I've seen and so on. This even happens at a platonic level. Case in point, my friend at work. Someone I met for the first time on my first day in office. I saw her clear her desk, say bye to everyone and leave just before she started her maternity leave (she would deliver her kid on the weekend and I was in on a Thursday, we were in the same space for a good 15 minutes and no acknowledgment besides a hi). For 8 odd months, I thought she was a really senior resource on her way to taking some time off. When we met, at an office party for the first time, I reminded her how I saw her on my first day in, which was her last day out. She and I have been friends since, something my last year self could imagine because could I ever be friends with someone who looked so cool and confident while being full-term pregnant? Never. 

I digress, but this erstwhile gorgeous guy and I had a brief run-in with our personal lives. Without getting into details, as adult life runs, we are no longer in the same radius, even by association. Though I've been repeatedly in his orbit, over and over again, we don't have any cold starts in us. I can't even say this is providence because this goddamn city is small and practically everyone knows everyone and somehow everyone knows this gent. Yet, I find it odd, how every 6-9 months, he crosses my path either via personal or professional connection and I sit and wonder about what my 19-year-old self would think. 

If you think Football boys are annoying (I'm sorry Taylor) try Football kids. If there weren't enough reasons to not have them, getting kicked by their serves at the track twice every week makes for a solid reason to add to my theory- football boys are the worst and kids are truly the worst. 

McDonald's in India hasn't McDonal'd in a while. The food lately has been insipid and the one decent thing that they do (Pizza McPuff), they've plastered Kartik Aaryan's face on the packaging. I don't know which marketing genius ensured that McDonald's started giving out books in lieu of toys and put KA on the cover of what is pao bhaji puff pastry but please, for the love of the lord, bring old McDonald's back. I'm one step away from denouncing my favourite brand in the world. 

Speaking of denouncing, I'm pleased to announce Diet Coke is on its way out of my life. Not because it's cancerous but because it hasn't hit me in a while, the way it used to (before you say, "Maybe it's you," it's not me; I had Lays Magic Masala yesterday to test the theory and I finished a family sized pack after lunch and dessert in one go and it banged as per usual). 

Two litres of water in a day isn't enough, and two slices of pizza are lethal for dinner. I was gasping for breath (gluttony is a sin) after fresh burrata and pesto pizza last night. 

I have fallen out of affection and fondness for four guys this month but got my eyes on three guys this month so it's been net zero, so to say. Feral during ovulation continues. If you are looking to point the incorrect formula then just know this is Girl Math. 

My favourite character at the local park is a little girl who makes sand castles out of mud, a beautiful white indie who follows me every time we cross each other till it gets distracted, and a geriatric who makes me wish I had half his energy and strength. 

Do you know people who are obsessed with Obama? It was a whole moment in pop culture, right next to the owl necklaces and purple-coloured mood boards. I feel that the whole crowd died down faster than I could spell 'orange' but hey, it made an everlasting impact on my memory. When I think of folks who like(d) Obama, I think of 2016 when I first met someone who was low-key into him. Cute. 

Turns out, the doctor's prescription of 'take a trip to the tropics' was more than just pep talk. It was fucking fantastic, running the hell out of the country and escaping to the beach. I also learned new things about myself, including how I'm willing to forego everything and everyone while chasing an azure sunset and watching Arab-German men play Hip-Hop and smoke weed. I couldn't have written this trip better and I realised that I've truly grown leaps and bounds in a decade, and then in the last five years was worth every overpriced rupee to baht conversion I did. 

Thailand has offered me a new lease of life. I am the world's sleepiest and the most active person all at once. My hormones are alive and kicking (if I tell you the details I'd have to kill you) and more than anything, it was a homage to all the old chapters in my life. From visiting Commons on my birthday eve for desserts to the jazz bar, everything happened this time. Again, I'm trying my best to skirt around the facts without giving details because the devil resides there. We don't want to disturb the dead. 

Thailand was also simultaneously aggressive; I can't hold them responsible either. Drunk Indian tourists misbehaving with the extended support staff was just the tip of the iceberg. The only time I've been made uncomfortable in years of travelling, including this year has been in the company of Indian male tourists who surround you after realising you're a woman without a man around you. God help you if you've displayed your legs or chest. However, fat tax is something that could be looked into. If you think you're good-looking or hot, go to Thailand and the people there will humble you. It happened to me, that while the folks here couldn't get over how I was glowing and looking fab, the disdain that the locals had was something else.

I also travelled internationally for the first time post-pandemic and it's a new world order, hey. Everything is way more expensive than ever and even if you have grown in your career and spending capacity, the same doesn't correspond with inflation. The only difference that couldn't be measured up in capital invested in the trip is my personal growth and learnings. I went in a different person and came back a wholly different individual. No amount of money can make it happen, but just experience. Thankfully, Thailand always delivers. You either come back jaded as hell or a completely new being. I'm glad to be on the other side. 

This is probably also the first time in over 30 years that I didn't really care much for my birthday. It was super chill. My companion in crime (who organised Thailand's end of places to eat, see and do), and family did their best to raise my spirits and raise they did. I had a fantastic Taiwanese meal and went to a killer speakeasy before stopping for the world's best ice cream and churros. We basically peaked that night and most of it was planned last minute. Even the part of it when I returned to India and whatever I did was last minute. Everything was light and the vibes were immaculate. I was surrounded by the people I love the most. The day was a potent reminder to know how many lives have you impacted and touched over the course of the year and life and then take stock of things for the time to come. 

Another life lesson to pick is that risks can be good, especially when you're going in blind. Half of this month went into doing everything I never thought I'd do or could do and yet, here I am. I pushed my body to move and I'm grateful to know it's capable of doing that. I ate clean and listened to my body, instead of approaching food with a scarcity mindset or doing a whole 'this is the last time'. Even if it is the last time, it's okay. I'll die on a hill that pre-pandemic food is better than post-pandemic food and that birthdays are best brought in with people you love than people you don't know at airports (especially if you're taking a 7:35 am flight). 

I've resumed walking and it feels fantastic. I mean, I'm not able to do a lot and especially all at once but knowing that I can still do it, is all the inspiration I needed for the year. If I could do it once, I could do it again and that better be my whole 32 experience. 

...but help me pack my luggage before we go go. 

Can you be partly in inertia and partly panicking? If so, I'm there; I can feel my heart pacing but I'm also sitting legs up and writing this like I'm about to spend a week-long holiday out of my bed. It's a holiday alright, but it won't be anything like spending a week in bed. Although there's nothing wrong about being in bed. Sinner succinctly explained, "Just think of this as you escaping the bed," which is true if you know me on holiday. 

I could be researching on my Excel sheet of places to go to and eat at and shop from and where to meet local cuties but I'm passively rolling through this. Yesterday, when I booked the flight, an entire table full of women cheered on and a few stepped up to tell others, "She's getting engaged!" and "She's going for her bachelorette" which was cute until it was followed by a round of applause from the entire office and then it became fucking hilarious. Adults need a small line to be psyched for others; for some of us, food is the reason, and for others it's milestones. 

Whenever I look back at the crossroads where I made a different choice than those who were on that journey with me, it makes me feel nauseated. Kinda like right now, I can smell chicken broth and mince on my top, which I wore to get a few passport-sized images shot and then stopped for a quick snack before I get the fuck out for long. Lots of things make complete sense about why I feel the distance doesn't make the heart feel fonder but again, I find it hard to relate to even myself from 4-5 years ago. I recall just booking the tickets for my second international trip in two months when I was making peanuts and today when I actually should be able to afford a reckless activity like that, I go from tab to tab in figuring, "Must I?"

I truly don't know if what I've done is right or not, which is to say, planning to bounce and fuck off to take time off from everything that's been up professionally and then some personally. Care can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. For me, it might mean keeping myself safe, whether it means being reckless or being too safe. For my doctor, it might mean telling me to change my scenery so I can ensure I'm not depressed beyond permissible limits (aka not pull a Sylvia Plath, which I don't intend on). Care can also reflect in the gestures of a man, whom I first met a year ago, and realised he was looking out for me when he prevented me from a possible road accident earlier last month over a long walk. Care could mean your friends actually celebrating the fact that you're going out and leaving a lot of shit behind and it can sort itself out when you're back. 

Whatever it be, I hope it ends with me 35,000 feet high up in the sky as a way of celebrating my 32nd birthday. 

Earlier this year, someone who's into Astrology (and I mean, like, professionally into Astrology) remarked on how this is a rather strange year for planet placements. I didn't make much of it because it didn't sound ominous and that's a fatal flaw I have. I tend to overlook things until they become dark and heavy to the point that I spend the next 365 days remembering every clue and sign I overlooked. People keep telling me that I overthink and I keep thinking that it couldn't be farther from the truth. I've switched to underthinking, it's a blessing. 

The pizza phase usually has bucket lists that go in all wild directions so if you're here looking for my birthday wishlist, I'm afraid you're in for no luck. That stuff is only shared via personal communication so if you're lurking for that, text me and I'll share the link because I do have a wishlist that is somehow getting more serious by the minute. 

As for the bucket list for the next five years: 

• Get a job that pays me enough to walk into a Prada store and buy a pair of sunglasses (I know they're all manufactured at one spot, please spare me the eyes to be better than buying something designer off the rack and a pair of sunglasses at that, it's just my thing, let me have it my way). 
• Get a job that pays me 60 LPA in content. 
• Get fitter and leaner. Pick a style of workout/exercise and get better at it.
• Don't bawl when someone asks "Are you okay? you don't look okay?"
• Find someone who loves me for who I am. 
• Find someone who will stick by me for who I am. 
• Find someone who wants to be there for me, for the person I am (even if it means he's there for my 60 LPA). 
• Adopt two cats and name them Shah Jahan and Shah Rukh. 
• Learn to make my favourite veggies the way my mom makes. 
• Learn to pickle and ferment, from my mom's recipes and then from Korean restaurants I fancy. 
• Double my stock investments. 
• Actually, forge a fucking career path. 
• Have my finances sorted to the detail. 
• Have a semblance of my personal life that looks like something I've made in my own time and space and not out of a pity party or desperate decisions at the last minute. 
• Focus fully well on my priorities- family, health, finances, love and friends. 
• Move out and move to a place I want to move to. 
• Stick firmly to my boundaries and not be vulnerable to the situation and people at play. 
• Consider motherhood with the right partner, if all the above align. 
• Karaoke at a bar with my best mates and fully be embarrassed. 
• Get into the skin of gaming and have fun while I'm at it. 
• Visit Japan, Italy, Turkey and Kashmir. 
• Find a person who will want to travel with me and let me plan the trip. 
• Have real good sex. 
• Consistently get laid. 
• Focus on myself. 
• Get a job I love. 
• Get a side hustle I can do while I'm asleep. 
• Write a TV pilot. 
• Work in events/Delhi culture space. 

My heart feels full. Maybe it's the cucumber sandwich I had for dinner. Maybe it's the day I had. Maybe I felt fucking free after a long fucking time. Or maybe it was the new A24 romance. Did you know A24 does romance? I had no idea. I mean, I did, I'd seen the trailer and ignored it. Like everything else, along with everything and everyone else. What a whirlwind of a year. I ignored it all and I'm facing it all. It's nice to do it, to see things and face things and to hold the life you were given. My mom did not struggle to survive with difficult in-laws for me to throw it all away for someone who thinks they know life better than me. 

Ali Sethi makes my heart full. All Ali Sethi videos have the same effect on me as pets have on babies. It calms me down and makes my heart feel full. It makes me smile, even if I've been stuck in a jam for over 2 hours at 11:30 am on the highway, while being accosted by a man I'd hooked up with hundred years ago, on account of how I discussed him and another man I went out with earlier this year (I hadn't). I don't know what is it about me that men think I discuss them with other men. I don't remember their presence. I write enough in my journal and live through every feeling to not think about them in their afterglow. When it's over, it's over. It's the nicest thing about me, I don't wake up the dead. If you're gone, be gone. For good. 

My therapist and I had a few breakthroughs today. She said she's seen a shift in me since the last few sessions and I agree, so have I. It's like finding a new ray of hope, a string of light, and a sizzle of glitter in my eyes. Therapeutic work is done outside of therapy, the actual session is a catalyst with your atomic bomb consultant, who helps you unpack your ideas and knots in the hope that you'll make flowers out of those bombs. Some days they really smell good. Some days those flowers make your heart feel full. 

Astrology has this thing about patterns and numbers. If you see things in repetition it is often believed that spirits are trying to send you messages. If that's the case then I don't know if the spirits are sending me flowers to help me realise it's time to wake up and smell the leaves; you can eat, shoot, and leave, you know. Ali Sethi is also a flower, a whole blooming individual who makes my heart feel whole. 

I've been eating out and not working out. I've been a bad girl. I've been reckless and shopping. I'm jumping through music and artists on the highway. I'm typing every wild thought and spending time on the drawing board. I feel wild, I feel free and most importantly, I feel full. The last time I felt this way, I had learnt that my office plays Fleetwood Mac in the ladies washroom and god that felt like a good enough reason to take a dump there. Feeling full can make you shit your heart out. It's what they say, if you haven't shat where you've eaten, you've not lived your life. 

I've spent countless hours in that room between fete, practice, sessions on how to cope with periods, dance parties etc. Unlike most parts of my school, I never particularly liked or disliked it. The man, our dance teacher, made a lot of girls feel like they are his children; and later during #MeToo, the allegations against him came as no surprise to me (or the group of people I follow on socials) that he was apparently a creep to many young girls. Doesn't shock me one bit. 

In the past month, I cut my hair short. Like really, really short. Like, I had them when I was 6-7. I remember going to Chandigarh at that age with the same hair and I found myself repeating that at 31, with the same hair. Both those episodes are incidental, and in no way planned. Yet, to a larger idea, it seems like it was always going to happen that way. 

When I found a few pictures with my short hair and had a chance to reflect, it seemed like a grown-up decision. That I had lived with my long hair all my life and I knew it was time to move out of the comfort of knowing how my hair feel against my skin when I wash them or how long do they really seem when I'm in bed alone. I was ready to embark on the journey, even though I felt my whole life upending moments after taking the plunge. It helped that people encouraged me and even the fiercest critic of that decision (my mum) came around and said I've never looked better. 

In the last few weeks, I've had to discuss some tough life decisions. I found myself offering things to a man I never wanted nor thought I was capable of and yet in that moment I felt so sure and strongly positive about those things I wouldn't change a thing even today. While those offerings are still up in the air given the status between us is unclear, I feel so strangely motivated and grown up about parenting, motherhood, marriage, and even partnership that I have started absorbing those motifs into my life without explaining or answering myself to anyone. I previously held extremely strong beliefs that I found eroded in no time as I mouthed the words, "I'll do it because you are at the center of it". 

At some level, the hurt flows because, like I said, it wasn't enough or good to get a total outcome but I know I have done my best and given whatever I could have. I do not know where life will take us and I am a sucker for definite things. Maybe one day I'll look up and realise uncertainty is just as beautiful as changing your mind and living life knowing results don't matter and that it's fine to live with short hair, regardless of how your self-hood is tied with long, straight and beautiful hair. It's okay, it'll be okay, it'll pass. It'll settle. I'll be okay. 

 I am having a nervous breakdown. Does it last for over 48 hours?

At least it feels like it. Or if my therapist is to be believed, it's a great sign that I'm crying and not shutting down because it means my brain is trying to process grief and emotions. 

To be fair, this won't be the first or the last but in a way, it's huge and significant and oh my god I can't breathe well. 

I think I need a sage cleanse. A tarot card reader, someone to blame for my problems would be good. 

One day you're writing in your journal how you are your own priority and everything has to happen according to you and the next you're breaking apart cause someone's son realises you might be a handful for him and he might have to pull the cord. 

For the most part, this is on me for not communicating and completely shutting down, dumping it inwards like it's great and fun and games. The fact that I am driving myself sick is probably known to 3-4 people in the whole world and besides my therapist, nobody really knows why it's driving me insane. 

A lot of it takes me back to my childhood, of keeping things to myself and going in over my head because the only reality that mattered was the one I was living; it didn't matter what was happening. 

However, this gets translated to a whole fucking anxiety attack as an adult, where you are second guessing things that may or may not matter—a good night text without an emoji, a morning without cuddles, side hug at the airport. I spoke to someone I trust with my life and they asked me to shut the fuck up and stop overthinking (as I should) but it's also good to pad yourself with a reality that nothing should be taken for granted and people can rescind affection for no rhyme or reason and that they don't owe you anything. 

Ah fuck, Roman Roy at Logan's funeral. Fuck. 

Also, I don't recommend Juggy D's Instagram in the middle of the night between a breakdown. It's insanely positive and you'll begin to wonder if there's meaning to life besides eating donuts and drinking water. 

 Does spending 4 nights in a different city count as relocation? If so, I have notes. 

Then there are tall buildings. I'm constantly floating between elevators running from the fifth, tenth and twelfth floors; there are views and there are views. If Delhi has trees then Gurgaon has skyscrapers. Trees don't do much at night but the buildings, they look fucking gorgeous especially if you catch a view from the twelfth floor, which is somehow incrementally better than catching the same view from the tenth floor. 

There are plenty of opportunities for mirror selfies in and around the elevator; so much so that I actually let a day pass without taking any, that's how spoilt I've been for elevator selfie opportunities in days. 

I can't say I miss my friends cause all my friends are about 20 minutes away from me at any given point in time. The service and support staff in and around buildings look a tad happier than their counterparts in Delhi. Maybe they're secretly celebrating the lack of micro-management. That's the one thing about Gurgaon I've come to appreciate—few people micro-manage and it feels like a weight being lifted off your back because fuck ups are welcomed with open arms, more often than not. Delhi version of these fuck ups would mean temper flares, anger, reactionary emails and texts—but Gurgaon? It's fucking chill, almost too chill. 

A few years ago an ex-colleague (then friend, now stranger) lashed out at me for writing. This email response reminded me of that chat; of how everything I write is so personal that unless and until someone knows anything about me, people won't care. I don't see how that's such a bad thing. Maybe the whole point is to drive the unspeakable to those who need to know? Maybe there's intentionality for re-doing things that once take place in life and once in my head and pour out as words. Maybe my version of stressing, anxiety and overthinking comes out here and you don't have to be an audience member or subscriber—god knows I have never brought anyone here out of the will. 

I've had people around me who have been curious about my life, and what I do and they willingly follow this and other spaces. It's an acquired taste and sure, you don't have to do this. I don't expect anyone in my life to do any of this and yet people do. I don't think I ever expected a man I date/am in a relationship with to read this page or coerce my friends to repost from here. I think I am allowed my space to express and the way I want to express myself—maybe with typos, convoluted random titbits from my life, ranting about the lack of water supply. I want to be able to express myself and make sense of this world because god knows I have spent most of my teens bottling things without pouring outwards.  

I'm sorry if you confused my well-being for self-pity. That's how I write and it'll happen again. This is not a eulogy about Gurgaon and neither is this is a love story, It is a deeply personal piece of shuttling between fifth, tenth and twelfth floor and how I am beginning to give in to this city I once I detested. 

 How did I miss writing in March? 

Anyway, remember when we glossed over gaming? I don't know if I did but allow me to tell you about the time, long ago, when we played a board game well into the night. That house party somehow transcended to let's stay here until the hosts chuck us out. There was a round (or maybe more, I can't remember). What I do remember is the host letting her significant other win the game, because she was so deeply and passionately in love. 

I mulled over it for days, weeks, months; I may have even discussed it with the only other party guest there besides the couple (again, I can't remember the details, because fuck me I am old). What I do, however, remember clearly is how uncomfortable it made me. Not on account of the fact the girl went and lost the game but also that she handed her victory on a platter to the guy she was dating and it seemed all too sincere. 

Over the last few years, I have had to establish I take the competition seriously with most men I encountered in the dating space. Very few took that further than the conversation and among the ones who did, they fell flat; either we didn't game or they fucked up. In any case, I never had someone lose a game for me or give up their victory. To be completely real, in my opinion, it's an icky act but to each their own and if that makes your world go round then who am I to comment on your preferences. 

Anyway, lads, find someone who apologizes to you after the game is over on a different platform cause he felt bad about kicking your ass brutally at a game you taught him. Turns out it is entirely possible to be nice and pissant all at once. 

 Some days I tell myself, I can do everything. 

On those days, I can touch the sky. I can hop, skip, and jump for 14000+ steps between Delhi and Gurgaon and be stoked through the 9 hours that I spend there. I can willingly be in discomfort and pain while wearing heels through the day, prancing between South Delhi and Cyber Hub, riding the train meant for toddlers, where parents younger than me are waiting for me to get done so they can get their child on the toy train. On those days, I can grab two donuts and look like a total idiot with half my lipstick smeared off my face. All through everything, I'll be joyous. Heart full of love and warmth and rainbows and unicorn poop and glitter confetti. 

On others, I can put in a decent workout, wait for it to exhaust me, hit Gurgaon, hit 10000 steps, sit in an unfamiliar lobby and blast terrible boy band music while corporate executives judge me for wearing a jumper dress with pearl embroidered as popcorn, make terrible decisions and speak more than I should, crack a joke when I don't have the strength to keep a straight face, call my best friend and cry to her about an hour about a boy who broke my heart. No amount of clean eating, diet soda, helpful conversations, break-up music, and wins in my stride helps. No favourite meals or jokes about natal charts and planning can help me get out of my head. 

Today, was another day. Tomorrow will be yet another. 

February is unforgiving. It's biting cold and balmy all at once; one minute you are too hot in the Sun and the next you have spent three hours under the cascading moonlight hitting your face and feeling the chill in your bones. I'm planning ahead, between 17-24 February will be the last bout of cold hitting the face and that's when we'll know it's done for this year until January, for those of us who survive to see the face of it. The only redeeming part about February is that the sky puts up a show daily to compensate for all the rest of it and that somehow makes life bearable. For a lot of people, alcohol does it and I can't believe, I'm saying it on this page, it's the sky that cuts it for me. 

Someone asked me a moving question last evening—could I share a time in my life when I was truly elated—and it shut me up. I took a while to respond but only gathered the real answer a few hours later when I was changing to get into bed. In the absence of brevity, I'll hold on to the response until I am coerced into answering it again but really—what is fucking joy even? Is it when you've blown a chunk of money without consequences or question, that which was all yours to do or is it when you find a person to share time with and gloss over benign details in life, or is it when you find a quiet moment in an otherwise mellow evening, where you almost didn't show up and by the end, you're just glad your risks paid off. 

I don't know a situation any better than the one I am living in it. As a 12-year-old, I remember long summer days of being on the Outer Ring Road, riding in the backseat, and wondering if my life will ever change and move from taking that road to another one. When it finally happened and I was traveling to the other part of the city to hit college, I was begging to go back to the first place. I find myself begging for a closing date on taking the highway daily. It feels like I step out daily and have traded all my ilks for walking in a room that seems as unfamiliar as a friend's wedding. You know 10 odd people somewhat closely and you remember the others, the bride party, and the groom pack through their actions and outfits. The office is a lot like that wedding, you're tired but things are rolling. 

I had grand ideas to write and the biggest urge to word vomit. Now, not so much. I passed out twice while writing this and then napped twice in the two car rides I had in 48 hours. The only time I didn't want to sleep was when the moonlight illuminated the contours of my date's body; men who have style, have it all. Maybe one day I'll actually find a way to remember words and thoughts outside of the contours of a body stuck in my demonic horny head. 

A friend from the past life would offer the sauciest running commentary whenever we'd be swiping on dating apps at work. She'd often say how men will upload photographs of them working out and claiming they love to trek and scale the next big thing after their trek to Mount Everest. You'd see this in every third bio, ever so often men sprinkle their prompts and bios with the most absurd and extreme ideas. However, when it comes to talking to the girl on the app or sharing their dating goals and ideas, they hesitate and low-key evaporate in thin air than ever admit or say anything on their chest. 

Turns out, absurdly changing lifestyle overnight by cutting corners with sugar, working out when I can barely move or breathe, and journalling every night is my descent of becoming the dating app man and is analogous to climbing Everest and building a six-pack. 

All of this—because—I can't man up enough to admit I'm hurting so bad. I'd rather do obnoxious things and embrace uncomfortable lifestyle changes than text a man I miss him bad. I'd much rather take all my feelings—bleeding heart and open wounds of losing a friend I genuinely cared about in the pits of hell where I'll be shopping my heart out because capitalism and cis-het men hurt in waves and one leads you into the embrace of another (it's a long topic, best reserved for therapy). 

Here's hoping I can see myself through a kinder gaze than how men see others on my way out. 

In many ways, the first day of the year terrifies me. With the whole empty slate, set up a template scenario that lays ahead, it is daunting, to say the least, to imagine making a clean start, especially when you are carrying baggage. 

Baggage, man. What a fuckall concept. In so many ways, society molds us to be the sum total of who we are through our baggage but in others, this new year bullshit expects you to start afresh. If history is any indicator then my last year and this year were on to the same start—terribly discontented with life, missing people who are no longer around, miserable overall with the zest to do something so groundbreaking that I might fuck around and change my whole life overnight. 

Then there's the likeliness of dissociating that starts. In no time, the demons in my head tempt me with the aimlessness of doomscrolling and further fuelling the supply-demand relationship in my head. Do I have the attention of the gent I need? Oh fuck, I don't even have the gent, let alone the attention. 

I started journalling yesterday—by that I mean on pen and paper—something that I haven't dared to initiate since I was 12, perhaps, so give or take two decades later. I think it's acceptable for someone my age to talk shop about sex or lack thereof or men at large; which makes it easier to put thoughts to paper, even if they're to get in the wrong hands. The other thing is losing fucks to give—what's the worst case scenario, I die and someone in my life reads it or I am alive and someone reads it?—good luck to them. Really.

It occurred to me yesterday how tiring writing on paper seems now, even though my thoughts roll much faster there. Maybe it was the cold or maybe it was just enthusiasm for doing the one thing I love on the new year (writing) that I wrote like a motherfucker. For the most part, I was holding back on dissociating with a healthier coping mechanism, acknowledging by building a habit. 

Can I just say that I am tired of being my absolute best to everyone in my life and for this year, I'd love to give absolute hell to everyone I know. Nearly everyone in my life has taken my patience, kindness and love for granted and it's driven me to insanity in the past year and some of it continued to roll into today—a whole new start—imagine that. I am allegedly the butt of all jokes in public and private, someone who takes all the bullying and nonsense from people in and around my life and continues to stand next to people who not only do that but continue to disrespect my agency and boundaries. 

I only realised this is continuously happening when I was dining with someone recently and everything through that dinner was painful, in hindsight. The evening itself was heavy but if we leave aside the agenda that was set during the meeting, the snide comments, the remarks and the actions—all of it was incredibly off-putting in a way that it reminded me of others and everyone in my life who do it on the regular. Perhaps, it was a first in this company or it was truly pathetic that I came home a little bit shocked and over the next week, proceeded to unpack it at large alone. I had to remove myself from the situation at large, but since then have taken time to process and it is hurtful, shocking and painful to live through knowing that your vulnerabilities mean nothing more than a joke to someone you trusted. You don't have to have romantic feelings for someone to be human around them but I guess I am expecting empathy from people who have proven repeatedly that they have none to offer. The façade comes off and it did rightly so in time for the new year.

Since this evening (it hasn't been a week, actually), I have felt the complete need to build a safety net for my inner child and the wound it sustained over the years, especially as a kid—being the last to be picked for something, never finding people who could stand by me or hold me close and definitely those who thought it's okay to be inappropriate with their sarcasm. There's a limit to taking shit from everyone in your life and I think the year-ender episode sealed it for me. I have been triggered at large since that night and even the slightest of "hello" is heavy on the heart. Someone was over at my place to meet me today with a new year's gift for me and I swear to god, I had empty eyes and a blank face. I couldn't understand why this person wanted to show up for me, out of nowhere, and befriend me and talk to me without being hurtful. At this point, if someone hugs me, I'll break out howling. 

None of this bodes well for my mental health nor does it do anything for how I hold myself. I am transported back to a decade of learning to understand why holding yourself and standing for yourself is critical when nobody else does. In doing that, over a decade ago, I found people I call my best friends, and maybe one odd person in all these years has been able to see through the hurt and the noise around me to ask me if I'm truly okay. This last week when I was encountered by the question and love, I couldn't explain in words what was wrong. "Everything?" or "nothing?", neither cuts it. I don't know how to explain that everyone's words are hurtful and there is only so much fake smiling I can do in a day without screaming or crying that I need to be left alone if I can't be respected or allowed agency. The amount of backbreaking trauma I have faced and circumstances I have fought may not be extraordinary, but it is doing everything with high functioning processing ability that makes me resilient. I don't see myself as a victim but it would perhaps be nice to see someone hold hands once a year and tell me it'd be okay. Instead, I am left with alone to figure things out when going gets hard for all and when I do find my way out of it, I am rewarded with hurtful lines about dealing with it. I am at my last breaking point with my loved ones so imagine my surprise when someone I trust turned around to hold me when I was coming undone. It throws you off. 

But at the same time, you see all the irreplaceable bonds sealed with tenderness and delicate vulnerabilities about each other eroding with time and carefully crafted lines to hurt the other person. You could be a great friend but sometimes all that the other person needs are actions and not vacuous words. 

I'm so tired of holding on to empty new year wishes and responding with nonchalance that even the fake smiles and acts seem hollow and tough to follow through. It would perhaps be nice if someone could fake their way with me for maybe a day and it might actually make the rest of the year worth wishing someone a "happy new year!". 

I'm so bloody tired of new beginnings and new years and wishes and people claiming to like me or respect me. Either be so bloody monstrous that we are fighting each other in the battleground and getting ugly or leave me the fuck alone if you can't respect me or my agency or the person I am with you. It'll hurt me but I'll get over it like I did when I was 10 like I did when you hurt me. It won't be the first time someone would do that to me but atleast it won't have the pretentiousness of doing well by the first day of the year. 

All days suck just as much, equally and hard.