Prose before hos: Best Friend

29

There's a very good reason, I'm writing this when I'm writing—at 7 minutes past 5 am— a whole day and a few hours since I actually slept. I'm running on serotonin and some other stuff (is that adrenaline?) and honestly, it doesn't quite matter, these details, cause in the next few minutes you'll know why.

I've not had the easiest or the best year. Hands down, this has been one of the more difficult ones. I have had to do the task of living with the idea of doing "nothing" and making "something" out of it, without my consent whatsoever. It didn't help that we're all going through a global pandemic and somehow, everyone sort of went cuckoo around the same time.

I've been in therapy for close to 40 days and while I was reluctant to give that a try, it's been a ride. I've learned more about myself than I ever did. I learned what broke me earlier this year and then over the years and then some more about the patterns I've been falling prey to. This is not to say it won't happen again, the troubles and the situations I've been in with loved ones and acquaintances but more to say, I acknowledge yes, and now, onwards growth. That growth is not linear, I'm told. For now, we are good but maybe in time to come we won't. Hence, I'm accounting for it right now.

Coming to the point (it's five minutes past the time), I'm extremely overwhelmed by what this birthday was. I don't think I need to state what I think about birthdays and especially mine. It's been the biggest festival for me, each year and somehow, given everything in my life, I just did not want to conceive a single thought about it until a week ago. I went back and forth on even something as tiny as a virtual party/get together, something I would have found myself doing pretty much monthly otherwise but just, somehow did for this time. Almost like, yeah, okay, it would be good to see people.

This is what happens when you're going through some mental turmoil. You start thinking the world aligns with you, when it doesn't.

While I had written off everything and everyone when I went off the radar (and off Facebook) a few months ago, I did not anticipate anyone reaching out, even on my birthday, which was admittedly a long time from then.

It only got worse when I went off. I called spade a spade, lost very close friends. Friends who I thought had my back and wouldn't betray my trust. There were those who intentionally chose to hurt me in ways unimaginable and those who were insensitive. Between these spectrums, I brutally slashed each and everyone out and really felt light as a feather. It's been a heck of a ride around the sun and I have to say, quite a mental adventure.

Anyway, today, I think I spoke to close to 100 people over texts, voice and video calls. It was something. I don't think I've spoken to so many people in a year, not even last year, when I was prancing around town. To each and everyone who called, attempted to reach out, drop a text and just dropped a wish, thank you. I may have replied in a rush and I may have overlooked at the time but believe me, it means a lot, especially in the light of everything I have written above.

I met my best friend Sinner for the first time this year since February. She and her partner (who is better friends with me than our other friends, yay!) surprised me last night with a home-baked cake in one of my favourite dessert flavours. More than anything, just seeing her show up out of nowhere and drive all the way from across another city was overwhelming. I can't explain what it feels like to hug someone you've shared so much of your life with when you've been deprived of contact. We've not exactly had the easiest year with each other and for her to keep up with me and being there for me, I'm going to be eternally grateful. I told her last night how she has a thing for assholes, in the light of one of her favourite motorsport drivers and me and she agreed.

Two of my other, music friends, who dropped by and sort of carried out the ritual of us being together for birthday meant a lot. We've been celebrating birthdays together since I turned 20. Nine years and many birthdays later, we are only separated by our spatial distance. We've travelled the city, the country and even the world together and have been with each other for better or for worse. To have that comfort zone I could return to and call it home on my birthday eve was extremely touching and nerve-wracking.

My family has had to deal with a handful with me. Especially this year, from my mental and physical health both, they've kept up with everything and had my back, even when I believed they did not. I don't think words can do justice to what I owe them, to be here and writing this and doing this. It means the world. For everything today, yesterday and all these years, I can't thank them enough. I'm too proud to admit I love people but I'll make an exception here. I love them, each of them to bits, even when I say I don't.

My friends who I haven't listed here—Ud, Mad, AJ, Kneeps, Pal, T-Dogg, Sloth, Mia K, SSA, US, AGN, Nyk, Pup,—have kept up with my erratic behaviour this past year. You have seen me through so much that ideally if things were okay (aka non-Covid) I would be completely embarrassed to resurface, but here we are. I have no shame whatsoever in owning to up the wild, wild cycle I've had with many breakdowns, nights of staying up and crying, and sometimes even talking to one or more than one of you and letting you in on my deepest, darkest demons. It's been a heck of a journey together and while it's not been easy, I'm forever at awe of each of you. Thank you for having me in your life and taking my shit, whether it's the frosting of the cake-related essay or ranting about the man I like who won't like me back (aka all of them, ever).

I am superstitious about writing about people and giving whole dedications so like this entire piece cancels itself out but if I'm risking it, I have to thank May. It's not easy to have me as your best friend and deal with my birthday tantrums. From literally coaxing me for days to talk about cake flavour to taking my F1 memes and hearing me talk shit 16 hours a day, she should be awarded a lifetime achievement already. However, we have a long way to go so maybe we'll talk awards posthumously. But really, for someone who's so painfully introverted and positively hating on birthdays of one and all, May goes out above and beyond to make me feel otherwise, whether I want it or not. She's sorta tied all my rhizomatic group of friends together and honestly, as social as I am, I would never tag my friends' other friends (especially those who I personally dislike and do not approve) but she went ahead, did that. There are other unmentionables that will be discussed on another, perhaps a more private platform. However, for now, I am out of words to thank May and tell her how much I miss her. I only hope she knows that. It's been the hardest setback about the year (yet).

Here's hoping to be a better sister, daughter, friend, date, student, colleague, and maybe even a girlfriend to people in my life, Whether you've been named here or not, you know who you are and how you've been instrumental in my life. You all deserve a better version of me.

It's quarter past six in the morning and I've cried a fair bit writing this. That's the thing about love. It hits you, unlike any other thing. Thank you for showing me how much you love me in acts, words, gestures, and in edibles. Here's looking forward to tying the last loose end of the 20s in a tight ribbon with all of you (if the universe grants us all that).

Birthday photographs, cake images and all the rest of it will follow soon over personal messages.

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, by Snobster

Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst

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, by Snobster

In 31 shower thoughts, alcohol

Cigarettes and Alcohol

How do you get to know someone? Do you ever get to know someone?

I'm not practicing active/passive voice despite having done the revision last night while streaming Rasbhari (2020). A show that I'm yet to process my feelings about (largely, writing over the feelings cause it's not worth talking).

Right, knowing people takes an effort. An effort is a two-way street, where passively the recipient must respond or the active effort maker will cease doing that.

I came across a meme today. It read,

"I hate when people are like "so tell me about yourself :)" What do you want like my trauma or my favorite color let's be specific" (sic)

I immediately sent it to the one person I know would resonate with this. The last person who's possibly attempted to gauge that about me and in his feigning of getting to know me, he might actually have landed on a few things. He agreed, it was too wide a statement to make and too general an attempt to forge.

Got me thinking of all the 1500 matches on my Tinder, pending, waiting to hear from me, about me.

Okay, 1500 is an illustrated example. I mean some 679 active chats and the remaining 1590+ matches who I'm yet to talk to or vice versa if we're all alive.

How do you actually learn about someone? Do you sit in a classroom with them and hear them talk and tell yourself, "Yep, this is the one I want to befriend." or do you find yourself asking them, "What's your favourite sport?" and if the answer corresponds with your favourite sport, here's something at bay there.

Forging friendship is a delicate road. Timing, space, enthusiasm, distractions all tend to matter in different quantities and if things work, you may have found yourself a person. The person your potential therapist will hear about, your potential partner will know about and yet never not in full capacity, just as much as you know them. Your family will extend them a chair on the table and if your blood relations don't, your family of choice will. Point being, friends manifest themselves outwards when we have fully or to some level accumulated their likes, dislikes, traumas, and then some more.

How do you get there then?

I have been told a bunch of times that my marker for forging a conversation with strangers in person or on the internet is way too stringent. I don't come easy and I definitely don't make it easy.

How do you expect to know me or anyone when you ask them, "your favourite drink- wine or beer?"

First, there's an assumption that you think the person drinks. Second, there's an affirming assumption that the person drinks one of these two.

I've done that too. Hence, I find myself at liberty to write about this.

In 2009, when I first met Sinner outside room 6 in the Journalism Corridor, I asked her,

"So do you like Manchester United? That's cool, cause I know like one player who plays with them."

She responded kindly, "Eh, so I don't actually like ManU as much. Uh, I like a good game where it's fun to watch. I don't actually like ManU very much."

I had nothing to say to her. I was two days into college and basically, my attempt at cutting past my introversion was trying to talk to as many people as I could. I think that explains the number of people I know from college, courtesy all the conversations I made in the first year cause I didn't want to be left alone in the library like I was in school.

"Yeah, that's cool. I only know like one sport I do. I climb the stairs up and down and that's maximum I can. Yeah."

It's nothing less than a miracle that over a decade later, she and I hang tight despite that ManU t-shirt not being a dead giveaway into her likes and dislikes. We have mutual social awkwardness and then we found we could guzzle alcohol more than anyone else in our batch together.

Funnily enough, she remembers this conversation and at some level resonates with my awkward attempt.

It's even funnier when I think about how I forged friendships with some of my other close friends. One, coming to class grumbling about it all through lunch and seeing someone you barely know totally drunk and obliging her request to cover her face with my body by sitting in front of her in a wretched Sound class, with another over our triumphs to find perfect biryani in Delhi while eating stuffed crust pizza. Yet another over learning how we absolutely dig Kind of Blue and then with another over our shared introversion. I've made friends easily and those are the ones where we've never quite had to ask, "so tell me your favourite..."

It's funny when I say it out loud because not so long ago, I did a post on not knowing anything about May and it was only yesterday when she texted to ask me my favourite colour.

How do we then know each other?

I think we do when we know each other in moments. In passing time with one another, where I've cried on someone's shoulder drunk out of my mind about the boy who made a pass at my friend in a different country, then another time when we chattered non-stop for 4 days in an outstation trip and learning more about each other. There are bits of silences, honesty, and uncontrolled emotion that traverses through words and expressions.

We know each other through many glasses of whiskeys we have shared and staccato conversations on the people we know without actually knowing anything about each other. There's that critical second-hand information, which when we are exposed to, tells us a lot about others and ourselves. I'm sure my friends have known me from my other friends on how I passed out after drinking enough the evening I found out I topped third-year exams during undergraduate or the time I slapped a close friend at a party because she was so drunk that it irritated me. Maybe even that time, when we had a nine-hour-long date and ended up smoking pot under the stars until we were interrupted by half a dozen missed calls from my home at 4 am.

I am bringing a lot of alcohol references because the last decade has been shaped by alcohol addled camaraderie and wild episodes. I have possibly become less introverted and more authoritative knowing that there's a side to me which alcohol brings and maybe, it's not all that bad to own it.

Here's a big shout out to everyone I know and then to those who know me back. In some way, we have so much to learn and in another, it's good to reflect back and call you my home. The place where I take refuge when I don't have to explain myself for being who I am and tell you my favourite anything out loud.

(Title track; reference of the day)

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, by Snobster

In 31 shower thoughts, Best Friend

Drain You

Please raise your hand if you've been personally victimized by CBSE on your English score.

If you did not raise your hand, I'd suggest you skip this post. For the rest, welcome to the first meeting of Burned Anonymous. The first order of business is talking about it.

I think I was two whole years into writing this blog when I got my CBSE 12th-grade results and howled my eyes out. The space designated to the family desktop had me sitting on the main seat and my dad hovering around my back and my mother to the left of the "computer table". We were loading my result and nothing pissed me more than seeing a measly 81 in English Core.

81? Eighty-one?

For all the merit certificates in language, for being the student editor of the school magazine, for winning more prizes in writing and for reading up a storm and knowing literary references and words better than anyone in my school around my age, and I got an eighty fucking one.

I don't think I'd fully registered that when the phone kept buzzing. That had to be this colossal bitch, the Regina to my Janis Ian, who I had known for more than half my life at that point.

In brazen words, she forced my mom who got the call to pass the phone to me. Between sobbing and being angry I told her, I did not want to speak to her or anyone and I needed space to process.

Clearly, being woke and asking for space is a wild concept for the same people who refused to take that one on one.

Anyway, this person then proceeded to call another one and rant on the phone as to how "studying would have helped" which I apparently did not do.

To a layperson, this doesn't sound like the worst commentary.

To me, at that point, it was the worst dialogue ever uttered.

You see, since we were in different schools and we had wrapped our board exams in time for a longer round of prep to the wretched main board exams, we were on two different studying schedules. I got a call at 6 am on the morning of her English pre-board to take her through the literature section, tell her the main points of each possible long question and take her through some of the chapters she hadn't considered important to study. This, during, pre-baords.

Naturally, when I heard this out loud after the results, I was livid.

That's an understatement. I was raging mad.

A good researcher shows signs of their talent in their youth. With another friend, who's got just as much research acumen, we cracked this Regina's entire school's board exam result. Turns out, it took less than it takes a Bollywood hacker to do that. So much for CBSE making it a hush-hush affair.

We were right in our speculation. Although she claimed she had scored something obnoxiously higher than us in the subject, she wasn't lying about it. Only a few more marks. Not in 90s as she'd said.

What did irk us was the inflated score she peddled to us all.

What followed was the worst three way call disaster one can imagine in 2009.

We got Regina on a call and somehow added all our common friends; mutuals if you must. Very calmly, we started telling her how CBSE has made a mistake and that it took us simple steps to find our way in their school's CBSE exams grade card for all the students. The score she had told us? That was wrongly listed on the main CBSE website and that we were concerned for her. She needed to urgently raise this matter with CBSE and reinstate her inflated score per subject, including English that she was most proud of.

The result was not shocking. She promptly blocked us all from social media; to this day, I remain blocked from all her social media. The few friends she had or who were made to believe my friend and I were evil spirits who descendended from the Hell above were made to block us as well.

It's been over a decade since the episode and while I'm salty about CBSE fucking me over that one subject, it's heartening to have met so many new people over the last two odd years who were in the same boat as me and were fucked just as much. In 2009, all I did was rant, cry and possibly had the first brush of big disappointment with this. A decade and some more later, I know where I stand. In a corner with some of the finest people I know who were fucked by CBSE.

Today, if I meet someone who wasn't fucked by CBSE English, I have very little respect for that person because if you don't know the struggle of raising your head amongst your peers for fourteen years only to eventually see yourself floating in a pool of 70s and 80s while everyone around you who couldn't string a single sentence in English flaunting their 95, you can't know allyship or pain.

As for Regina, well, let's just say despite the years of tormenting me and everyone else around her for not being good enough for "Science" and research and everything else, last I checked, madam was running social media and other marketing strategies. Here's hoping, she's got better research and lying experience now more than ever as she does it professionally for her clients.

Reason 243 why I find it hard to take "Digital Marketing Managers" seriously.