Prose before hos

I've done quite a few things in life, that may qualify as 'things you should not attempt if you're a sane adult'. The research degree in cinema is one of them. It may have hit home several times in the last two years but never more than this morning when I woke up.



You see, I'm your late riser. No power on Earth can wake me up unless my arse is on fire and my phone's given up on snooze, or I'm dying without electricity in Summer.
When I woke up at 7:30 am without an alarm this morning, I knew something was up.

From the very moment, some 24 hours ago when it hit me that this is it, the judgement day is here, I've been unsettled. I'm hyperventilating, without as much as a word. I'm stressed to the point I can feel the pulse in my body, I can feel my head hurt, I can feel the palpitations. You'd wonder why, even ask what's the point. I did what I could have and it's over. It's just feedback now. But that's the point, that is when you look back and forget to take into account the endless nights you've spent crying, the decision to pick your book over a boy, swearing on everything holy that you'd never see his face again. I've lost relationships, friends, job offers, freelance work. All for that one piece of paper telling me I can do this- and I've done this.

A dear friend sent this day before my MPhil entrance which I'd fully planned to skip because it was too hot and I was so sure I wouldn't make it. I go back to this mail, whenever I'm down. Completely unconvinced though. I revisited this today with a tad more confidence.

When I woke up this morning, it felt like a terrible loss. A trade off I wouldn't do today. You see, I'm one of you now. I care about the money that reaches my bank, however little it may be. I care about wanting to sustain relationships, to work on myself- to be healthy and to treat my body with respect. Pretty much whatever I've stood at odds with all these years. The only thing I ever wanted is to do good. To make something good. To put my energies into creating anything-something, which I know I gave my best. At the end of my thesis writing, I knew it didn't work the way I'd conceived for it to be. I just had to face it, the blow and the reality check today. How hard could that be?

It's a strange experience to be so terrified that you don't know how to respond. Like your nerves, all curled up and just pumping blood so you can breathe and stand and listen. I can tell you, this comes close to standing outside ICU and waiting to hear terrible, terrible news. You're just waiting for it to hit you. That lasted for a whole day. Last I felt this, there was a death in the family and I was too young to process these feelings.

"You can come inside."

I walked in, blank. A room full of familiar faces all smiling at me. I'd spent an entire day sitting in this room, even speaking and having everyone listen to me. Yet, it seemed completely unfamiliar when I stepped in to hear my grade. My advisor patted my back and said,

"Congratulations, you've done well. It's an A."

The validation I was looking for, for all these years came in one sentence.

"You should immediately go and publish your third chapter. It's great work."

Just like that, everything I gave up to be who I am today, was absolutely worth it.

Academia and I, we've had a long, strange run. In the end, despite all the problems, I'd change nothing at all. I think that's what matters the most, how you end it. Ofcourse, easy to say now that I'm here. As a hypocrite ignoring my depression, I'll stand by my statement.

It's not quite settling in, the feedback, the end and even the journey. Three years ago, today, I was in a nightclub at Pattaya brimming with joy about the job which I was about to join. If someone had told me that I'd go down to get this feedback on my research degree from some of the top academics in the country, I'd have laughed at their face and returned to my hotel room to sleep.

I don't know what, how or when I'm doing next. In my head, I now deserve a break. However, those thumbs are twiddling for their next misadventure. A trip to undertake, work to publish, books to be made, events to be curated- I can't sit and let things sink in like other normal people.

I envy them for this. For their ability to take time off and enjoy things.

Meanwhile, I'm onto other bad decisions. Some of which look like this-

250 gms/ 1 bowl, annoying clients, sliced

Method

1) For the marinate, mix half of vacation plans in anxiety and stress paste.
2) Reluctantly, go face the demons. Add one Leftist University in a mix of marinate paste. Keep it closed for a fortnight. This needs time since it takes a while for anxiety and stress to activate once inside the university.
3) For the curry, dry roast 4-5 miffed men on high heat. Keep stirring until they turn brown on the edges.
4) Add demanding bosses and annoying clients to the browned miffed men. Keep stirring slowly, while trying not to break anything in the pan. This step is tricky since all the components require attention to detail.
5) When the demanding bosses begin backing off after the clients are satisfied with the work, you sieve them in a separate bowl. Throw the browned miffed men. Their flavour is now mixed in your memory and the job, done.
6) Heat the pan and add half of writers block, workout, and diet food. Give it a good mix.
7) To this mixture, add your marinated Leftist university with stress and anxiety, the crippling depression, and the browned clients and bosses. Stir it clockwise, slowly. Say "Yeh Bik Gayi Hai Gormint" thrice. Repeat.
8) Toss in some additional diet food, if you like your meal spicy. Add the remaining writers block and reduce the heat. Cover the pan and slow cook this for about a fortnight again.
9) Open the lid and add the remaining semblance of vacation plans. Turn the gas off.
10) Garnish with the shavings of marketing and events, your recipe for disaster is good to go.

I have this friend who's all kinds of pretty. You probably know of  her, if not her directly. This friend and I have spent many a long Summer days trolling each other, after helping each other get over the respective (might I add multiple versions of) loves of our lives. 

She's seen me through smoking myself to death mouth ulcers phase. I've seen her through justifying and rationally explaining a break-up present. 

"I'm demanding a pen drive because I've lost mine. What do you think of it?"


That, there, was my first taste of being dead inside, but savage outside. 

This dead-inside business is amazing. On a spectrum of Narendra Modi cheerful to Arvind Kejriwal upset, you're one step short of serious therapy and one step under a straight face towards life. 

You know everything about you is crumbling down. Nobody can help you sleep at night (not unless you search memes for an hour on 'gram). You barely get by a day's work without referencing to suicidal memes or being sullen. It's a bit of a paradox. You can explain dead inside in memes by invoking the dead inside memes. 

Hard to get? Here's a cheatsheet. 




The ones who face your ferocious dog - No person in their right mind should bond with our pet dog. That's a suicide wish granted.
Last month, a friend dropped by. She insisted on playing with the raging monster. Our monster, who's not seen any human company besides the members of the house attempted to kill my friend. She (dog, not the friend) barked her liver out. She also attempted her best to literally eat my friend alive. My friend was unfazed. She had plonked herself on the floor of my room and played with the beast for about half an hour. By which time, I dressed for the evening out that she had come to pick me for. I don't know how she survived.

tl;dr - If they like your dog, they're dead, inside and outside.



Eating Vegetarian Meals - This is a wee bit unfair on the vegetarian dead inside fellas but if your meat eating, carnivore of a foodie friend willingly orders a Soya Kebab or insists on grabbing Rava Idli with you, then they're most definitely dead inside. People would like to put Sabudana Wada in the same category but I choose to disagree.

tl;dr- Last meal before death? Gol gappe.



Run to the Hills - Back in college, this man (name on demand) boarded a bus to the hills, because why not. Here I was, desperately trying to cram last minute headings of how ribbon microphone is superior to the rest,

"Listen, do you have previous years papers on you?"

"Um what? I can't hear you."

"Where the fuck are you? Are you out partying?"

"No, er. I'm inside a bus. I'm headed to McLeodganj."

"WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK THE EXAM IS IN 12 HOURS ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND? ARE YOU ON COCAINE? DID YOU SHOOT HEROIN?"

"Hello? Hello? I can't hear you."

This friend landed back after an incredibly stupid trip and attempted to board a bus almost each time before each exam. Heartache, ladies and gentlemen, is a real bitch.

tl;dr- Book me a ticket to hell cause I'm dead inside.



Slap their loved ones - This is kinda liberating. But tricky. Since you're dead inside, you are always on a lookout for company. Apparently, slapping the living daylights out of people does not help. Neither does taking spontaneous trips to Jaipur. However, one should always try. No guarantee of whether your relationship will live or will it also be dead inside after you slap. At your own risk, people.

tl;dr- Slap precedes death. If you die, you die. If you live long enough, you'll learn to slap better.



Run to Rajasthan- On more than one occasion, people I know have run to various parts of Rajasthan. Locking themselves in a hotel room is said to be great for productivity, after you've been absconding from Delhi, without as much as a word. Or taking a swim. Or hundred. This one time I pulled a disappearing act and landed up in a hotel room in Rajasthan, Man Friday was concerned for my well-being, enough to call me on the hotel landline and talk me out of it. La dolce vita.

tl;dr- Sighseeing is crucial to being dead inside.