Prose before hos

Apparently, spending it on a hospital bed with a hyper, frazzled mother is something I did not take into account. Neither did I imagine an arm with infection spreading to my arteries and veins. Guess we can say, what a welcome to the decade that will hopefully see me through my 30s. 

Hope is injurious to health. 

2020, I'm onto you. If you let me, that is. 

Sometime this week, a colleague asked me to shut the hell up about the Retrograde. It's not the first time, and probably won't be the last, however, I find it easy to pass the blame about everything on the blowing up of the planetary positions. Never mind, science or logic (that I actually fucking studied in college, thank you very much). Truth be told, she invoked my PhD card and told me that it's embarrassing to be speaking about and expected to be taken seriously given my line of work (academia!). Who the hell wants to take a babbling researcher seriously who's pinning all possible issues on a fucking planet (again, why aren't too many people doing this beats me).

It sucks to be back.

I know, I say it each time I'm back after a short/long sabbatical from Delhi but it truly sucks dead monkey balls to be back here, in the center of things. All the things that I believed I had wrapped up just about explode in your face when you return. This time is no different. Everything you think you have forgotten and would never come back just shows up as soon as you're back. It seems as if no time has elapsed since I left, so now that I am back, I can't keep pretending otherwise.

I remember so vividly, coming back last year from my birthday vacation. The flight touched down, and I knew, I wasn't prepared to deal with the shit here. I wasn't prepared to go back to work, to go home and be at the center of things. Cutting slack is something people in this city don't understand and with my return, it was no different. Things I left behind, blew up in my face. People I left, decided to bite me back and how. Everything I thought I knew and was leaving behind came back in unsurmountable quantity to attack. Within three days, I was morose and dead on the inside yet again.

This time, the layover and the jetlag may have prevented that instant touchdown horror, but it's back. A week later, it's all real. It's haunting. It refuses to go. I can feel it settling down. What's worse are the people all around who are ensuring that I need another vacation even before the jetlag wears off for the first. Everything I thought I knew about everyone is inadequate. People can surprise you in ways unimaginable, that is to say, if you think someone's going to disappoint you, you don't know the degree of disappointment they can strike you with. Case in point your family, but we'll come back to that when I'm not writing hate posts about being back in the city where I've been raised and braised.

Here we go, we're stuck for at least a year or until some agency comes forth and sets us free in the form of all expenses paid research trip. Or a sugar daddy. Whichever doesn't happen first? There's always the option of running away from home and becoming a refugee.



London was magical. I've been avoiding giving words to this trip, in any fashion, on any portal just as much as possible. I want to live with the experience in a selfish way where I don't share any of that with anyone. Sure, I've rambled non-stop about it since I set my foot there, but that's cursory. I refuse to give up in words and limit my thoughts down. To write is to lament, to give out every bit of what you own in your head like yours. What's mine is mine, I refuse to share any bit of what it has been in my own solitary company.

London gave me the joy to be by myself, in my company and love every second of it. Being in the center of things alone, of not giving a shit and of getting lost, and finding myself each time, making it back.

London was joyous. I walked for kilometers together. I lugged my luggage from places, to bus stations, to railway stations, across modes of transport, to running across platforms knowing that if I miss the train, I'd miss my flight and quite possibly be poorer by about 100 pounds buying another flight ticket back home. London allowed me to be emancipated in a way where I could be lost in the middle of the city at 2 am, pissed drunk with my phone on the verge of dying and nobody being on my side.

On one such night alone, I asked myself, would it completely suck if you're mugged at this point on gunpoint and face death? Not entirely, I remember answering inside my head. Everything I wanted to see, to know, to feel and live through, I've done. I've no regrets and I can't ask for more. I'd be dying happy, satisfied and certainly lighter in the head.

London is a gift that keeps on giving. It's like going to the carnival and playing a game where you're hunting for the stuff toy from the machine where you keep putting nickels in and meander the controls for you to pick the toy. Sure, there's all kinds of crap inside, but you're only eyeing that Paddington stuff toy. London's that in the list of countries in the world. There are better places, there are easier breaks to take, there are much kinder cities to go to, but London, it's the real shit.

London's the bitch you want to be best friends with when you're going on a night out. It's the hot spot in the city where you don't have the reservation but you'd wait for the entire evening in a queue, just to be able to make it in. You ask yourself, is it even worth it standing in a queue on a cold, wet, grey night when you have less than 12 hours left in the city. The city gives it back to you when you get to go inside. It is truly fucking worth it. Heck, it brought my birthday in with the downpour. At 12 am, I found myself with frizzy hair on cobbled sidewalk, running along with a motley crew of old and new friends just to be able to find a place where we could sit. It rained at 12, and it continued to rain, as though embracing me and welcoming me to a new place, a place where I felt some sense of belonging despite not having anyone I could call my very own. It's a Delhi ritual, where it rains like mad on my birthday. London welcomed me, just as much, with open arms. Before you think I'm getting dreamy and unbearable, it didn't rain a single day while I was there, with the exception of my birthday.

It's maybe not London as much as it's Delhi at its pathetic best. The two weeks I spent away, not one day did I think everything is crashing down. The university I study at is coming undone, the liberals really need to start a revolution and be more proactive, the right wing nut cases need to calm their tits down and open their eyes to the ignominy that surrounds them. It's just Delhi being its brutal self on me, and on everyone around. To be in London, or for that matter, any place is to be away from your own personal reality and what you're facing. Delhi, is facing a total breakdown. For my personal growth, in my career, in my academic career and pretty much whatever little personal self space I retain here. Delhi is dusty, deranged and dirty, not in the way a cocktail should be, but more in the way the adjective it shouldn't be.

I found myself constantly worried each time I was out beyond 10 pm by myself. My Delhi ass was worried about being abducted, killed, raped, or having rods inserted in my intestines at any given moment. That's what Delhi does to you. It terrifies the living daylights out of you and ensures you feel the same even when you're in a different city. By the time I was ready to leave, I felt like I could breathe effortlessly, even while being alone in a sketchy neighbourhood at 3 am. Unfortunately, it was time to leave.

And Delhi? It's the same. I stepped out at 12 noon today in a dress covering my knees and found myself the object of gaze by onlookers. Mind you, this is a Sunday and I was in a public place. London taught me that Sundays are for brunch and ciders, they're for your family and cookouts. Instead, all I got was a pathetic day after spending a shit tonne of money to keep myself upbeat and about 3000 calories to cope up with the loss of all things fun for at least a year to come. It doesn't help when your family is acting out and you've to find extra ounces of your Delhi self to deal with them again. This fortnight made me forget that I live with them and that it's just as difficult as the city to adjust.

And me? I'm back. The cheerful person I nurtured in this fortnight is dead and we're celebrating her demise tonight in the form of a pathetic birthday celebration that people around me forged to have, complete with a disgusting mousse cake. There's nothing more heartbreaking than coming to know that people you've known all your life can't manage one thing right or display such attention to detail when it comes to you that you want to shoot yourself in the head, even before Delhi allows an opportunity to a serial killer to murder you in broad daylight.

Delhi, you win. I'm back and I'm dead on the inside. I hope you're fucking happy. 

I've drawn a list of things I need to-do, in addition to all the garbage I have listed on Trello. Bear with me because this is the closest I've come to organizing my thoughts. Prose will be back when this trial week is over.

Trial run from 9th-15th July for the following things-

1) Sleeping by 11 pm. It's 11:53 as I type this, if I make it to bed by 12, it would be a real achievement. Okay before 12, every day for the rest of the week. (At the time of posting- it's 12:01 and I need to brush so 12:15 am is final time)

2) Make. A. Budget. Factor in all the costs, losses, pros, cons, and everything else involved. Don't procrastinate. (I mean, for fuck's sake, you do this for a living at work every fucking week)

3) No overthinking. Not about the job, not about the lack of water in the washbasin at the job. Not about not having any real skill. Not about, "What will this PhD even do?"

4) DO NOT EAT PEANUTS. DO NOT COME CLOSE TO PEANUTS.

5) Minimize eating crap to not even once a week.

6) Pencil in HIIT at least four times this week.

7) Look for a birthday gift for grandfather. Something that he actually cares about.

8) Read a motherfucking book other than what you're making.

9) Watch Narcos.

10) REPLY TO PERSONAL EMAILS. PLEASE FOR FUCK'S SAKE RESPOND TO EMAILS FROM CONFERENCE ORGANIZERS, ADVISORS, POTENTIAL EMPLOYERS.

11) Organize your artwork for the room.

12) WRITE YOUR MOTHERFUCKING PAPER.

13) Do not binge on dessert. You don't need dessert. Do not eat mango. Do not go near a mango.

14) Limit social interaction to one hour at best, after work. I repeat- 60 minutes or less. Or every 15 minutes spent with people you don't care about, add that to your workout.

15) Don't spend time on dating apps.

Things I managed to achieve in the last seven days. Also known as my first week of productivity in 2018.

1) Blocked three people on Whatsapp and Facebook combined.
2) Ate a whole pack of chips. 123 gms of processed carbs.
3) Spent 3.9 k on books, which I have no space to store or hoard.
4) Met people every day after work.
5) Ate three different kinds of goat meat in one night.
6) Wrote nothing. Edited enough content to make me shoot myself in the head.
7) Worked out on 4 days out of 7. Out of breath on 2 days out of 4.
8) Drank 3 litres water on 4 days out of 7.
9) Cancelled vacation and sulked about it.
10) Cancelled another vacation scheduled for March and sulked some more.
11) Wrote shit on social media.
12) Acted like shit to people I like.
13) Made my bed 6 days out of 7.

All in all, a very normal week.

What do you do when you wake up on the wrong side of luck?

I always believed that Midas was a dumb muthafucka. That man gave away his power for his inability to control it. He was literally daft not actually employing people to do all the 'touching' on his behalf. I mean, the man had the resources to hire two people (with legit four hands) to do all the 'touching' for him. For Pete's sake, he could touch turd and make it into solid gold. I hope it was all 22 carat and that he paid his employees in his gold turd (remains of gold biscuits turn to the gold turd, geddit?).

Yet, he chose to exit that wonderful blessing (or whatever power) he was granted exclusive access to. I've heard many a version of that man cursing his luck for being blessed (hashtag blessed like all Delhi teenagers) to turn everything into gold, yet, he cribbed so much that someone wrote a whole fucking fable about him.

Where was I? My luck.

I'm the opposite of Midas. Whatever I touch, it turns to turd. Throw a gold biscuit my way for sample. Address on request.

You throw a project proposal, complete with everything in order and favourable conditions and I will give you back a mess, which can neither be evaded nor destroyed. I've a great example but I'd like to believe people from work are reading this and I'm on tenterhooks (I've been informed). Right now won't be the best time.

If I believe I've found love, it often always turns out to be a gastritis attack. You know, in my head, which clears as I proceed to tell the second of my three friends about it. The man literally becomes one with the ether, leaving sulphuric after effects of his presence. Or, as the doctors refer to it in science, farts.

If I think, there's no better negotiator than me, an agency will show me my place by ignoring my phone calls, messages, sweet nothings, angry everything, only to respond in the first instance a senior colleague writes to them. So much for me being the loyal client and insisting on going back to the damn agency.

Just when I think, I'm gold with not consuming carbs and processed food and refined sugar, I get pissed drunk and stoned and book a ticket to Pune. I eat crap for three solid meals for over three days and come back to eat at McDonald's because shit it's shutting down. WHATTODO?

First, I don't drop any inches or kilos for two fucking months and just when I feel that starts to happen, I start to binge eat again.

"How's the peanut chocolate? I didn't like the milk coated in rice crispies one. Oh, you don't want yours?" Fuck people distributing food in offices. That shit should have gotten over with celebrating birthdays in school and having pineapple cakes at birthdays. Those two things are legitimately stuff of past.

On a different note, I don't get people who bring back goodies from their vacation, to work. First, you get the privilege to fuck off for a while (lucky cow), then you return to rub it in everyone's face by distributing chocolate or some such to the entire fucking office because you had a gala time, while some of us were stuck in the office with people who believe are finding the cure to cancer.

That's HR's idea of no appraisal, but how about refined sugar and cocoa as vacation leftovers? You get something for being a good girl and sticking around all Summer. Did you see their pictures from Cancun? Oh, how stunning!

There's also not getting beef samosas, beef steak burger and patrani macchi, but I think a Facebook status was more than enough rant about turning my life into turd. I literally booked a return ticket to eat those things and got none of that. Instead, I drank calories in the form of a Thumps Up (which I could have done at home, thank you very much), battled body odour, and cringed at the idea of unclean bedsheets, a pet peeve I never let go since I found this friend's sibling and her boyfriend were having sex on the mattress they had lend me during a trip.

There's also my words here. I write about people and their behaviour towards me turns turd-like.

Instead of people being grateful that I'm immortalising their ridonkulously boring asses on my blog, there are those insufferable, arrogant bastards who look at me like I've infected them with AIDS. Well, if you think you're better, then make yourself better. You are literally a lot more pathetic than my words make you sound like. And, to be honest, writing about you is like doing charity. My right hand does not approve of what my left hand makes you sound like but a girl's gotta live. And write.

It's Friday and it's my writing night tonight. Time to burn bridges and turn gold into turd.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with my blog entry. I just wanted to brag that one out of my three friends think this qualifies as 'literature'.

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.