Prose before hos

Choreomania

I've been doing a lot of extremely interesting writing exercises—some as a personal challenge and some as external challenges. One of those turned into a writing assignment for my future self but in a way that I've never heard/done before (no details cause you're not a paid subscriber). Having just finished hammering those words out, I felt a deep wave of emotions run past cause god fucking knows how this exercise is helpful in unlocking core memories.

This time I found myself as an 11-year-old, sitting in the dance room of my school. Think of this space as a large empty room with rows of red plastic chairs stacked on top of each other. The front entrance of the room had a blackboard, with a wall clock (something that other rooms lacked), a crucified Jesus photograph, a cross mounted on the wall, and a speaker that I'd never seen work.

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.

I find myself in this room, sitting cross-legged on the floor, waiting for the class to get over. We're not dancing or rehearsing an old routine, we are simply sitting and wasting time. It's this time of the year, some 20 years ago, when we had 4 fans to a class of 50 girls and all of us are drenched in sweat, smelling like fish gone bad. I'm staring at the wall clock to hit 1:25 pm so we are allowed to leave this space and leap towards our building in the other part of the campus, so we can pack our bags and hit the road by 1:35. It's not a lot of time, just 15 minutes to go. In those 15, my mind watches the second hand of the clock take the slowest turns around the circumference of the wall clock. I wonder if I'll ever grow up and get out of this school, this town and shed this skin to have a new life. I wonder if I'll ever be happier than I am right now and I wonder if I'll have any of these existing people around me accompany me on my journey later.

One of the few who found herself in this journey with me told me recently, how grateful she was for me to snap to my reality at present where she is not watching me burn my whole life down. In essence, I want her to continue on this journey with me but she's planning to leave the country and escape town. Exactly like I was at that moment, staring at the wall clock while sitting cross-legged in that dance room. Mentally, I'm that girl in the dance room, where I haven't been able to escape the drudgery and continue living through every second, every minute and every hour of the wall clock hanging in a room where I don't want to be.

I wish I could go and hug that girl and tell her we'll be okay, no matter what. That, if we can't leave the room on time, we'll still hit the road and we'll still have a place to go to and call it home. A warm embrace, a car air conditioner and a bottle of chilled water will always be around the corner, whether in that moment in the dance room when she's parched and out of drinking water or 45 minutes later.

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, by Snobster

In anxiety, dating

Halt activated

In the past fortnight, I physically travelled over a thousand kilometers and mentally over 10,000. One (of the many) impressionable thoughts I encountered was all around the marker of growing up. How do you know you're a grown-up or when do you decide you're an authority on something?

My friend Srijan believes that unless you have mastered an idea or object for 10 years, you cannot designate that role for yourself. Does that mean we are qualified enough to take our lives in our control at 28? A full decade after turning 18 makes a lot of sense but then again, at 31 that idea seems slightly silly because anyone under the age of 30 is unserious and frankly, too young.

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.

The conversation around my haircut is a long and tiring one. It shouldn't be but somehow it is. We attribute such power to the definition of limited and finite things and ideas that we uproot our entire lives. I used to think I could do it in silos and make it all a grandparent of my idiocy, of never growing up. But turns out, we are entirely capable of doing it in tandem with others too.

In the last fortnight, I came across HALT, an abbreviation to pinpoint the reason for all our sorrows, which expands to Hungry, Angry, Lonely and Tired. Truth be told, I've found myself operating out of these four conditions for far too long to get hot and bothered by it, and yet never complain. Ever since I realized my conditions have a word, I have started to lose my mind and cool a lot more than usual. Again, in silos.

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.

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, by Snobster

In anxiety, baby we both know

Cherry lips, crystal skies

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, by Snobster

In anxiety, break up

Screaming, crying, throwing-up

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.

One of the (many) great things I'm being offered by the guy I am seeing at the moment includes communication and clarity, and man, that shit is hot. Like, if done right it's so hot and I can't say it's not been done right. He's got equal part rizz and equal part brain (these days it's a lot of ass but I guess we can't have it all). We're at a bit of a cross-road in life and my impulses are all on the edge, wildly triggered by a lot of overthinking and (over) jumping to conclusions.

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.

If I have a full-blown mental breakdown, I wonder if I will look hotter than now or what?

I am so sure I can blame my new haircut for this shitshow situation but I can also blame nazar by other people and I can also say that my ex did some crazy voodoo or how my luck is catching up with me or maybe, just maybe, everything won't be so wrong and this person wouldn't dump me at an Italian restaurant between main and desserts (but he might do the same elsewhere?).

I'm going to breathe deeply and think of puppies.

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.

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, by Snobster

In anniversary, snobster

Like Pepsi-Cola

You learn a great deal from your friends. Including things about yourself that you thought you had figured out all by yourself. Agreed, some of it is a terrible balm of calmness in the face of adversity ("They can fuck themselves, you're fucking great!") but most of it is an eye-opening realisation into what you are seeking (as validation), and what you are evading (as awareness).

I've negotiated a lot of relationships in the last few years.

I would have written "the last couple of years" but I was made to realise, recently, "couple" means "two" and thus, I can't loosely use the term "a couple of..." in context to time unless I mean it as a synonym for two. It was a friendly realisation, one I can't shake off despite not believing in it fully.

Right, where was I? Relationships.

I was going through my backed-up photos recently and taking my date through them. We're in that part of courtship where you can somehow trust them with your ugliest self with braces as an adult but don't fully trust them when they tell you to use their OTT subscriptions that they're willingly ready to share with you. Sifting through thousands of files, between years interspersed as folders, I found so many dead relationships with people who once meant the world to me. There are people who were a big part of my life (who I have written a great deal about here), then there are those who made fleeting appearances at events or those you've known through friends of friends, or friends of siblings, friends of cousins, etc. Basically, people who've been at all your birthday parties the last ~~couple of~~ few years and then those who made a fleeting appearance in your life.

I have three graveyards full of these people on my phone memory. More, somehow, appeared when I logged in to Facebook after a long hiatus to go through photographs and accept the date's friend request (ngl, that felt pop af in 2023).

In seeing these faces, who once felt like a great deal to my life and meant a lot to me, I fully gathered something that Sinner told me last week—how she's grateful to see me make choices that I'd never ordinarily make and give people a chance I wouldn't ordinarily do. I am nothing like the person I was six months ago. While growth and moving forward is the way to life, she complimented me on picking paths and people who were nothing like my comfort zone.

Maybe this is why those who had to stay in the past, are languishing there and those who could stick around to see me make different choices and not repeat the same mistakes of my path, bought a ticket for life.

In these 16 remarkable years of writing on this page, I am nothing like the person I once was. Heck, I'm not even the person I was six months ago. There is no greater meaning to life or my methods to madness. All I know is that you strive to move and strive to grow and keep rolling down and up depending on the motion you're feeling comfortable with at the moment.

Sometimes it pays off and you find yourself an audience that is willing to watch you move at 10 Kmph and they cheer you to push it to the fourth gear, step by step. There are others who are here to watch you burn your car after falling off the cliff. Only, they lose interest in your transitions and servicing mode when you're trying to be on the road to recovery. You'll find yourself in their block lists and out of their lives when you discover they've virtually cut you off, a signal that you're no longer entertaining them in the way they seek. That's okay. You'll find other viewers and other takers as you go along.

To be honest, all of last month, I struggled with the idea of keeping this page live. A tart feedback email and another feedback sent me off into a spiral of overthinking. I questioned everything I did in the last two decades, including getting to a path of monetising my writing in a way it paid me to build a new life and another one from scratch. Was it all a waste or a farce? Perhaps it was, but again, I tell myself not everyone is interested in a ticket to my life show and even if the theatre is running empty, we've seen Housefull days and people fight for tickets. It's a matter of putting on a show for the world.

I've been writing longer than I've known some of my closest friends in the world. It's tiring to be vulnerable and despised at once. It's exhausting to continuously fight through the world. I've had a lot of those lately, personally and professionally. It's okay, I guess. It's all a part of the process. The process is where I find those who will stick with me for as long as I am around. Like this page, that has seen the weather change, friends come and go, institutions offering me a seat and letting me go, dates that featured here, those who became reluctant lovers, and life that passed by me from my teens through twenties to now my thirties. It's seen things and perhaps you will too.

Strap on that belt; we're about to rock 'n' roll.

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, by Snobster

In Dating in Delhi, delhi

Big City Tings

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

Gurgaon is culturally vacuous; what it lacks in the structural integrity to hold for art and culture, it makes up in its sub-par experience of shuttling between an urban town and a decaying village all at once. My favourite part about the city is trying to hail an auto and getting a reality check—I wouldn't last a day here on my own, unlike Delhi or Pune, or Mumbai. It's a bit like Karnataka that way, you're on your own kid, as Taylor Swift sings.

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.

The water is a-okay and KFC can do with some improvement in popcorn chicken. The theatre needs a crowd (I miss the one near university where everyone's saving pennies cause they're out from the auditorium at the university to catch a breather in the nearby mall; nobody saves pennies in Gurgaon). I mean, I feel poorer than ever in this city; culturally and socially as well as lacking financially to ever be able to be where everyone is. A colleague who bought an iPhone and a pair on sneakers on a whim can do so despite living out of Gurgaon rental is an aspiration, the kind that I don't want but I am compelled because wow, I buy some fancy groceries and two takeaways a month and I'm broke.

In a scathing response to something I wrote recently, I was told that I need to stop wallowing in self-pity and try some other writing style. Truth be told, there will always be some sense of frenetic, anxious and tiring energy in my words. Maybe, because I'm trying to bring alive the 13-year-old me who's absolutely clueless about what's happening when things are just happening around her—someone on the death bed, someone crying, someone wondering how many breaths are there in a lifeless body laying in the bedroom—and then there's 31 year old me, wondering if chasing calmness meant taking a quick shower after a late morning workout in a twelfth-floor apartment and feeling a fresh hit of serotonin when the shower gel leaves a subtle fragrance behind. In both cases, there is sensory overload but none has any self-pity.

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.