I had just sat down alone with my lunch plate. It was the last day before we broke for vacations and this was the last meal, and yet there was no one to hang out with. Obviously, everyone had things to wind up and so I was surprised to see him walk into the hall. Now that I think of it I cannot remember if I saw him walk into the hall, or did he just appear, or did I mistake the sequence of events. It’s been 24 years, how does one remember?

When he saw me sitting alone, he came to give me company. We chatted easily, playful banter, he was leaving the next day for a cross-nation bike trip with friends. I was travelling to my hometown. I knew he would be crossing my place, and that, I knew, and the whole world knew, was almost the only reason why he had signed up for the trip. A chance to visit me at home.

It had been 8 years since we broke up. A non-starter of a childhood crush which had become a lifelong truth for him, and had turned into a forgotten moment for me. By now we were adults (20!) and had worked our way to the starting line of a tremendous friendship. We chatted of this and that, and our plans for the next year – our last year together in college. While the studies and professional expectations were manageable, the question that loomed in all of our beings was – would we be able to make it in the outside world? And I knew that it would not be very difficult if he would continue to be this friend (and not the mopey rejected lover that he had been for the past few years!).

The bell rang, signalling the end of lunch. He jumped and said, Now I must go. I was surprised, I had just assumed that he had finished eating, and was just whiling away some time with me. But he had stayed with me as long as he could – until the bell rang. I have to go, haven’t had lunch yet, with a sheepish grin. Write to me! was the last thing I said.

22 days later he died in a road accident. He didn’t write to me.

24 years later I still miss the friend I could have had.

the red poinsettia leaves shine in the diwali lights that the kids had fixed in the evening. i pick from the floor,  sheets of stickers and random drawings of tiaras. cleaning is most definitely still not something i do voluntarily. my back and my abdomen hurt as if someone had extracted all the organs, stomped over them, then stuffed them right back in. maybe not in the right order either.

my heart hurts

(backdated 2017)

.. in which I wonder why I don’t read..

What books do you want to read?

If I don’t read a book, does it not count as reading?

I read a lot, now I understand that! What I read, even I do not know. There are articles on cognitive learning, the economy, recipes of pickles and desserts that I devour (the articles, not the desserts unfortunately)- there are articles about happiness that I skip.

So when a prompt wants to know what books I will read, it stops me in my tracks. Will I read the 13 books on my tsundoku list? The ones I bought with great interest but never read because my bedside lamplight is so low that even my specs do not help me read them any more!

To begin with, there’s Independence. A Chitra Bannerjee Devakurni tale that I believe promises a layered story about sisters during the partition. I love stories about sisters, and I have read a lot about the partition, and I like bengali – the language and the cuisine – so this should be. a treat when the story finally picks pace.

Another book I would like to finally read is Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat. It has everything about the science of flavour. Knowing that it has everything fills me up with so much joy that I haven’t yet found the need to open the book yet. I want to continue to anticipate the promise of treasures it holds a little longer!

The Bhagavad Gita. This I had never read. This year I began writing it out as a mindfulness practice. It’s possible I might complete this book, if none other. What a surprise!

In the Garden, Essays on Nature and Growing – now this is a book I could read. A book I could complete. A book I could re-read. It has gossip, instructions, regret, and snobbery. A perfect read for when you want to have some ‘tea’ with ‘scones’ and a smidge of cream and a side of privilege.

Hmm, I have a list now.

the privilege of dying

Somewhere a child died today:
He was malnourished.

Somewhere a mother died today:
Domestic violence in the time of lockdown

Somewhere a girl died today:
Raped on a schoolbus

Somewhere a man died today:
Took his life by jumping from a building

Somewhere
Murder suicide death by accident, the average newspaper reader struggles to understand the gravity of it all.

Privileged as we seem to be to have a roof over our heads and someone to help us in the kitchen.
Privileged to live with our family
Privileged to have an income in these days

Feeling-fatigue drives us onward with our tired journey on a merry go round of a rat race.
Nothing will change
Everything will change.

We are like that only?
And that is the beauty and tragedy of it all.

In the face of the immigrant exodus, the pandemic, the lockdown and isolation, we, the privileged middle class are overly sensitised and desensitised on a daily basis by an onslaught of media and humanitarian vigilantism.
We don’t know anymore who died, where what happened, the trains, the hospitals… it’s all a blur. All we can see as real as the bread we bake and the dalgonas we beat is that we struggle to retain a semblance of sanity. Sometimes it’s the hailstorm and the peacocks in our gardens too. But everything as we knew it has been thrown out of gear. When our own centres are destabilised, the family, the finances, the emotions, and the physical fatigue are all churning — from this terrible “manthan” we can only pray that humankind emerge kinder and stronger.

Do people die? Of being alone?

We regret to inform you of the passing of Gulab Sundari. She died of being alone.

She felt alone in the shower, in school, with kids, while cooking, while driving, while drawing, while talking, colouring, reading. She felt alone while laughing. Alone while being loved. Alone in her thoughts, alone in her memories. Always wondering if the things that happened really happened the way she remembered them. 

One day. Just one day of not being alone.

this is not me..

Do you remember crying? Processing, feeling each disappointment, breaking apart with every bit of paper that you tore up? 

Do you remember waiting? Waiting for a one? That kind of love, that exact sharing protocol, seamless, interested, communicative? Do remember the eagerness to open yourself up? The rush to share, to feel what he felt? 

Do you remember shushing yourself? Making your mind quiet? Squishing yourself into roles you never thought existed? 

Do you not see how it is time? 

Change. Be. 

Everything and everyone you can. 

it is time

I can feel something change. The axis’ of my being are shifting. 

I want to step out. Be more. Be more true to me. I have learnt, in the last decade, how to be someone else. For the ones I love, I can be something else. For me, I want to be me.

thank you thank you

I meet them at the grocery store, at the dairy shop, at the school. I meet them in car parking spots.. And I say thank you. What do they say in return? These helpers, attendants, their whole lives start from deprivation, malnutrition, neglect. They scrape together a living. Work at these stores, clubs, shops, parking lots, grocery, vegetable stores. They help me pick my bags and walk me to the car. I say thank you, and they say thank you.

I wonder at the sentiment. Do they wish, ever, that they were walking to the car, and I was carrying their bags? When they utter the words, are they in fact feeling, with all of their being, bitterness?

When they say thank you, in response to a thank you, I wonder if they know that the answer should’ve been a ‘welcome’.

I look…

I look outside the window, and all I can see is loneliness. The pine tree is alone. Out of its natural habitat, it struggles to survive here in this strange unforgiving gamut of temperature and weather changes. The palm tree is alone. The hibiscus plant is bursting at the seams, tripping over itself, trying to outdo itself with the number of flowers bursting for attention. The champa tree, in competition, has outdone itself with fragrant bunches of white and yellow blooms. The gardenia rules the fragrant world at night. With its single bloom, it fills the whole room with an ethereal fragrance. Tropical, sweet with a certain je-ne-sais-quoi. 
The gentle breeze has forsaken us, as has the electricity. Nothing stirs, no tiny little sunbird comes to my balcony. No tiny delicate butterflies fluttering here. Only a blanket of humidity envelopes every single living creature, plant, vehicle. You could swim in it. 

It’s so still you could hear the grass grow in the humidity under the warm sunlight. 

A faraway airplane roars across the silent sky. It leaves no trail. 

I must write.

It’s like a litany in the head. I must write, I must write. Everyday. At least a little. Paint my world with words and stories. Pinpoint feelings, elucidate them. Write about them to feel them. 

Write to create a world. Write to create some friends for myself. Infuse a little bit of me into an imaginary world and watch it come alive. Isn’t this the burning reason why everyone who writes writes? 

It makes my feelings come alive, my thoughts and dreams take shape. It makes the people in my head begin to live….. 

Who lives in my head?

There are dead stories that I must fish out. There are new stories that I haven’t even glanced at. There are thoughts and moments colored with memories of people and places long gone by. 

I must write, I must write..