61

Today is the 61st anniversary of my father's birth. He's missed 14 of those birthdays now. The morning has been the usual parade of phone calls and messages between me and his parents, siblings, my uncles and aunts. Almost like condolence calls; I'm sorry your son is dead, I'm sorry your father isn't here to celebrate his birthday. This depressing little ritual we follow every year, straining to keep his memory alive. 

Yet, my father is both alive and dead in the most surprising of ways. He's alive in my eyes and my brother's voice, in unexpected gestures both of us unconsciously mirror. He is alive in my love of books and the written word and in my brother's geniality and sense of humour. These are all things we couldn't have possibly inherited from him, having spent little to no time with him at all. Despite that, we find ourselves to be remarkably similar to him. 

With each passing year though, he is further and further away from us. It takes me a second to remember his voice. We don't speak about him or tell Appa stories as often any more. Rarely do we think, it would be nice if he were here to see this today. I can't always conjure up his image immediately; I have to close my eyes and take a second and even then, the face that I see is from the picture we have hanging up of him in our house. He is no longer a breathing, moving, animate force of life. He has slowly morphed into just the picture on the wall. 

Some days though, like today, I would really just love to be able to talk to him. Nothing fancy, no garish sentimental display. Just talking to him would be nice. 

Deeper Than All the Roses

I had an English teacher in high school. She was...complicated. Something about her own internal life, that I have yet to figure out despite the time and distance away from my experience of her, made her unimaginably manipulative and cruel towards almost all of us. She was also a very good English teacher, breaking down the essence of Dickens, Shakespeare and Nehru and their works. (Conflict is drama. See, I remember)

This widely reviled human being once sat me down to tell me that my whole personality at that time in my life (I was 15 and my father had very recently shuffled off this mortal coil in spectacular fashion) could be summed up by E.E Cummings.

"(I do not know what is it about you that closes

and opens; only something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

Nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands"

Me, I personally prefer the desperate romanticism of Donne (When thou sigh'st, though sigh'st not the wind) and Barrett Browning (I love thee to the level every day's most quiet need) or the maudlin stoicism of Whitman (O the bleeding drops of red).

She said it and then quickly moved on, yet another in a series of manipulations designed to keep us all paralyzed in uncertainty and fear, so I never quite understood what she meant. 

In particular, she quoted the last line of the little couplet to me: Nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands. 

In the context, I took it to mean that she thought I asked for too little from the world, that I was hesitant to claim my portion of joy from the universe. 

Older and less inclined to blame all my problems on one thorn in my side (the aforementioned evil educator), I am left to ponder this. I don't think it is that I believe I am less deserving of happiness than any other person around me. I think there are greater complexities at play here. 

I've said this before, I have been the supporting player in the story of other people's lives. My best friend (it seems odd to still call her that given that we've spoken thrice in 2013, but that is what she is to me) lived a life at an 11. Her life was always more painful, dramatic, unhappy and exciting always. Worse things than most people can imagine have happened to her. Handsome, smart men will suddenly and completely fall in love with her. Even though she hardly socializes, when she goes out, people cannot seem to get enough of her. She is thought of fondly by most. And she spent a lot of time being in an on-again-off-again epic love story with our other childhood best friend (history has revealed him to be a Grade A asshole who I will spit on if ever I have the misfortune of running into him again).

So somehow, at absolutely nobody else's urging, I slotted myself into the role of the quirky best friend. The Cristina to her Meredith, not even the main player in my own bloody life. If there is any fault to be had here, it can be laid entirely at my doorstep. But I don't think there is any blame to go around; life turns out like this all the time. Not everyone is happy and well-adjusted. 

My larger point is this: I just don't think that life works in a way where you have a certain amount of happiness allotted to you and you just have to reach out and grab it. 

Rather, it turns out, that happiness is what you make of it. Whether it is being married to Brad Pitt and winning a Nobel Prize, or it is having a child and living the same small town where you grew up, happiness is a skill. You learn how to be happy, how to allow the fall of good fortune to add another hour. 

This is the skill that still eludes me. I do not know yet how to be happy. And I 'm not certain that I will ever actually learn. After all, Life Sucks and Then You Die. That's the motto, the credo, the mantra to get through life that I have always employed. 

So, here's the thing. I look at other people's Facebook pages and their blogs. I see their photo albums and vacation messages and I think, I don't know how to do that, how to be like that. There's something wrong with me, right?

Break on Through to the Other Side

So. We're here again. The annual 'I'm growing a year older tomorrow' post. I hate this fucking day. This entire fucking week, as a matter of fact. 

I turn 29 now. I am older, sadder, fatter, uglier, unhappier, more incomplete, less content. And less young. Why do people celebrate birthdays? I mean leave aside my obvious mother and father issues, my utter hatred for my birthday; why do people celebrate growing closer to death without having achieved anything good? Why am I the anomaly for hating this day? More people should hate their birthdays with a passion. Or is bloody everyone else so well adjusted?

What's more, this has been a truly awful year. My grandfather died, I went through a serious bout of depression, my uncle died and my relationship with my best friend has deteriorated to the worst it has ever been. Another shitty, shitty year. Another year of reasons to be unhappy. 

And worst of all, I am still all alone. Two of my close friends both made giant strides in their professional lives alongside me this year. And in the same year, they also moved forward personally in significant ways. I am still here. Still the same. No forward movement. Calcifying in this unhappy place until I won't ever be able to break on through to the other side. I can hear the desperation in my mother's voice every time she calls. Literally, every time she calls. She's terrified for me.

So here's the thing, no surprises here. I hate this day. I loathe it with the passion of a thousand burning whatevers. I'm also really beginning to hate myself.

Less Like a Whole

I've been through worse. Objectively speaking, without any sentimentality or any intent to lionize the sufferings in my life, I have been through far worse.

But this pain does not seem to dissipate. Somehow, all that other sorrow cleared. This, however, clings to me and surrounds in waves of despair that come unbidden at the oddest of times. And unlike the crests and troughs of emotion that even I experience in teenage, there is no sharp high or desperate low. There is just a persistent sadness that has permeated my life.

Today is my Thatha's birthday. For the first time in my life, when I woke up on the morning of the 6th of October, my first thought wasn't "I have to wish Thatha" but "Thatha is not here anymore".

I loved my grandfather, just as surely as everyone loves their grandfather. My relationship with him was very special to me, as I am certain that everyone's relationship with their loved ones are to them. Despite all the rationalization I am capable of, I cannot seem to reason the pain of this loss away. On the 20th of this month, I will have spent an entire year without him here. That is incomprehensible to me. Even more difficult to grasp is why I am still so very sad without my Thatha. 

Grown Woman

I am an adult, and as such, I make most decisions for myself. I was under the mistaken belief that this was the case with all adults. It appears I was wrong, and how.

My biggest source of frustration at present in life is the alarming frequency with which grown men and women are unable to use their discretion, and really basic fucking common sense, to make the simplest of decisions. I understand seeking the counsel of trusted others on matters of significance or enormity. I do NOT understand requiring my input on which shoes to pack on a short trip. 

Therein lies the issue. My irritation springs not from the idea that these seemingly sentient adults would need constant direction at all, but that they all seem to be seeking it from me. 

Let me be clear. I don't care where you put the milk powder once you open a new sachet in the office. I don't know whether you should put your socks in with your new shoes in the first suitcase of the second. I don't care if you want to put almonds rather than pistachios in your breakfast oats. I just don't care. 

Maybe I'm so controlling and anal-retentive that I don't see the value in asking other people's opinions on what I think to be matters of personal preference. Or maybe the problem is that I simply don't like my time being incessantly interrupted by what i deem to be meaningless questions. 

You're an adult. Figure it the fuck out. How hard is to decide which brown dress YOU like and want to wear to a dinner which I am not even attending?And how is it that almost every single adult in my radar seems to be afflicted with this ailment?

So here's the thing. Stop. Make your own decisions. Stop asking me. Stop expecting me to care. Stop. Just bloody stop.

Book List - A List of Books

Currently Reading:                                                               Already Own and Need to start Reading:
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz               The way of The Knife - Mark Mazzetti
                                                                                               
 
















The Black Count - Tom Reiss                                                  Parrot and Olivier in America - Peter Carey
                                                                                               
                                                   

About to Own/Intend to Read This Year

Just Kids - Patti Smith

The Flamethrowers - Rachel Kushner

The Son - Phillip Meyer

The First LBJ Biography by Robert Caro

Life After Life - Kate Atkinson

Creeping Exhaustion, No Poetry

I have spent the last half hour of my life mired in the blog of a junior of mine from school. She isn't much younger than me. 3, maybe 4 years. Her blog, and her by extension her psyche (No really, I think that's accurate. Read my blog, it's a pretty fucking accurate description of my disposition. I'm a depressed, cynical, misanthropic fuck.) seem sunny, happy, searching and all in all, young. She is young. She hopes, loves, dreams and makes lists of things she wants to do. 

I was asked in a group chat of some sort about my bucket list. Here's the truth: I do not have one. No bucket list. No list of things I want to do before I die. No places to visit, languages to learn, planes to jump off of. What is wrong with me that I am a grizzled old man in the dying body of a 28 year old woman? Why am I emotionally the equivalent of Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino, pointing my shotgun at anyone who might intrude and being generally angry at the world for still being in it?

Some of this is amusing. I mean, I personally think it's hilarious that the word 'cute' doesn't exist in my vocabulary, that I don't get swept away in a sea of hormones every time a gurgling baby is presented before me, that I rarely giggle or act coy, that I am loudly forthright in my opinions of people and things I find distasteful (including once, memorably, a gentleman who used the word 'dyspeptic' in a conversation 2 minutes into meeting me, in a bid to be impressive no doubt). 

But some of it is not. Why aren't there things I am dying to do? Why is enthusiasm such a glaring gap in my resume? I can't seem to muster joy for things like taking trips, learning new things or meeting new people.

I can be happier. I think. Shouldn't I try, at the very least? Shouldn't I at least want to try?

To numb this creeping exhaustion, here is my attempt at a list of things I want to do before I turn 30 and then inevitably die in a bar fight of some sort whilst being sober as fuck. 

Go to Thailand with my mother. 

Read as many books as I can lay my hands on. 

Move to a new city. 

Kiss a stranger. 

Go on a trip with a man I have been a little bit in love with for more than a decade. 

Either make up with my best friend, or move on from her completely. Whichever I can manage more easily.

Enjoy myself, really, truly enjoy myself without any reservations at least once. Just once. 

Caution, Woman

As I write this, there are some things you should know. I did not really want to write this. The topic of women being unsafe in India has been covered ad nauseum; I am neither any more special nor any more insightful than those thousands of others writers, columnists, commentators and bloggers. And yet, I now feel compelled. I am also not a strident feminist. Which is to say, I don't see women as women and men as men; I genuinely do NOT get the difference between a man and a woman. And the last two things you should know: I have a black belt in Karate; I have since I was 15 years old. I also do not drink, never have, never will. 

I say the last two things, because I want to impress them upon you, if you are one of those addled people who believe that women should never be in places where they can't take care of themselves, and should always be in control so that they aren't raped/molested/assaulted/harassed. (I am calling you addled because a woman shouldn't have to receive elite combat training or live the social life of a nun in order not to feel threatened. That onus in not on the women, but on the world.) 

I can only speak of my experience. It is this: If you are a young girl living in a city in India, there are conversations you have with your girlfriends, sisters, female cousins, mother and aunts. The younger are always warned, as soon as they begin to develop breasts or have to start cycling to school by themselves, about how to conduct themselves in public. Keep your head down, don't look anyone in the eye, don't invite trouble. It doesn't help. I remember being around 10 years old and walking to school alone in a safe, quiet neighbourhood in Madras. A man on a bike stopped as he approached me, asked me for directions and as I kept walking, flashed me. So the lesson I had been taught was of no help. I did everything I was supposed to do and was still exposed to that. 

As we grow older, these are the conversations we have amongst out peer group. We would all exchange horror stories in college about being felt up in buses and trains. The depressing part is that when we would have this talk, we were not horrified or shocked; there was a weary nonchalance that accompanied this conversation. If you are a young girl taking public transport in a city in India, expect to be felt up. It doesn't matter if you have a black belt if you are in a crowded bus and are standing in such a way that you cannot move an inch to either side. this of course, is a pervert's paradise. By the time you have realized what has happened to you, he is long gone. 

Still older, I started to have a different conversation with the girls around me. I now tell the younger ones something radically opposite to what I was told. When in a public place, look pissed, look angry. If you look like a person who is going to create a scene and absolutely lose your temper in a public place, they may be deterred. I also insist they all learn some self defence. Every chance I get to teach a friend a couple of moves, I take it. 

This is the conversation I haven't had though: Why? Why should women have all these conversations amongst one another? Why is it that when several generations of women have been out of the house now, working, travelling, and becoming independent, the male of the species hasn't yet caught up to our reality? Why is another generation of mothers and older sisters having to sit 9 and 10 year old girls down since December 2012 to explain to them to keep their heads down, not look anyone in the eye and not invite trouble? Why is caution our only option? And why, despite our caution, do we each have such a wealth of nasty stories to share with our friends? Because here is the truth, following all that advice, learning how to defend myself and not drinking or ever losing control of myself has still not shielded me from having been molested or harassed. 

Your Voice in My Head

is the name of the book I'm reading. In the book, Emma Forrest the author, vividly recounts her battle with mental illness, her attempts to harm herself even going so far as suicide, and the therapist who, with compassion, humour and empathy, helped her find a way out. 

I dislike diagnoses of mental illness or disorders. In America, particularly, I find that almost everything is ascribed to an illness of some sort. I feel that this absolves people of accountability for their bad behaviour and their destructive tendencies. I can't help being a selfish asshole, I have Asperger's. I can't stop drinking, I am an alcoholic. I can't prevent myself from seeking attention by desperate acts, I'm bipolar. No doubt, this comes from being the daughter of someone who, quite likely, had a disease. I also don't think that discounts what I believe. 

Having laid out that extensively verbose caveat, I must confess that I am completely absorbed in Ms. Forrest's story. I am helped by her brilliant, sharp prose. She writes without vanity or pretense. There is no attempt to artificially make her illness more noble or tragic. She does not try and couch her intentions in something seemingly redemptive like love of family. Emma does not need you to like her and by extension see her struggles as part of some narrative arc where the heroine emerges victorious. The book, while engaging and absorbing, is also very difficult to get through, and yet almost impossible to set down. You find yourself uncomfortable reading about the way she tried killing herself, as if you are peeping on her in a department store changing room. At the same time, you recognize that she wants to tell her story and you want to know more, more, more. 

I like my books to challenge me, depress me, elate me and bury me in complex introspection. And 'Your Voice in My Head' has managed to do all that and more.