My Bookywooks

In recent years, increasingly, I'm never happier than when I am creating my book lists: a list of books (obviously) that I plan to acquire to add to my collection, whether it is the next day, next week, or next month. The pleasure I derive in this activity, and the somewhat pathetic ways in which I attempt to convince myself that I can afford just one more book on the list, or maybe two more, or perhaps even three more, is nothing short of amusing to friends and co-workers, all of whom have to sit through lengthy monologues on my part about why exactly I have picked each book. 

If you, my dear reader, have had a chance to peruse my blog, you will have gathered the immense love I feel for the written word. This I have to attribute to both parents. People tell me that my love of books was inherited from my father, who apart from being a vociferous reader, was also an excellent writer. However, it is my mother who cultivated my reading habit. I think the biggest reason I keep buying books at this stage in my life is because when I was younger, we were too poor to be able to do so. Let me quickly add, we weren't characters in a Dickens novel. We simply did not have the disposable income that many families do, to spend on buying books. Instead, my mother took pains to enrol us at the local neighbourhood library wherever we lived. My memories of my childhood are filled to the brim with instances of my mother walking my brother and I to the library to borrow books for the upcoming week. My mother would pick romance novels, thrillers and the occasional management tome. My brother, who my mother hoped would also become a prolific consumer of literature, would pick up as many comics as he was allowed. And I would gather all the Enid Blytons, Sweet Valley Highs and R.L Stines I could. I would also be allowed input on the comics, as I read them alongside my own books. And after about half an hour, the three of us would gather at the checkout counter while my mother rationed out how many we could afford to have each week. As we got older, we were allowed to cycle there without my mother's supervision.

During the summer, when we would spend time with our father, we were able to buy as well as borrow. My mother would allow us to borrow a larger than customary number of books in order to keep us occupied during the day. My father, on the other hand, would buy us books, and comics in the case of my brother, though not too many. Over the years, I devotedly finished reading section after section at my local library, slowing graduating to more complex fare. I was aided by a well curated school library that took pains to collect intelligent and age-appropriate books that challenged a young reader rather than pander to them or patronise them. 

Most importantly, my love of reading is also a product of the time that I grew up in. Many, if not all, of my contemporaries and peers also love to read. They continue to do so assiduously, clearly having been converted in their youth. Meanwhile, my younger cousins and co-workers, can hardly be bothered. Most of their reading is restricted to the odd Harry Potter. Most of them believe the Lord of the Rings to be simply a film series. Hardly any of them would trek to South Bombay in the midst of monsoon under the spell and promise of new arrivals at an old-school second hand bookstore. Their loss entirely, I firmly believe. 

So here's the thing, I have my next list. I am excited by it. And although I cannot acquire my books (A Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan and The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht or Bringing Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel) until August, I can spend the next 3 weeks eagerly awaiting the paycheck that I will happily spend on these.

Another Number, This Time 12

As usual, the day holds nothing but unpleasantness. I know that should read deep sorrow, but I'm not sure I can access those emotions at this particular moment in my life. Why? Because I am all alone. For the first time, in a long time, there are more people in my everyday life than there have ever been. And of course, I am all alone. Those that I would allow myself to need have deserted me. I know that's not a fair thing to say, but that's exactly what it feels like. 

I was told that my friendship is pressure. My constant being there, my insistence on helping, my undying loyalty; these are all the same things that make my friendship pressure. And I guess it's true. I value this stupid thing so very much that I expect, almost demand the same from the other person. Two separate people have told me three separate times that it's too much. Maybe I should listen? I should listen. 

Which brings me back to this blighted day, and my blighted existence. I am here. Still fucking here. Twelve long years later, still here. I am sad. And deeply guilty. And then even more guilty because I don't think I'm as sad as I should be. I should be more shattered, right? But even the little shattered I am is inconvenient for all the people that require me. These people that need me to be funny, and cheerful, and present. And interested in what they are saying, ready with a silly response. And all the other people that need me to be good at my job; to show up and be responsible and answer their many questions. And also be funny while I am at it, and laughing. The people that need me to be rock-like, to stand up to be leaned on. I have to be all this, and then disappear when they want me to, ever the supporting player in the movie of their lives. 

If he had lived. I don't know. I honestly don't know. I feel like I might disappoint him. I am not healthy, or happy, or whole. I am successful, marginally. But none of those other things. Wouldn't he think that I am lesser than I should be? Apparently, I'm not even as good a friend as I thought I was. This stellar quality I had proudly pinned to my chest turned out to be a fabrication. 

I think I may be making more of this than I should be. I know I shouldn't. So I will stop. It's just been a bad few days. One after the other. And I can see that I am making this about myself, when it should be about him. I can't even seem to get this thing right, this mourning. I should be an expert after the number 12, right?

Twice and Again

I don't understand how this is happening again. I really, really don't get how I have managed to allow myself to be in this position twice in my lifetime. I have to be done with this, I have to have the strength to be done with this.

The Opposite of Entitlement

I like to complain loudly, profanely, vociferously about entitled Americans. I do it all the time. I am the obnoxious asshole at the party that will tell everyone within earshot about my deep and abiding issues with entitled Americans, paying little heed to the fact that I might quite possibly be surrounded by Americans. (In case you're wondering, I have several, wonderful American friends and colleagues, who have all been nothing but lovely to me. Plus, Bombay is full of expats from the States, so the last scenario I described has happened to me many, many times.) Let me hasten to add, this phenomenon has very quickly seeped into Indian culture as well, especially in a day and age of 24×7 news and reality television. Everyone feels entitled to an answer, to rights, to services, to luxury, to the spotlight, to external validation, to being anointed as special. From a culture that was 'chalta hai, ho jayega' to a culture of 'I am special', the shift has been pronounced. 

A blogger I read frequently, who comments on celebrity culture, wrote in one of her columns about the movement that is visible in North America to constantly validate every single child about his or her specialness. You are special, they are all told. You deserve everything, they are told. Your hopes and dreams are the most important thing in the world, they are told. She was confounded by this constant pressure on parents, teachers, relatives, and the media to keep convincing themselves and their children of the inherent specialness of their offspring. Heaven forbid anyone tell their precious little angels that they might grow up to be ordinary, average, plumbers and electricians! Each of them is a little star! There are just so very many things wrong with this entire thought process. To begin with, if everyone is special, then logically, no one is. Second, this culture breeds the most spoiled, entitled brats who believe that every small action on their part must be met with applause and every single step they take is an achievement all in itself. Hard work, dedication and learning from failure are disincentivized. Third, and perhaps most important, what happens when the little darlings leave the nest and are thrust harshly into an unforgiving world? The parents of these children do not equip them to deal with a world where nobody gives a fuck how special mummy and daddy think you are, and the only thing that matters is results. 

One of the corollary (my Math is showing) impacts of a culture of entitlement is the demand for accountability. I work in politics and government; accountability is a big deal in the world I inhabit. I want to make that clear, just in case what I am about to say is misconstrued as callousness or an interest in protecting the elite from responsibility. The trouble is, we live in an imperfect world. There is no such thing as 100% accountability. Often, perhaps too often, no one is to blame. Bad things just happen. Sometimes, bad things happened, and no one was held accountable. And then years passed and the person responsible died. This particular situation has happened countless times in the history of the world. It used to be, that we understood that this is simply the way of the world. Awful things happen. It's always been the way of the world. In India, this attitude can in some ways been traced to the deep-seated concept of karma that is prevalent in our culture. 

Today, however, there is a hunger to demand accountability. This is mostly a good thing. Unfortunately, it frequently slips into the demand for accountability from someone, anyone, for the trouble that a person goes through. The word 'anyone' is important in that last sentence. The desire for this accountability is so rabid, the idea that one is entitled to this 'justice' is so ingrained, that simply anyone is better than no one. It's becoming hard for people, actually impossible for people to accept that sometimes, there is no one that can be led to the firing squad for the bad thing that has happened to us. 

I recently had the opportunity to read an New York Times Magazine article about the Horace Mann Prep School in New York and the decades long instances of child sexual abuse that took place there that were subsequently not investigated fully. The story is disturbing and awful. The pain that children suffered at the hands of adults who were supposed to care for them and guide them is hard to read about. But the thing that really struck me was that the author was asking for justice, for more to have been done about what happened around him. Normally, this is the type of issue I would jump on the bandwagon for. However, the instances he cited took place mostly in the 1960s and 70s. The statute of limitations has run out completely in most cases. And given that the decades he is talking about is well before there was freedom to discuss these issues, before there were protocols in institutions to figure out what to do, before there were even proper laws that addressed crimes of a sexual nature against children, what exactly would the author have wanted done? Practically and realistically speaking, there is no actual justice to be done here. Most of the accused are long dead. Most of those molested are in the 50s and 60s. The desire for justice is noble. It is also misguided. That somebody, anybody should be held accountable is not only erroneous, but also dangerous. That is not justice, it is blind revenge.

The issue I come back is that we are being taught that we are entitled to all these things, and then we feel failed when things do not magically fall into place for us. Perhaps it is the cynic and depressive in me. I was taught that you work very hard, for very little reward. I was taught that it is possible to slave for years and years, and have little to no recognition. I was taught that you do what you do not because you deserve plaudits and applause, but because you must feed and clothe yourselves and your family. And I was taught that if you are very, very lucky, the biggest reward you will receive is pride in yourself for a job well done. So, here's the thing, why aren't the children of today being taught this?

Death in Slow Motion

In the course of one of my many sleepless nights recently, I did what I usually do when I can’t sleep: I watched television shows and movies, I read (or tried to read one of my books), I snacked periodically and I read the internet on relay. I don’t quite know how to explain the last one. When I’ve not slept for days at a time, I find myself reading something, an article in the news, a piece of analysis, something that links me to something else, which then links me to something else, and so on. Before I know it, I’m somewhere, lost in the recesses of the world wide web, reading something that I would normally never have stumbled upon. In just such a way, I had the chance to read the interview of a Hollywood celebrity, an extremely well respected actor, given a few years after the death of his equally famous wife. The actor, who, it should be noted, is several years older than I am, gives a devastatingly mundane account of reaching the hospital and trying to convince busy nurses, security guards and orderlies to allow him to see his wife. He also talks about receiving the worst possible news about his wife’s condition, all the while wondering just how young the doctors were. Something in the entire account, which is incredibly raw in his grief, moved me. A tragedy like the sudden death of a person is also an incredibly quotidian one for a million reasons: everybody dies, there are tons of tiny, silly details to take care of, everybody will want your attention so they can express their sorrow over your grief to you, someone will wear something inappropriate, people who perform services at the funeral have to be paid, there will be at least a dozen relatives who will ask about the inheritance at the most inopportune moment. At the time of someone’s dying, you expect the world to stop, as if it too has been stunned. In the movies, this always happens. There is slow motion, people step back in reverence, instrumental music plays as you walk alone in your grief and heartbreak. In the real world, none of this happens. When someone dies, they just die. Everybody else is still alive.

I remember clearly being told about the deaths of all three of the people who I have lost. (Those I considered close) This is bizarre to me. I can barely remember what I ate yesterday. I often joke that I would forget my own mother’s name if it wasn’t tattooed on me. I have no memory whatsoever. And yet, these memories are clear to me. Maybe not all the details, but enough to surprise me. I was 13 when my great grandmother died. The year before, someone I had been very close to lost his father. I remember being a bystander and being deeply, deeply sad. When it happened in my home… well there was quite a bit of comedy. In the final months of her life, my great-grandmother had to be institutionalized as we at home no longer had the tools to take care of her well; she needed full time medical intervention. When my uncle walked into our home that morning he spoke in whispers to my mother. I imagine they hugged, maybe cried, I can’t remember. He then said to me in my mother tongue that she had died. In that language, the phrase for she has died is very close to she has become well. My uncle and mother then proceeded to stare at me dumbfounded as I whooped and hollered in celebration. At her funeral, which was a very Hindu affair (despite my complete and utterly irreligious nature and militant atheism, I do come from a somewhat religious background), more hijinks ensued. It might seem to the casual reader that I am being disrespectful and irreverent. That is not my intention, but the behaviour of rather a large number of my relatives was nothing short of absurd. Screaming, crying women, who barely knew my great-grandmother, flung themselves on the ground and beat their chests with ‘grief’, while the immediate family of the deceased looked on in stunned silence. My great-grandmother was in her 90s. She had lived a full life, seen all her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She was a dignified old lady, the kind of person they simply don’t make anymore. Seeing her bed-ridden in the last few months of her life, had been all the more painful, because of the majestic way she had lived her life. Her passing, though awful for us, was also comforting; because she was no longer in pain and we could remember her the way she would want to be remembered. And yet, here was this strange relative of ours screaming in ‘shock’ at the sight of her body.

I have more fascinating, thoroughly unexciting storied like that one about the funerals of my father and grandmother. Perhaps at another time, I will share them. So, here’s the thing, this lengthy blog post was about making a point: there is usually very little poetry in tragedy.

What If

What if you're just this kind of person? What if this is all you know how to be, and this is all you know how to do? What if when you wake up every morning, despite yourself, you just fall into being this person and doing this thing? And what if you don't mind at all that one day it will all end in a hail of absolute monotony and little fanfare? What if you go to sleep at night loathing the little that you are and the little that you do, wishing, almost praying, for that hail to come and whisk you away into nothingness? Most of all...

UI

Do you know why I only watch movies which I know will end happily? It's because my mood is almost immediately altered by what I see on screen. The reason behind it, according to my diagnosis at least, is investment. I feel an almost unhealthy level of investment in the lives of the people I watch in movies and TV shows. Don't ask me why the same doesn't apply to books; I simply do not know. 

When I watch a TV show, say for example Parks and Recreation (which I absolutely adore), I get very deeply invested in the idea that Leslie Knope (if you don't know who that is, you need to get on google, and then go and watch every episode of P&R available in your country. Seriously.) will succeed, and will end up happily ever after with Ben Wyatt. If Jim and Pam hadn't gotten together at the end of the 3rd season of The Office, I might have thrown something at my television. 

This unhealthy investment, or UI for short, extends even more so into the romantic lives of the characters I watch, especially on TV. After I have spent years tracking the progression of a fake relationship on TV, I am super pissed if it doesn't pay off, I feel real sorrow when TV characters don't get together. Perhaps it's the lack of any real drama in my own life (a condition I work very, very, very hard towards achieving, BTW) and the complete vacuum where a love life should be, but I feel real feelings for the fake couples on my television set.

Before you rush to the comments section to tell my how crazy I am, believe me, I know. I don't sleep. Which means countless days and nights are spent getting UIed in the lives of people invented by nerdy, bespectacled writers sitting somewhere in an office in Los Angeles or London. And since there is no great love story waiting in the wings for me, I think there is an even more pressing reason I need for these fake loves to work out, in some way, shape or form. 

So, here's the thing, the sleeplessness and emotional unhealthiness have combined to make me care more deeply in whether Meredith and Derek on Grey's Anatomy will end up together, than in the real issues of people I actually know. And I'm not quite sure how I feel about that. 

The Domino Effect

I have had a weird, and oddly uplifting week. Certain movement has been made on the professional front, that has led to some movement on a long-cherished personal plan as well. Emboldened by this, and resulting from some weird emotional domino effect, I have taken an enormous chance. This is a giant Hail Mary. It's a penalty kick in over time with the scores tied. I have taken it, and I am really rather certain of failure. However, I am pleased with the fact that I have taken the shot at all. 2012 has been uneven so far, and it seems appropriate that some success should be tempered with failure, but I am gratified by the following truth: Success or failure, both will lead to personal growth. That is nothing to scoff at.

Crashing Into Reality

All that uncharacteristic optimism I was raving about just a couple of days ago? Gone. Dead and gone. 

I mean, I don't know what else I was expecting. This is me, after all. How long could I possibly sustain a good mood? And how would it even work, when I am constantly surrounded by human beings, with their infinite capacity to irritate, disappoint and fail? In the past two days, I have gone back on a decision to tell someone how I feel about them (due, in part, to their behaviour towards me), I have become deeply annoyed with two close friends, and I have felt slighted by one of the aforementioned two in favour of someone I don't really like anymore. 

So, here's the thing about things, however high you jump, however much you soar, you will always come back down, crashing into reality. Here endeth my self-pitying rant.

All Will Be Well

I understand that title is uncharacteristically optimistic. That's how I feel this morning, uncharacteristically optimistic. It's the start of another year. 2011 was an interesting year for me. Professionally, there were numerous highs. There was a new confidence in my abilities and my chosen career path. Personally, there have been many new journeys that were undertaken. Some of those journeys are yet to be completed. 2011 was the year many of my personal relationships were reaffirmed, and I was able to find joy and completion in the love I feel for many people. And in 2011, I resolved to do a few things in 2012. That's as good or bad a year in the life of an average human can get, I'm thinking. So with that, I leave you with the words of the Gabe Dixon Band, and their song 'All Will Be Well':

All will be well, 

Even after all the promises you've broken to yourself,
All will be well.
You can ask me how but only time will tell.

The Dark Knight Rises

Despite my love for all comic books, and their onscreen adaptations, the Holy Grail, for my generation at least, is the Batman series by Christopher Nolan. I was too young to have caught the Tim Burton's seminal Batman Returns, and the following adaptations, well, sucked. (Sorry, Clooney.)

My opinion, for what it's worth is that Christopher Nolan's Batman has changed the way comic book movies are made. Their impact will be felt for decades to come, and I feel nothing but pity for the person who has to eventually 'reboot' the series at the behest of a money-hungry studio. (Given that Spiderman is being 'rebooted' a mere 4 years after Spiderman-3 as The Amazing Spiderman, we may not have to wait that long for some idiot to try) The Dark Knight is THE Batman movie, no question. 

That long prologue was a lead up to my thoughts on the trailer of the next and supposedly final instalment of the trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises, which was released yesterday. If rumours and conjecture are to be believed, then this movie is said to be loosely based on Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns. Lending credence to this theory are the bits of the trailer that suggest that this movie is set several years after The Dark Knight (a cursory internet search tells me that Nolan has said 8 years later) and Commissioner Gordon is about to retire. In the graphic novel, Batman has vanished (and presumably gone into retirement). I believe it's likely that this is true in the movie as well, that after the events at the end of The Dark Knight, a despondent Batman hung up his cape and cowl. Hence the title of the third movie. (or is the correct term threequel?)

The trailer, while not as mind-blowing as the first looks of the previous movie, have me excited all over again. I'm never as happy as when I'm looking forward to a summer blockbuster, especially when that blockbuster happens to involve a certain caped crusader. The appearance of Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle and Marion Cotillard as Talia Al Ghul (although the latter appears very briefly in the new trailer) should be enough to keep all the fanboys excited. Other high points include Michael Caine's emotional entreaty to Bruce at the beginning, the already impressive action sequences, and the reference to Commissioner Gordon as a 'war hero in peace time'.

While The Joker is the most vital of all of Batman's enemies, Heath Ledger's definitive performance and his subsequent death mean that this particular role will not be revived, at least in Nolan's Batworld.And this is the aspect that concerns me the most. The footage of Bane, played by Tom Hardy, that I have seen so far, has not managed to convince me otherwise. Whether it is unintelligible mumblings in the 6-minute prologue (that I, admittedly, saw online, even though it was meant for the IMAX) or his appearance in the trailer, so far, I'm not entirely sure how Bane will stack up against other cinematic Batman villains, most importantly, The Joker played by Ledger. 

So here's the thing, I'm super excited, but my excitement is tempered with doubt. Therefore, to get myself through the next 5-6 months, I am going to trust the genius of Christopher Nolan and his team, who have, for the most part, been on point through the course of this series.

Oh, and I CAN'T WAIT!

Number 11

59.

The Wall

I feel that I have not spoken about my love of cricket adequately on this platform. It has been lost amongst the myriad depressing posts about all the great (insert eye-roll) sorrows in life. However, i feel it is important for you, my reader, to know that I unreservedly love the game, and I have since I was a teenager. 

Perhaps another time, I will discuss why I love this game, and exactly how I love it. Today, I want to bring attention to one of the great champions of the game, Rahul Dravid, who also happens to be my all time favourite cricketer. Normally, most people reserve that special spot for Sachin Tendulkar, and rightfully so. Tendulkar's genius is the kind that is seen once in a century, perhaps just once ever. However Dravid is the consummate cricketer in my opinion. He is thoughtful, classy, seasoned, and above all, he is a gentleman. On the field and off, he has shown his complete dedication to the team. All of these great qualities were on display in Australia on 14th December 2011, when he delivered the Don Bradman Oration. 

If you have time and are so inclined, please do go through the full text of the speech here. What struck me most, and what I would like to emphasize here is his belief that the core values of the game need to be retained going forward, and that it was vital that Test cricket not relegated to the sidelines in the coming years. While I enjoy the spectacle of the T-20 format, and actually actively love the ODI form of the game, my heart belongs to Test cricket, as I suspect the exemplary Rahul Dravid's does. It is the purest form of the game, where strategy is as important as technique. The long form of the game, Dravid claims, is the 'gold standard'. I agree.

Ripped Open

I did something today. I blurted out something deeply private in a public forum, where I was surrounded by people I see, more or less, very regularly. I did it out of anger, while responding to someone's truly insufferable comments. Still, that seems like a poor excuse. Truthfully, I'm not a deeply private person, at all. At all. Many people know a lot of things about me that most would consider private. However, this felt a bit different. As soon as I opened my mouth, I regretted it deeply. I could see momentary shock, and then pity, and then discomfort in the eyes of those around me. The shock and discomfort, I'm okay with; those I have dealt with my whole life. It's the pity I can't stand. It's the pity that kills me, destroys me, finishes me. 

No point regretting a momentary lapse in judgement, I suppose. It's just that I feel deeply vulnerable now, like my flesh has been ripped open.

A Broken Heart

Note: This blog post was written on the 16th of November 2011 and published for a brief hour before I decided to take it down as it felt too raw and personal. I felt like the person who is addressed here might read this and be disdainful of how I am feeling. Upon further consideration, I think it needs to go up because censoring myself seems so antithetical to everything I believe in. And so it's going up again.I hope the 2.5 of you that read on a regular basis will understand and be kind.

There's an awfully cheesy song from the 70s. I think it's by the Beegees. It goes, 'How can you mend a broken heart?' and then on from there on to more cheese. And as much as I hate the cheese, that one phrase has been stuck in my head these past few days. 

Do I even need to explain further? Isn't is obvious then, that my heart is broken? 

I had the most excellent October. And an excellent first half of November as well. It's so unusual for me to let go and not worry about the other shoe that is about to drop, and that is exactly what I did. I let go. I had so much pure, unadulterated fun. And of course, on Monday, the 14th of November, at 1 AM, the other shoe dropped. I feel punished. I feel like I allowed myself to be too happy, and that is why the broken heart is all the more devastating. I feel like I invited the dropping shoe by being happy. Since I allowed myself to stop worrying, and become hopeful, and happy and relaxed, I let my guard down. Now I am paying the price for this stupidity. 

How is this one shitty and stupid thing that I did when I was just a child coming back to hurt me so badly and so often now? I invested myself in one bad friendship and it has not stopped hurting me ever since. And I did it to myself. As much as I would like to blame other people, I did this. I did this to myself, I allowed this to happen. I invited this trouble and heartbreak into my life.

We all grow up. None of us is, at the age of 27, the same as we were at the age of 12 or 17 or 22. Gooseberrie and I, when were rather young, had a very close friend. She liked all the same things as us. We did everything together. We all spent all our waking hours joined at the hip. And over the years, slowly but surely, it became apparent that this girl no longer enjoyed all the same things that we did. So, we grew apart, like millions of friends all over the world, all through the ages have done. There was no anger, no animosity, no acrimony, just a growing acknowledgement that this is what happens, people grow apart.

This latest growing apart, the one that has caused all the heartbreak, was not like that. I feel all those things that I didn't feel at the age of 16. I feel the anger, animosity and acrimony. I feel blinding, scalding hatred. I feel such unmitigable rage that there are days when I literally cannot breathe. In the past, when I felt like a relationship was souring or no longer worked, I tended towards cold rather than hot. I would become formal, distant, clipped. I would become cool and indifferent. This experience is wildly diverse from that one. 

Now, this person has gone and done an unforgivable thing. This person has reduced me to a stranger. And all my anger and hatred has multiplied a millionfold to become a deep and abiding sorrow that runs so deep, I cannot cry. I am unsettled all day. I feel outside myself, detached from my life. And unhappy. All day long, I feel unhappy, bereft. Something inside me is actually broken. I can feel it piercing through my skin and heart and kidneys. I can feel it tearing its way through my stomach. I can feel its sharp insistent gnawing in my lungs. I can feel it blinding my eyes.

I still can't understand what I did to deserve all this. That is the part I am having the most trouble with. So, here's the thing, there isn't really a thing here. There's just a sadness that is deep and pervasive and just will not go away.

Happy Birthday

It's that special time of the year again. I think, as per tradition, I will try and put something up the day of. In the meanwhile, I want to address a very specific quirk of mine. I've been constantly asked since the age of 17 why I don't celebrate my birthday. Before that, I knew very few people, and they had all known me since I was a child. It never occurred to anyone to question what had always been.

When I joined college was the first round of questioning. When you attend college with 3000 screaming, tittering, butterfly-loving, pink-wearing teenage girls, it's hard enough to explain to them why you swear profusely or talk like a man. If you add in weird birthday issues, you have a bunch of young women all staring back at you with the accompanying soundtrack of crickets, when all they asked you was a simple question, "So what shall we do for your birthday?"

Let's start at the very beginning, I've heard it's a very good place to start. (Shame on you if you don't recognize that allusion) The beginning in this case is my family. My family as in my mother, my brother and I. We were never the happy birthday-rah-rah-rah family. Till date, none of us has a very big hoopla on our birthdays. We don't really even do presents. This is just horrifying to most of the social circle we travel in now, all of whom are middle to upper middle class to outright rich. I mean we acknowledge each other's birthdays. We've had a few stray celebrations here and there, but much like family vacations, this one tradition has simply never been a part of our family's DNA.

I think the biggest contributing factor was the very specific situation my family found itself in. We were poor, and were traumatized almost on a daily basis, both physically and emotionally. So for the formative years in our childhood, there was no question of celebrating or enjoying something. We tried to live life as quietly and unobtrusively as possible so that no one could possibly get upset or angry with us. Like I said, my mother, as and when she could, would really try hard to give us a 'normal' birthday experience, but these were few and far between, and often ended in disaster. During the early years, we did try and do presents. My mother would always try and get us clothes for birthdays, something that continued till we finished school. Our financial situation meant that she couldn't always afford to buy us nice things, but twice a year, on each of our birthdays, we would both get the nicest clothes she could buy us. Really, she took so much care and effort on this particular issue. 

Other than the clothes, we would try and do dinner, in as nice a place as we could afford at that particular time. At certain times, when there was decent income, it would be a nice 3 star restaurant and at others, when there was just very little, it would be one of the many small roadside diners that litter Madras. The clothes and dinner tradition continued till we could manage and till we all lived in the same city.

As a result of this, my brother and I never grew up with the idea that birthdays were special, that for some reason everybody should put on a party hat and parade around singing odes to the birthday boy/girl. We don't think that cake and soda and chips and samosas are essential to the birthday experience. We simply acknowledge wishes. As we are now respectable (HAH!) and contributing adults in society, we might indulge in a slightly expensive item of clothing or electronics. Beyond that, we don't really do the extravaganza. The same goes for my mother, who does manage to be a bit more festive than her two children, but not much more.

And then there is the fact that I hate my birthday. I loathe it with a vengeance. I have spent many a birthday curled up in bed, weeping. And I don’t even cry at funerals. This particular fact is hard for people to fully comprehend.

The hardest time is had by the friends I have made in the past 5-6 years. I have some friends now, that I see almost every day, that JUST DO NOT GET IT. I have no way to explain this to anyone without revealing deeply personal details of my history. I don't like my birthday. I don't like being wished. I don't like celebrating it. I don't like people remembering it. I don't like people singing to me. I don't like being reminded of my age. I don't like being berated because people believe that they have some special rights to pretend that their happiness for me should be the same as my own happiness on the day. I. DON"T. LIKE. IT. I don't want it. It's a personal choice, one I wish people would just respect rather than question incessantly. My birthday is not meant for your pleasure, it's meant for mine. And as I can not experience pleasure on my birthday, my solution is to hide from the world and pretend it's not happening. 

 

So, here's the thing, could you maybe, just not ask questions and leave me alone? It's what I wished for. 

An Oft-repeated Song

If you are even a casual peruser of my blog, then you know how often my best friend is mentioned. This blog is practically a love letter to her. And I'm sure that this must all seem weird/borderline creepy to you. Why on earth would a straight woman in her late (ugh!) twenties have such a seeming fixation on her best girlfriend from childhood? I'm not sure I have an answer for you that will assuage all your discomfort. At best, I can point you towards Grey's Anatomy, as I'm sure I've done elsewhere on this blog. Exhibit A, Meredith and Christina, which leads us directly to Exhibit B, Gooseberrie and Chelsea Dagger.Yes, my relationship with her is odd and dysfunctional, as has been noted often and at length by our other friends. I think the reason I value this relationship so much is that it is, apart from my relationship with my mother, the most fulfilling and complete one in my life. If that's a sad comment on my life, well then so be it. 

What inspired this next stanza in my titular oft-repeated song about our friendship is the recently released excerpt of Mindy Kaling's new book. In one of the many mini-chapters, she writes about best friend responsibilities, including being gentle about how a person looks in an outfit, putting up with their sad break up stories for the millionth time and raising their kid if they die. You can read the excerpt of the book, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me, here. First, a quick note on my girl crush on Mindy Kaling. She's awesome, and being a fellow brown girl who writes, I love, I love, I love! Second, her hilarious note on all the things that come with being a best friend really cracked me up, and also set me thinking about what I do/will do for my best friend. So here goes:

1. I will, on all occasions, tell you the absolute truth. Even if that truth is that you look fat, ugly, and you will likely die alone, I will say it out loud. I might couch it in niceness and compare you with Natalie Portman (only she will get this joke) while I am doing it, but it shall be done, eventually.

2. I will share in your morbid sense of humour. Yes, I know you think the absolute worst thing is always about to happen, and oftentimes find it funny, but here's the lucky thing, I feel the EXACT same way! Isn't it hilarious that we're both overweight, broke and single, while our asshole ex-best friend is swanning around America with his many millions?? (falls off the chair laughing)

3. I am ALWAYS on your side. It doesn't matter what happened/will happen. It does not matter that you accidentally killed that guy who didn't pay you on time, or ran over that chick who married that guy you liked for 15 minutes that one summer, I am on your side. I will show up, help you bury the body, and hide you in my basement when the cops come looking. In the less extreme case, I will throw down with the ugly bitch that hurt your feelings over something perfectly trivial like a silly boy. Even if you are wrong, I am on your side. 

4. Since I hate children, I may not raise yours as my own when you are dead, but I promise I will pay for them to be raised as someone else's own. 

5. I will never steal a guy away from you. How many guys have we both been interested in? 1 or 2 thousand. Ah well, never you mind, I will never go for a guy that you are into or dating. There are 3 billion men in the world, but only one you. And I mean that in a not-gay way. 

All these things I will do for my friend is what I expect and believe she will do for me. Which brings me back to my original point, that this is amongst the most fulfilling and complete relationships in my world. I trust her, implicitly, and the number of people I trust can be counted on one hand. Thus the love letter. And while I have stressed the not-gay aspect of this relationship repeatedly, it's likely that when gay marriage is finally legal in India, we will probably end up pulling the metaphorical trigger with each other, mostly because no one else will have us.

At the Bottom of the Bottom

Last week, I hit rock bottom. It was the culmination of months of physical, intellectual and emotional exhaustion. Everything that could go wrong in my life did, and how. Even after a weekend of complete rest and no human contact, I still feel perilously close to a total meltdown. Like maybe just one more stressful event will lead to me being handcuffed and led away in full public view to the loony bin. Even my upcoming holiday has become a source of worry and tension. No matter. This too shall pass.

I Can't Explain This

I'm suffering from the weirdest kind of writer's block. I can't write one paper, just that one. Otherwise, the writing seems to be working perfectly fine. I'm churning out article after article, page after page on demand on topics as wide-ranging as you can imagine. Hell, I'm even helping several others do their writing.

And yet, this one paper, only meant to be a few pages long (maybe 10) is the bane of me. I have notes, links, research, and quotes all lined up to go, but every time I open the document, nothing comes out. This paper could be the most important thing I've ever written in my life, it's what you call a big fucking deal. And still, nothing. Zip. Nada.

By Nature

In a discussion with some people a couple of days ago, I tried to explain that if the situation called for it, I would find it in myself to be part of an open relationship/marriage. The concept was, unsurprisingly, unpopular, especially amongst the married/committed members of the discussion. They repeatedly attempted to tell me that I would feel differently if I had ever been in or was currently in a serious relationship.

Let me start with the fact that I strongly loathe people telling me how I would feel. I am an expert on me, I have a PhD/black belt in Me. I do not like to be told by people who have known me for mere minutes how exactly I would feel in a hypothetical situation.

The larger point here, though, is that I tried (and I think failed) to explain that I do not 'do' jealousy. By nature, I am not a very jealous person. A significant chunk of this, I can attribute to the hippie-dippy, granola crunching school I went to. The school put little stock in things like ranks, marks, grades and exams. Logically extending that myself, as a preternaturally mature child, I extrapolated the general sentiment into most parts of my life. I believed, from a young age, that it made little sense to compare myself with others. What did it matter that the person sitting next to me got 95% on a math test? It only matters to me what I got.

This philosophy is by now so ingrained in me that I can't ever be motivated by comparison. The same philosophy also leads me to be uncaring of people who I like, also like others. When I was in school, I was part of a small group of 3 friends. It was two girls and one boy. My two best friends spent much of middle school, high school and college being on and off in love with each other. While in middle school, I too (foolishly, now that I have an accurate measure of what a truly spectacular asshole this person really is) had an enormous crush on the guy. And even then, it didn't matter to me that he liked my best friend, it only mattered that he didn't like me that way. Does that make sense?

I have entirely stopped questioning why people don't like me, or love me, or find me attractive and so on. It matters so very little that they do feel all of those things for someone else. How can I possibly control what someone else inspires? Logically, therefore, I can not possibly be disheartened by that same person's attributes, right?

I can hear the chorus of 'wiser' emotional beings yelling at me about logic having little to do with feeling. To that, I counter with this: Logic has led me to temper emotion to suit practicality. I have spent a quarter century in the pursuit of practicality, of the matter at hand. Given this, am I not then the perfect person to figure out how best to root out a useless emotion like jealousy...in me? Jealousy has no practical purpose. It will not solve the problem, only cause more.

So here's the thing. Instead of telling me how all this will change once I truly grow up (or whatever the fuck it is that these people think when they deign to lecture me about anything and everything), why not accept that this is what it is? Jealousy is not really a factor in my life, it has never been until this point, and given my nature, it is unlikely to be in the coming years.