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I sometimes wonder do I really want what I want or am I riddled by insecurities from the past that push me down this path. Do I really want to pursue this career or is it my way of redeeming myself, proving to myself that I am smart enough so that i am not trapped in a life where I can't grow. Why is it that I can't appreciate my life outside these experiences? Outside work? This is it, isn't it? I feel trapped in cell which is the creation of my own mind. Why can't I value my experiences outside work. I feel like a failure on all fronts on some day. As an employee, as a friend, as girlfriend and as a daughter.

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Yesterday I broke you. The same way someone broke me years ago. Have I turned into my own monster?

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I love our little romance. The one found in me holding your waist as we zoom around in a scooty, or between sips coffee at Starbucks. I especially love the shady corners of forts built by rulers long gone leaving behind an estate for lovers to express their love. The walls are filled with their names as they profess their love to each other. We may not have a wall in Delhi with our name on it, but I would love to share a wall with you. Fill it with pictures of us in our little love. I think of all the days we spent basking the sun as you held my hand and kissed my cheek. From days where you could barely meet my eyes to days where I can't stop looking at you. It may take years before I believe that I get to actually have you. Take in the entirety of the fact that this beautiful person wants to be with me. That he actually wants to hear me cry as I am sad but more importantly is there even when he doesn't because he cares about me. I have so much in my life that came with when you came in my life. You know that line you always say, zindagi lambi nahi badi honi chahiye? You make my life big. You make it whole. Our little romance fills my life.

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I saw my dads heart break today. Not sure who broke it but I know what broke it. My brother received a call from his best friend. His mother has a saturation level of 60. Covid? The answer was obvious but who was testing anymore? They have run out of tests. His dad called my dad crying for a bed, if he possibly knew anyone with a bed. My parents do not run a covid hospital. They do not have facilities for that. They are barely able to keep up with the patients they have. 15-20 cylinders of oxygen running out every 12 hours. All my parents did all day is apologize to people how their own hands are tied. How they want to help but can’t, how they can barely provide oxygen to the patients they have. If they ever had a moment to breathe, they’d be calling the oxygen plants, begging them to send any oxygen possible. My nana is on his death bed. He is 91, and his liver and kidney have stopped working. He is at a stage where he doesn’t eat or recognize anyone or anything around him. He is fragile. We don’t want to hook him up to dialysis machines in his final days. Prolonging his life, not for him but for us as he goes through that pain. I see my mother in tears and my dad wanting to go see Nana but unable to. Amidst all this, they somehow gather up the courage to go to work, only to apologize to everyone they can’t help. My brother’s best friend’s mother finally got some oxygen as the government hospital.  My dad had called them and offered them to come over. He didn’t know what they could do. But they wanted to do anything they could in a time where there are no beds and no oxygen. Fifteen minutes later at the government hospital they were kicked out. That is all they had. Fifteen minutes of oxygen.  My dad  was doing a regular round when his staff told him there is a kid asking for him in the lobby. The 15 year old kid stood crying with him mother. They hooked her up to the oxygen and she responded to it within minutes. My dad asked him, where is your father. He pointed to the car. His father had covid and a temperature of 105. He was at the brink of collapsing. He had somehow just driven to the hospital. 15 minutes late and who knows. He had forgotten to take his own meds, spending all day running around just to get a bed. They rushed him in and gave him the medicines required and started a drip. As that 15 yr old child stood alone, barely understanding what is happening around him. He hadn’t called any other family member. He didn’t know. And now my father has a broken heart. Both my parents do. My cousin who attends to covid patients and separated from his fiancé who has covid does. Or my taiji who goes on 12 hour duties everyday and comes back to cater to my cousin and tauji who have covid. My dada who lives isolated so that he doesn’t catch covid and all my other family members who are scared for their life everyday as they go to the hospital. That is what it means to come from a family of doctors I guess.

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Hi Dadi, Its been a year, a year and 4 days since I saw you. You’d asked that day as I left, that I should have stayed longer and I said agli baar. And agli baar never came. You are part of so many of my childhood memories. Always there. Without me even realising. But I now realise that those stories will never be heard again. All the games, all the fun bachpan ke stories and all the meethe cheele. That’s a part of my childhood. You playing Spider. It looked like such a hard game. I still can’t play the level you used to. And your haryanwi folklores. I hope wherever you are. You are happy. I imagine you as being reborn as a cool chic. The coolest and so happy and one with a big heart. Love you. With a cheek kiss. One you always gave. Astha

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Hi Ik, It has been a few years now since we haven’t spoken. But I do still think about sharing my life experience with you time to time. When I say you, I mean an idea of you that exists in my head. I know you don’t care too much about my existence and I understand what that is exactly. How that feels like, moving forward. I tried contacting you but neither do you wish to nor do you care. It has been too long I suppose. I guess I was always terrible at “closure”. And that it is my flaw but I don’t want to go through life and think about this anymore. I need that closure and I don’t know exactly how to get there. That final acceptance of it doesn’t matter. It is childish in a way I suppose, but I do want to get it out of my head. I was wrong, and I fucked up. I think the fact that I was never able to tell you that, even though I realize it now is what bugs me. But I have to accept it and move forward. So I hope to write this letter and hope that I will move forward and not think about such things, eventually. That I will find a little peace in the fact that I am a better person now and that is all I could do. I wronged you and well, I move forward, accepting that.

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Last time I felt this way, I had purpose. I knew eventually this would end. My misery. I would get out and get to be who I am. I see no end to my misery now.

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Will anyone notice if I die in this moment?

I know they’ll notice. They’ll think, wee should have responded to that text message, taken that call, visited. But would it matter. Because I am right her right now and nobody notices that. Nobody notices that I can’t even gather up the energy to walk out of the room because I can’t find a reason to get out of bed. What is the point of anything, when you can’t even see yourself being happy. I can’t see myself being happy as I waive my hands into the air trying to catch something. 

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And yet another skeleton to add to my closet of what ifs.

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I think the sticky notes with poetry on our wall describe our relationship best. Sharing four rooms and endless bottles of cheap wine while dancing under cringy fairy lights has been perfect. For four years we tried to decorate our room, failing miserably with pink strip club lights to dream catchers that didn’t seem to work. But that didn’t matter, did it, as long as you were there. But now we must pass those walls covered with glow in the dark stars to the next resident. 

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Every time someone important dies of suicide it sparks a debate on mental health. But do all those who post “you can talk to me” or “message me whenever you want to” really understand it? Is it as easy as that? Communicating with someone who has mental health issues and helping them is not easy. To reach out to them, to be patient with them requires knowledge. I feel a lot of these people have good intentions and hence need to be educated. 

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Sometimes I sit and think about what our long distance relationship would be like. And I know we don’t discuss it too much because the idea is painful but it is likely to be real very soon. This letter might probably be things you don’t want to hear, hence, feel free to stop reading whenever, I’d understand.

So here is what I imagine it to be. I imagine us sitting in your car, outside the airport, stealing the last few moments before I have to go. You hug me, and our eyes tell each other how much we don’t want to leave as our lips bid farewell, until next time. I imagine how it’d probably feel like when I do get off the flight, and my eyes searching for you just as I get outside. How I’d want to run to you, but my clumsy self will barely be able to push the luggage cart and the suitcase will fall. I imagine us running away on little trips, where I end up packing too much and you’d be judging me. I imagine you being the idiot you are not getting a haircut cause you know I like long hair. I imagine hours of just lying in each others arms without speaking absorbing every drop of how we feel.

I imagine introducing you to people at my company, maybe a few friends, maybe at some get together, and you smoking up with them while I just look at you and laugh, how you’re better with them in one night that I have been in three months. I imagine meeting your friends and them being all formal, cause somewhere I know, they don’t know how to talk to girl. I think of making fun of that one girl who flirts at the office with you, and feeling just a tad bit jealous how she gets to see your beautiful face five times a week. But then I’d look at you and none of it would matter. I think how I’ll trick you into cooking for me when you visit me, I think of all the places I’ll take you. To be honest, I know that whenever I will be out there exploring the city, I’ll be making a mental list of “Places to walk”. And for the brief moment that you visit, I know my mornings will be filled with kisses that taste like tea.

I imagine a lot of day dreaming and wishful thinking. I will miss all the times you just glance at me, when you’re trying to ask me if I’m doing okay, and you nod your head at me. Like you’re saying its okay, it’s safe, I can tell you whatever it is. And how that look just breaks all walls inside me that I had built, to lie to myself, to make myself live in denial. So I imagine there will be a lot of moments when you’ll look at me like that, where I will look down, so you’ll hold my face and look into my eyes.

So this is basically part one of what I imagine. Sorry, this letter is a little too long. Unfortunately for you, I watched a romantic movie. Part two is how I imagine what it’d be like if we do end up on different paths. I am an idiot, hence I imagine all the ways I’ll bump into you.

I think of how maybe it’ll just happen that I move to the city you live in. Maybe I will message you and we meet up. Maybe I don’t so I am in a restaurant or a club and I see. I imagine sending you a drink just for fun. and to let your friends believe a random chick across the bar is hitting on you. I imagine coming up to you and introducing myself just for fun and flirting with you. Hopefully we’ll be better at it by then. I imagine asking you to lunch. Going to a cafe, sitting outside and taking a walk. Then maybe we stop for ice cream or pack desserts, like we do now and sit on some curb. In my head, it’s by the bay. I imagine teasing you and laughing with you in that moment as if no time has passed. I imagine randomly poking and tickling you and you grabbing my hand. I imagine how maybe in that one second we’d look at each other and reconnect. And I hope that we take the same leap we took years ago.

So I spend my mornings imagining all the alternative paths that lead me to you. I think that’s my flaw, I can never imagine the worst of scenarios. I’d deal with them when it comes to it. Like what’d happen if my parents found out xyz thing or entered the room or blah blah blah. I am bad at that as you may have noticed. Maybe that’s the only way an over-thinker such as me is able to cope with reality. Who knows?

I’m sorry if you were expecting a love letter. This is far from it, but do know, even though this isn’t a love letter it comes from a place of love in my heart. So bella caio.

Love, Bakayaro.

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gravity is matters response to loneliness.

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On a cold day, sitting in the corner seat of a warm cafe, sharing a cup of hot chocolate. Maybe that’s the dream. To look at him and smile. To look at him laugh at the chocolate on your teeth. To burn your tongue with the cheese. To look  and tease each other as you decide who will ask for a refill. To hear him make snarky comments about how you’d refused to sit behind him on that old skooty, but had later requested him to drive it around as you felt the wind in your hair. To giggle about the kiss against the wall that you’d shared just a couple of hours earlier. To feel his hand on yours. To feel his warmth around you. To feel his eyes on you. To feel his eyes on you as you completely fail to bargain for the flowers you bought him. Because you two are chameli ki phool in a world full of roses.

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Silent Tears.

I think of the tough days I’ve had in a while. Days I just wanted to lie down and curl up. How on some of those days I just kept my head in your lap and how even though that didn’t take the pain away, it gave me a little bit of strength. I think of all the times I cried in front of you, all the times I was vulnerable and I didn’t want you or anyone to see me. Because for the longest time I have learnt how to cry silently. In my own space and not share that with anyone. To feel overwhelmed with everything inside me. So I’d lock myself up in a bathroom, or go to the balcony as silent tears would run down my face, with no one watching. Ten minutes later I’d come sit down next to people as if nothing happened. Sometimes people noticed the redness of my face, or how my voice cracked, so I’d lie. And over three years, I became better at lying and hiding it. Because in those moments you feel like people don’t understand, even if they do, even if they want to help you, all you do is shove them away. Even though I have learnt not to do that anymore, its hard to change old habits and easy to fall back in old patterns. So every time you hold my face, and you look at me, as tears falls down my cheeks, I feel a little better about sharing. I feel a little closer to you. And even though, it doesn’t take the pain away, it gives me a little bit of strength to fight.

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Where to put all the hugs and kisses.

I have all this love in my heart and I don’t know where to place it. I think of you every single day. I imagine you sitting outside, soaking the sun, laughing and making some silly joke. I imagine going to your home and you asking about my boyfriends and how I should totally get married. I think about how dada and you would squabble when you said this. How he’d say “meri beti ko tang mat karo”. I think of all the times you taught me Hindi, and in the entire process you’d tell stories from your childhood, I think about how I’d never get to hear all those stories ever again. All your silly childhood games. How awesome joint families are. You were always so happy. You always loved us so much.  You let us be who we wanted to be. And that is the truest form of love. I remember sitting next to you, playing cards, and how you’d cheat like a child. I remember all the times I’d be losing and you’d let me win. I remember all the silly games you taught me, how you taught me to make roti’s how you’d make your own colour on Holi. I remember how every call ended with an I love you and how every meet ended with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. I remember. And I don’t know what to do with all those hugs and kisses anymore. I miss you every single day. 

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As I stood at the beginning of the end, I found you. Is this life giving me a happy ending to a bittersweet journey or is it my new beginning? I can’t say anything for sure right now except that you make my days more beautiful.  I can’t tell you how many times when we’re having a conversation, I imagine it’s going to end a certain way, a certain terrible way because I don’t know better, because I don’t think in any scenario it could have been better. But then you say the most amazing things, and it’s not joy I feel in those moments. Its relief. Its safety. I feel safe with you.

I swear, even though we’ve been dating for a month and half, I still get a little bit breathless every time you come close, I still shiver a little, I still feel butterflies fluttering in my stomach. My eyes randomly seek you. I think I forcibly take the route that goes through Nescafe now, just to catch a glimpse of you, even though my introverted ass will barely be able to make conversation with you in front of your friends. I really don’t want to outright disturb you because I know you’re busy, so sometimes I scroll through my Instagram feed, hoping to find a post you’d like, so that when you’re free, you can text me. I love how naturally holding your hand comes, how naturally pulling you towards me is, and yet the moment you are close, my heart skips a beat. I love looking at how you look at me when I talk, how your eyes travel across my face taking everything in, settling on my lips more often than not. 

You make me feel all these emotions in capacities I didn’t know I could. In capacities I can barely process them in. So much so that I randomly sometimes play all those moments when I met you before, before we were dating, and wonder what if I had walked up to you and talked to you. I know the timing wasn’t right and it wouldn’t have have worked out well, but just maybe then I would have known more about you, sooner.

I know you say that I am custom made for you, but I am going to go ahead and steal that one from you. Because you’re custom made for me. It doesn’t matter how perfect you think I am for you, because you’ll always be more perfect for me, I’ll always consider myself luckier than you, because I met you.