plobbiwrites

[plobbiwrites]

Rest

Dear Someone,

I’m doing something old again. Something new, wrapped up in something old. Being someplace new, wrapped up in old things.

For the first time, I’m writing this with a still mind. It’s a sensible 11 pm, and I know the rest of my night will belong to sleep and dreams. Or maybe first to some late-night chili oil noodles. There’s no wave of grief, guilt or anxiety, or even of magnanimous joy that is predestinating this. It’s almost luxurious to wander around these restful bylanes, peering around for words and a cohesive narrative, without them being wrenched out of me, chasing my pen to a finish line.

What kind of a piece do a steady hand, clear eyes and even breath write? What will I end up being?

For the first time, I ask with curiosity; the kind of curiosity and faint mirth with which I look at centuries-old dog paintings in museums. For the first time, I ask at rest, aware but relatively unbothered by the far-off near future. With steady hands, clear eyes and an even breath.

In September, I inhaled, my nose in my mom’s hair, smelling her powder and shampoo. I inhaled air-conditioned cold air a week later, in a dairy aisle, buying my first 2 pints of milk.

I inhaled cold, crisp air in October, making my way across parallel bridges, taking an almost happy picture with a giant wheel by the riverside. I inhaled Sunflower’s colours and textures, hoping it might find a place to live in me that was less crowded than my brain - maybe in my lungs. I inhaled green apples and nicotine other people exhaled on a weekday evening during rush hour. I inhaled stale, humid air underground, determined to postpone falling sick until I could breathe easy in this new city.

In November, I inhaled day-old smells of instant curries from the microwave, layered over each other in a stinky parody of the real deal. I inhaled the tropical vanilla of a new friend’s room. I inhaled the smell of warm milk and cheap chocolate to mindfully distract myself from missing my old friends too much. If I focus hard enough when I look at her familiar, soft and loved face on the phone, I can almost inhale the smell of my mom’s shampoo and powder again.

I inhale and oscillate between lazy contentment and existential anxiety. I inhale and collect moments of tranquil, luxurious rest, stacking them into a sandbag dam, set against a flood that’s yet to announce itself.

I’ve held my breath at the end of this, in waiting; appreciative of the silence, aware of its tenuousness. Who will I be when I breathe out?

Having typed ‘inhale’ entirely too much, Me.

[plobbiwrites]

Half-Truths and the Truth

Dear Someone,

I’ll always be here for you.

My weekend was okay. Didn’t do much, I was feeling a bit off.

I don’t know why, but I feel off.

I’m not nervous, I’m sad.

I have to be here, someone may need me here.

Yeah, it’s okay.

No, it’s okay.

I’ll miss you the most.

Are you waiting for me? You really don’t have to.

Busy?

Thank you.

You’re one of the good friends I have here.

Will you call me? Don’t worry about time or distance. Don’t call me on your good days, you can handle happiness and excitement and good news on your own. But don’t be alone on your bad days. If you ever feel sad or angry or nervous, I’m only a call away. You don’t deserve to feel alone.

There’s a line in a poem that goes “Mass is not proportional to volume��. The longer this is prolonged, the more true that feels. All those words, so many easily-said, lightly-understood words, and they’re all half-truths. In the seemingly endless stretch of time before our cord of communion snaps, I see that some words are not meant to communicate and therefore, reveal. So many words are intended to communicate but still, hide.

The bare truth has far fewer words. And it cannot be spoken. All those useless words can be said, they can come out of my mouth, exist in your ears and mine and breathe in the air between us but the truth can’t.

Mass is not proportional to volume. The truth, heavier than all those half truths, is small. I like you and I hate to leave you.

-Me

[plobbiwrites]

untitled, for better or worse

dear someone,

it’s nice to write about a new someone. or an old someone. i read a poem today and it reminded me of you, just a little bit. (i’m glad it doesn’t make me think of you any more than a little bit.)

“you’re in a car with a beautiful boy and he won’t tell you he loves you, but he loves you.

and you feel like you’ve done something terrible, like robbed a liquor store, or swallowed pills or shoveled yourself a grave in the dirt and you’re tired.

you’re in a car with a beautiful boy and you’re trying not to tell him that you love him, and you’re trying to choke down the feeling and you’re trembling,

but he reaches over and touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and your heart takes root in your body, like you’ve discovered something you don’t even have a name for.”

i’ve liked you for a while now, in many ways now. it used to be a crush. it’s laughter. it’s you being uncomfortable with my crying but not turning away. it’s how i can rely on you. it’s enjoying being looked out for and looked after. it’s the comfort of driving silently on a highway past midnight. and many times, for brief hours, i also don’t like you.

with who i am and who you are, it’s been easy (or at the very least, possible) for me to silence It, for like to never turn into anything more. i prefer what we have now – as two wildly different, surprisingly similar friends – than what could have been, if you or i said It out loud, if you and i wanted It, in which case, we would have only been ill-suited, short-lived something-mores. “It”, our relationship with your eccentricities and my proclivities may have worked on the pages of a trite fictional dramedy. but i don’t want to name It, touch It or even want It, because This is magical enough.

love regardless, me

[plobbiwrites]

Sea Shanties

Dear Someone,

All of my posts so far are words about my sighs and tears. The real challenge, or so a writing advice column said, is to create out of positivity. And so there was the question: is it hard for me to write when I’m happy, or hard to feel happy as consistently and reliably as I feel sad?

Someone older and wiser told me it’s natural to feel like you’re still cooking, even if you’re out of the firepan that is adolescence. Out of the frying pan, into the fire. That’s probably why growing pains at 23 feel worse than teen problems at 15 because now I’ve seen more and know more. But somehow, all that boils down to is that I’m sad in better vocabulary.

So once I realised feeling blue-gray may be becoming a comfort zone, I had to switch things up. If I have to row through this turbulent patch of ocean on a jaunty raft, I might as well learn some sea shanties. Which is probably the most graceless name I could use to describe the little lessons that I’ve been awed by over the last few months.

You can absolutely do the right thing all the time and be called naive and weak. Look around yourself and you’ll find people that seem to have it easier. All their ways will seem like cheating. But, you owe it to yourself and the people that trust you to be able to say, I did well today, and mean every word. You may not get far today or tomorrow but life is long and memory is very short. Some time, you’ll see how far you’ve come from the last time you looked around yourself.

Treat people that treat you well, well.

It’s easy to show terrible people the door out of your life. It’s a little harder when the person is nice and you’ve loved them for the last how-many-ever years. Sometimes people become friends because they need each other. Most times they outgrow those needs, at different speeds. Show those people the door too. Don’t hold on too tight for too long and make things awkward and uncomfortable. Let the cord snap, so the next time you meet each other, you can smile and gladly say “Hey, friend”.

Someone probably already knows about those things that make you happy that you’re just a little ashamed of. It’s not even a blip on their radar, so chill out and be a garbage human out loud.

Some days, you’re absolutely the only person available to pat your own head and say, you did well. Or give yourself a butterfly hug and say, it’ll be better tomorrow. You’ll really have to put the self in that love. Do it anyway.

Always have a notebook and pen handy, so you never forget things and people you really shouldn’t forget.

Even though it all tastes the same to you now, instant coffee isn’t the best coffee. There’s entire courses teaching people the right temperature to pour water into coffee at and the right time to pick beans and whatnot.There’s probably better coffee out there than Bru and you still have to grow into your tastebuds. Same goes for wine.

There is no “one person”. There will not be a friend or significant other that can be there for all your needs. There are people you talk about your worst fuck ups with. Someone else to discuss swoony love stories and cliff hangers with. Someone else to talk to about work stress. Someone else to talk to about family troubles. Expecting all of it from one person is way too much stress (stress that they’re not even aware of). Not having someone you can do all this with says nothing bad about you or your social circle. Your 3 AM friend can’t be your 6 PM friend, they need to get some sleep.

Don’t ever give yourself a perm.

Ants don’t have brains as evolved as ours. They eat the same and live the same, day after day. They don’t have a past or a future. We’re the only species to lock ourselves up in time. I couldn’t do this at 17. This isn’t how I wanted to be at 20. This is how I want to be when I’m 40. We rush things, we miss things and mess up because of the passage of time and the expectations that go with it.  Ants don’t get bored or depressed. So when you do, on a random Tuesday after scrolling someone’s Instagram, just sigh and chalk it up to the trade you made for a more evolved brain.

Always have a Pissed Off playlist handy. You never know when you have to be angry loudly and stylishly.

You have a Room 19, where you keep your truest self, worries, mistakes, hopes and bad habits. There are things we wouldn’t appreciate our friends finding out. There are things that we can’t tell the people we’re closest to. There are things we can barely admit to ourselves. Everyone you’ve ever met has brought their past, present and future with them to every meeting, most of the important things are in their Room 19. In a friendship, this isn’t “oh we’re not that close”. In a relationship, this is isn’t “oh I’m scared to commit” - this is just your Room 19 and everyone has one. Go in by invite only, do not overstay your welcome and while you’re in there, treat everything you see with respect.

Learning things is hard. It means acknowledging that you could do better with this piece of information. Which means there’s something lacking. Something lacking means you haven’t been getting it right so far which is tiring because you could’ve sworn you were trying so hard.

I can’t call everything I’ve written today something I “learned”, because that may mean I’ve fully absorbed lesson. Which I haven’t today. Tomorrow doesn’t look likely either. The most I can call them is small thoughts I’ve been introduced to over the last few months, which felt to me like epiphanies because of how much I’ve needed to meet them. So, in the spirit of patting myself on the head and giving myself (and you who’s reading this) a hug, I’ve put them into small paragraphs to read and remember when I forget and things go wrong.

Love, Me

[plobbiwrites]

Hello, Grief Cake.

Dear Someone,

Uff. I’ve never wanted to write myself into an agony aunt situation, so I don’t write until I think someone can relate. This is usually around when many Things have already happened, so I’ve learned to begin right from the middle.

Hence, uff.

I should write about the lockdown. About losing what feels like 2 years worth of hair in 2 months. About how insidious being indoors is. About how my Vitamin D levels are hilariously low. About how confounding it is that people I love, people I think are My People are considering long term relationships when I’m still confused about how even a short term one would manifest in my life. About how, at 22, I feel like a toddler playing house, when I felt 50 at 16.

It wasn’t until I was in the middle of cleaning out garbage juice (r/cursedwords) and maggots from my dustbin because I overslept on the last 3 wet waste days that I realised adult supervision doesn’t feel like a bad idea anymore.

So is that what this post is going to be about? About the girl in her early 20’s and how she gets by in a new city, with a new job and new people, new freedom, garbage maggots and fridge fungus and all?

Maybe this post is about how cheated I feel about moving back home and having mommy deal with all my problems. About not getting to experience 23 in all its fungal, first-dates, bleh days, 3rd - piece-of-chocolate-because-who’s-going-to-say-no glory. I was waiting to see if my early 20’s would play out like a TV show – a eureka moment at work has everyone applauding for me. I meet the wrong guy a bunch of times, then it turns out (le gasp!) that the right guy was with me the whole time. I muster up the energy to go bar hopping after a landmark day at work. I realise the true meaning of a cantankerous mentor’s feedback at the end of the episode and my day finishes with a happy little montage.

(Sidenote: With the benefit of time and hopefully, more perspective, I can’t wait to see how much 30 year old me is going to snigger at this whole post.)

As it stands though, I’m stuck in a tug-of-war between being An Adult TM and staying a feckless teen.

Which brings us back to today and the uff.

The 3rd last (ever) episode of Supernatural killed off my favourite character. Now, I’ve learned to be more than the hyperventilating, gesticulating fangirl I was 6 years ago. But, Supernatural was my gateway drug, it partly catalysed who I am at today and fully catalysed this post. Eye-rollers, stick around, there might still be something worth reading here. Might.

If I were hard on myself, I’d say I didn’t learn shit, I only learned to pretend like I’m a semi functional human being when I’m not bawling my eyes out between gasping breaths because Cas just died.

If I were being generous, I’d comfort myself. No Plobbi, that’s just growing up . It’s still a huge part of my life and of course I’m weeping, but I have other thoughts and opinions and purposes now. And I’ll continue to grow for the rest of my life. I can be unapologetic about the list of special things that make my heart happy but the list never has to stagnate.

If I were harsh with myself, I’d say oh there I go, again. I can’t get fit, relationships still confuse me, I forget to stay in touch with dear friends and I still haven’t received that standing ovation I was told to expect at work. Look at me binge Goblin and Mr Sunshine with every free minute I have. Look at me weep about Supernatural like I’m 16 again. Look at me eat my salty, snotty chocolate grief cake. There goes that “health streak”.

If I were kind, I’d say wow look at me gargle salt water so I don’t wake up with a funky throat in the year of our lord 2020, during a global pandemic, a polarising election, the tightest season at work and Destiel finally becoming real, after 12 years, in the most homophobic way possible.

I’m feeling really kind right now. At 22, I paid my own rent today, for the 14th time in my life. I also remembered to throw out the garbage. But really, 16 was only 6 short years ago. My ship and (for better or worse) a big part of my identity 6 years ago was just validated. The character I drew my most childish fan art of, my window to how people, feelings and relationships work, my constant companion through the most topsy turvy years of my life so far, just died. In an incredibly grown up act, I only ate 1/3rd of my jar of chocolate grief cake. I also wiped tears and snot right onto my T shirt. I also gargled to make sure I don’t have to put up with 10 more days of antibiotics for a sore throat brought on by said grief cake.

I’m still yesterday’s child dealing with today’s problems. At least I’m dealing. Any and all TV show hopes and dreams have now been postponed to my 30’s and I’ll let you know how that goes. Until then, I’mma enjoy mom’s fresh cut fruit bowls, cuddles, tear salty grief cake, swooning over whichever kdrama is my current crutch (escapism FTW), do at least half my workout when I didn’t feel like doing any and work hard at my job the only way I know how, whether that’s to the sound of applause or just a podcast getting me through the day.

Real Actual Love, Me

[plobbiwrites]

Knock Knock

Dear Me,

Where are you? A while ago, this empty page would have thrilled you; so much to do, think and say, it’s free real estate. And you still think so much! But how come you’re not the wonder-kid? How come, 7 lines in, you’re already tired of this paragraph?

Why can’t I be Jo March? Why can’t I have wild curly hair on an eccentric, passionate head that’s always buzzing with ideas and opinions and confidence? While I absolutely can get behind Amy March’s clear desire and vision to be great or nothing, her loathing to be a middling of any sort and her ability to make something of herself even after what self-pitying me would call her life’s biggest disappointment, her inability to keep silent when prodded and telling Laurie off, why can’t I be a clear Amy then, and be flouncy and pretty and marry rich? Why do I have to have all the awkward bits of Beth March? Or why can’t I be her fully and be delicate and gentle, the pristine white flower that is sheltered and doted on all the time?

Time was that I loved Jo March. Jane Eyre, Jo March and Anne Shirley. They were all women I could jab my finger at and say that’s me. When I’d pick up a pen or a colour pencil, to create, at an ungodly hour in the night, when I belonged only to myself and my thoughts, because whatever I’d been watching or reading for the last 3 hours had burrowed itself under my skin and had given me goosebumps and made my heart thrum.

Why is it that I now feel like 8th grade me knew who Pallavi was, far more than 22 year old me even has an inkling of? Why do I feel disenchanted when I look at the literary heroines of my girlhood, like I can never measure up? Why do my juvenile fictional stories and heartbroken ramblings move me more, even today, than this mediocre paragraph that feels like it’s only the product of too much Duphalac and only works to momentarily relieve me? It’s a small comfort that someone might read this and say, hey I relate, but why can’t I thrill myself anymore? When once the notion of scribbling away on paper would thrill me, I dread it now, it feels like trying to squeeze words out of old, dry stone.

Why do these few paragraphs feel exhausting and fail to capture any magic, when a much younger me could and would written 5 times this, shake out a hand-cramp and think she’s just getting started.

Yours, Pallavi, 22

[plobbiwrites]

On Lonely Houses

Dear Someone,

It’s been a while, are you still listening for me?

Over the last few days, I’ve been playing a part. I have a full, busy day, the kind of day I should have. I talk and laugh and work and sing and eat and fall asleep to the (single) podcast about cereal and meditation. (Yeah you read that correctly, ‘tis truly a wonderful time to be alive.) Whatever fantasies and whatever momentum I’d built for myself during the day drifts away when I close my eyes. I feel tired and meaningless and empty.

I talk when I’m expected to, if someone wants me to and I keep quiet if it’s not my place to talk, while (and maybe because) I build myself up, thought by thought, to become someone only I can be. I’m smart and sarcastic and wonderfully weird for the few who see it, and taciturn, nondescript and awkward to most of whom I can’t be bothered to prove wrong.

For a feeling that’s apparently so common in the human experience, loneliness certainly has a way of singling you out; like your experience is somehow unique and no one else has it quite as bad. You’re lonely, just like a lot of other people. And maybe a lot of it is because I’m constantly trying to measure up to someone else’s life, childishly ignoring what is wrong with their life and what is right with mine. And at least some of it is because, with every passing day I have less and less to give, even to myself. Things that were funny a week ago seem hollow now and things that I’m passionate about seem too frivolous to muster the energy or courage to do.

I smile at someone and I shake someone’s hand and I make small talk with someone about how their weekend was and I offer an opinion on someone else’s opinion and I laugh at someone’s joke and I’m with someone through their hour, day or week, playing this part that fits me like a glove. It slides off just as easily when I realise that not a single person I’ve smiled with, shook hands with, made small talk with, debated with or laughed with has ever been me for me.

I really hope you’re listening, Someone; I really need someone to.

Thanks, P

[plobbiwrites]

I Think He’s Here, I Know He’s Not.

Dear Someone,

Before you get excited about the male pronoun in the title, I’d like to inform you that “he” is my grandfather who left me to crib about mom’s upma alone on 23rd June 2017.

It’s been a hot minute since I last spoke (wrote) like this and a lot has happened since then. A lot is happening now, and tomorrow isn’t looking good for stillness either. So, I’ll start from where I am, at questions and a quiet epiphany.

Maria Von Trapp would not approve of my cavalier approach to storytelling and would like for me to start at the beginning, a very good place to start. But since I don’t know where this began, let me start with today.

When given the news of someone passing, my mind goes to my granddad, thaatha, immediately. I don’t know if this is an ego-centric impulse or trying to draw on personal experience to relate to and help people affect by tragedy and the irreplaceable loss of life. I may not know who is gone, who they left behind, or even the particulars of how they feel, but I know they are or will be, grappling with the same why’s and what if’s I did.

‘What now?’ is a big one too. I know you’re my favourite grandparent and that you had always supported me. I know you pushed the hardest for me to go to a design school, but I didn’t know you wouldn’t be next to me at journey’s end. Almost 3 years later, that still stabs.

I keep thinking you’re here, in your house, sitting in your easy chair, reading the Hindu. Or, you’re in the kitchen, cutting up blocks of homemade chocolate ice cream. Mom would send me in to ask (order by proxy) you to come into the bedroom, into the soothing embrace of air conditioning. You’d still manage to rope me into crushing plain old Marie biscuits for the topping and we’d take bowls of ice cream into the bedroom, where all the crude folk would lap it up. (Reader, I’m not a bitch, it’s an inside joke we use to refer to anyone who wasn’t us).

Even writing this, I can see you in a white lungi, concentrating on the task at hand, as if you were making French pastries for the Queen of England, rather than ice cream for a bunch of people who didn’t know or care about the difference between French Press and Italian Dark Roast coffee and preferred Bru or Nescafe anyway.

I can hear you breathing through your mouth, upper lip tucked in. It makes me think you’re still here until I realise, oh wait, you aren’t.

You haven’t been, for the last three years. I didn’t get any information or tips about how to deal with a fracture, I had to Google that shit. You aren’t here to brag to every known relative that your granddaughter got and excelled (your words, definitely not mine)  at an internship at Arvind Brands. I didn’t get any feedback on the edible wreaths, bagels and focaccia bread I’ve been making. But, the hardest pill to swallow by far, is the fact that you won’t be here to see me graduate. While I know all those things about you, the biggest thing you (and sometimes it felt like only you) knew was that I was going places.

It’s awful to think that you won’t be seeing the 6 outfits I’m going to make, going to put my name on and call mine. When I’m tired and unmotivated, I think, thaatha would want to see how this turns out. But the same thing that propels me also paralyses me. What if I’m not doing enough? Exploring enough? Embroidering enough? Understanding enough? What if I’m not enough? What if I don’t end up being who you thought I’d be? If you were here, I’d ask you and you’d just tell me what you think of all these questions. But I freeze because you're not here, and I’m just supposed to answer these things myself and hope to not let you down.

As a studious, high-performing student in school, but only one of many talents in the bigger well of college, I decided to inflict another expectation on myself to answer this.

I gotta win an award, yeah? If you’re not here to give me your approval, say you like my collection and who I’ve become, isn’t the next best thing an award? Critical approval?

I don’t know if this is aspirational or if I’m setting myself up for failure. I don’t know if it’s realistic. I don’t know how much I’m working, how much of a difference that is making, and how much I should be working. But I know you won’t be there with a proud smile, telling me I’m going places. I never believed all the nice things you said so I wouldn’t get a big head, but now that I can’t hear them, I realise how important they are.

I didn’t expect you to stay till I get married or till you see great-grandchildren or whatever. Four years ago, when you were healthy as a horse, fit as a fiddle, we both dreamed of what’s fast approaching now, in May. It wasn’t a wedding, or a delivery or any such far off milestone. It was graduation, in the short span of four years. You were healthy, so this was tangible. It wasn’t a pipedream, it was a plan in the near future. And apparently, now I have to do it alone? ~Me.

[plobbiwrites]

For anyone that’s left behind.

Dear Someone,

When I thought about making my blog public to all my friends on Facebook, I made one thing very clear to myself. That this would not be a personal journal nor would it be an online pity party. This would not be where I scrawl down my secrets. This would be about sharing personal experiences with people I know, in the hope that, through my writing and in me, they may find a kindred spirit. It would be about dispelling confusion, and acknowledging things that we often cannot find words to describe. I’ve written about heartbreak and stress. Today, I’m writing about death. I don’t hope to tackle the topic, for I hope I’ll never have enough experience in this to tackle its every in and out. Nor do I hope to give platitudes or aid healing, because if you ever read this when you really need to, you know platitudes are not enough and healing is too lofty a goal for one blog post. I’m not aiming to philosophise either, because I have not reached even a tenuous understand of what death is. All I hope to do is provide companionship, by breaking down, if you will, the immediate moments, days and weeks after someone you love passes on.

Two days from the day I’m writing this, my grandfather will have been gone for one month. So, be warned, things are going to morose up in here. Crying about it and making you tear up over my thaatha is not what I intend, I only want to talk about death and the reality of life after it. However, such a reality is sad, so proceed, only if you want to.

How does it feel, a month later?

The very first thing I can say with absolute clarity is, it feels like yesterday. 30 days seems like chewing-gum. A small brick, innocuous on the surface, but it will stretch if you make it. If you’re thinking, “Ohmygod, enough with the metaphors Pallavi”, I’d say “STFU, metaphors are love, metaphors are life”. But, I’m here to hold your hand and tell you how it feels, either because you’re curious, or you’re going through something similar, or you’re just plain morbid. To put it simply, it does not feel like a month has passed. It feels like it happened yesterday. But when you start to really think about what happened in that month after someone’s death, you’ll start to piece together everything you did over 30 days. Me? I told a couple of friends. I learnt the basics of the British sign language. I made stuffed French toast and brownies. I drew my beloved thaatha. On the fourth day, I went to Ameerpet to get his picture framed. I had what seems like an unending chat conversation with my brother, who couldn’t be with me, because I didn’t want him to feel alone when I’m surrounded by family. I ate 3 and 3/4th puran-polis, I got a throat infection, watched Suicide Squad on TV and wore a kurta that my thaatha gifted to me for the very first time. I order a cheesecake from Guilt Trip on the day of his passing, and since then, I have ordered Dominos once and Wok Republic twice. 12 days with my family, as our mourning customs dictate. That’s 12 baths and 24 coffees and 36 meals, and multiple between-meal nibbles. I find it hard to believe that this has all happened. To explain it to you, imagine waking up one morning, and realising that you’ve done all the things I’ve mentioned over the course of the last day. The surprise and the disbelief and the urge to scramble and rationalise what you’re feeling? I feel all of that when I try to rationalise that it’s been a month since he’s passed on.

TL;DR? Expect to feel disoriented when you realise how long it’s been since your loved one has passed on.

 How did I react?

My mom texted me in the morning, letting me know that my granddad was about to depart to the great beyond in about an hour. Not in as many word, obviously. I hightailed it to the hospital and ran up six flights of stairs, but I was too late. When I asked the throng of relatives and family friends what had happened, my aunt nodded at me. Imagine if you will, being very confused in a high stress situation. Everyone else is in on the secret and you’re scrambling for news. And you get a nod. Justifiably, I whispered/yelled, ‘what does that mean?’. She said, ‘ten twenty-eight am’ and my brain, although begging for specifics, made do with that. I was 9 minutes too late. I will spare you the gory details of seeing my grandfather after, because this is for you, and it isn’t about that. Tears were streaming down my face, and I was choking up when I held his hand. I could not associate my grandfather with what I saw before me. And here’s the thing. Here’s something you’ll acknowledge minutes after you see what’s left behind. Here’s the thing that may be the key to your healing much later. Let’s do a little exercise (way to sound like a pre school teacher huh?). You’re sitting down with your sister for a long overdue conversation. Imagine, if you will, her hair is longer, and red. And she has a smaller nose, and green eyes. Imagine she’s suddenly a boy. But you know she’s still your sister. So yeah, while you have questions about the particulars of her now-changed physical manifestation, ultimately, you can still have that conversation with her, right? She’s still the same person, with the same opinions, experiences, catchphrases and way of saying things. The physical body is something you see but is not necessarily the first thing you think of when you think of someone who’s close to you. To put it brashly, the physical body is a side character; replaceable and inconsequential. When I looked down at my granddad, I realised, my granddad is not this man I see now. My granddad is my memory of him. He is affection and confidence, and hating upma, and he is my memory of him teaching me how to frost cakes and he is haste and he is a kind man clad in all-white. This man in front of me is cold and while some part of me still thinks ‘thaatha’ when I see it, my thaatha is alive because I remember. Tears were streaming down my face and I had choked up. I was crying. But at no point in time did the realisation seem as final as it does in the movies. Again, imagine the brain is a collection of people playing Chinese Whisper. One part, the part that receives visual stimuli, is the guy that starts the game. Thaatha is dead, he whispers to the next guy, and then the next guy and so on and so on. I’m not sure the people in my head have stopped playing that game yet, not all of them know. Because I haven’t had that bone deep sense of realisation. And maybe I never will. Because to do so is to grasp and understand and process death, in all its colossal entirety, and no mortal can do that. No. Mortals spend months crying about new, small things that remind them of this unfathomably large thing happening to them, and the reality of death comes in bits and pieces. I’m convinced that if we tried to understand death in its entirety, our brain would explode like that Nazi woman’s did in Indiana Jones: Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. You wanna talk about mind fucked? Death is mind fucking.

TL;DR? Dissociating the body from the person is a thing that happens. Don’t fight it. Also, death is life altering, but it comes in bits and pieces, not all at once.

 What are the next few days like?

Slow. And these next few days will be very hard to recall for you. I’d imagine the same aftermath for someone who is drunk or high, when you know you did something but you can’t remember what. I’ve never been either, so I can’t be sure, I suppose. So, I’m going to break these hazy few days down.

Physically, I was exhausted. Imagine your worst day. The very worst. And multiply that by 20. That’s how it was. I didn’t want to move, I wasn’t hungry or thirsty but I still felt hollow. My chest hurt. You could call it heart ache, but scientifically, I don’t think the muscle, Heart, is supposed to ache, otherwise, you’re due for a hospital visit yourself. Nevertheless, there is a bubble of in the middle of your chest. For me it was around my diaphragm. It feels like anxiety, the kind you feel in your stomach before an exam, except a little more solid, and less like butterflies fluttering. The lump in your throat doesn’t go away and the heaviness in your head (like your whole head, not just eye pain and neck pain) keeps that lump loyal company. You may look back on this time and realise, you lost the consciousness of everything under your upper chest.

Mentally, the best way I can describe it is moving through ‘pakam’. You know, the thick syrup that’s made from jaggery? Imagine walking through a tank full of that. The days after someone’s death tend to be dragging and stifling and heavily bear down on you. And it also feels surreal. At the time, you don’t really have an awareness of what’s going on. I was aware enough to place that cheesecake order, but I fell asleep for an hour after that. I was not cognizant enough to make sure my phone was next to me, with its ringer on loud, as anyone who’s just placed a food order is wont to do. It feels like those days when you have a high fever and are really sick. You know what you’re doing, but you can’t rationalise, correlate or be logical, and things seem filtered through.

TL;DR? The days that follow, you may feel dissociated from yourself, going through the motions, and physically, you’re basically a wreck.

 How can I help a friend who’s going through this? Personally, the most inane thing I’ve heard all month and the few days preceding thaatha joining his family up there is, ‘My prayers are with you’. The sentiment is appreciated. I’m glad to know you are with me, by my side, here, when I will need someone to listen and to fall onto when my feet give out under me, as I feel they surely will. But as a person that is losing her thaatha, there are certainly more relevant things I can stand to hear, other than ‘God be with you’ or variants thereof. Unless the person you’re consoling or offering condolences to is extremely religious, which I am decidedly not, the helpful thing to say is something along the lines of ‘I’m here for you if you want to talk, whenever you need me’. To be frank here, even while you’re telling someone this, the most you’ll get out of them is a sad smile. Don’t expect a show of gratitude or an immediate spilling the beans session. Most of my very close friends said this to me. Again, it’s the sentiment that’s appreciated here, but don’t feel bad if we don’t take you up on your offer. And definitely don’t feel guilty about not being able to get through to your friend in her time of need. The biggest reason we don’t respond to your offer is: we are surrounded by family who are also grieving. We feel their grief too, which makes our own feeling of sadness that much more solid, and for the first few hours or days, the grief actually settles around us like a wet blanket. We are physically tired, but also tired of talking about the death itself. So please, do not be disheartened if we do not take you up on your offer. What we really appreciate, though, is talking about the person. Not about their death, but them. It makes us smile and it makes us remember that the person is still alive, albeit not in a physical way. So, if you want to help, help us remember the person we lost.

 Another thing we need a little bit later in the days after, is to talk about anything other than death and the person that died. At this point, we’re surrounded by so many people who are grieving, and quite frankly, we’d give anything to talk about something else. Not because we’re callous, or dismissive, but because that’s just human nature. Unfortunately, surrounded by so much of human nature, we can’t approach our relatives, asking about vacation plans or the latest gossip, because everyone is at a different stage in their grief. So, we’ll call you, and of course, as our friend on the outside, you’ll understand that this huge thing has happened to us, and you will want to offer your condolences. But don’t be surprised if we ask you the latest gossip, or where you are or what’s going on in that TV show that we haven’t watched in a while. In fact, it’s never a bad idea to ask if we want to talk about something else. You’re our scuba diving tube, and you’re helping us take a breath of fresh air.

 TL;DR? The most helpful thing you can do, is ask us about the person that’s passed on, and make us remember the good times. And sometimes, make us remember our life outside of this.

There’s a whole lot I didn’t cover. I think I’m further along on my road than this post would suggest, but like I said, death is stupefying in its magnitude and talking about it extensively makes me weary. I’m sorry if this post isn’t as eloquent as the others, but this is intended to be a hand-held tour of having someone very dear to you die. Maybe you’ll use this as an insight into the mind of a friend who is going through the same, or maybe you are the person going through it, and are looking for clarity or comradeship. In any case, I hope this fulfills whatever you need it to.

Love, Me

[plobbiwrites]

Where to now?

Dear Someone,

Whenever you get from one place to other in life, you don't go as the same person. You trade in what you were, for what you need to be now. And if you're exceedingly, unbelievably lucky, somewhere along the way, you get to be who you want to be. But that's not always true. I remember being happy in school. I'm not unhappy now, but looking back, I find that my school memories don't leave me with a weird feeling in my stomach. I was focused on things I could do, and was never required to do anything I really and truly couldn't. There were things I worked really hard at. Math, games (if I was feeling adventurous) and other pre-pubescent stuff that are pretty important to pre-pubescents. Picture this (an often used phrase and sentiment, when you're a design student. We never run out of visuals). A small, protected complete circle. If you were to lay the lives of everyone that ever had, is, or ever will live, my circle is not even a blip. 11th and 12th. 11th and 12th is a blur. I remember working my behind off (while simultaneously gaining weight, go figure) and some days, the only reason I'd wake up and get out of bed was to see my friends. 11th and 12th is a whirlwind of college and accountancy and art class. A full 430 days spent transferring my butt from a wooden school bench to a faux leather bus seat to a upholstered car seat to a plastic art class chair. It felt like getting the energy wrung out of me slowly and meticulously. Oddly enough, it was also one of the most productive and enduring 2 years in my admittedly tiny ass life. Picture the circle again. Now it's a metal disk and it has decided to wheel itself across a firing machine gun. It's full of holes and it's incomplete, but with a lot more ways to look outside of itself. Now, the circle is burnt paper. I'm okay if everything stays extremely still. A sigh or a nudge and I scatter.

Yours, etc.

[plobbiwrites]

So how is college treating you, you ask?

Dear Someone,

 So it goes. Bad things happen. I was singing in the shower and on my way to college today and 1 hour in, I want to go to sleep and forget the last day ever happened. Maybe I am way too sensitive. Or maybe I don’t fit in. Actually, that’s not true. If I shut up about just about everything, I’d fit in just fine.

I’ve been within these pebbled walls for what seems like a lifetime. 2 years. And I see the same faces every day, some familiar, some friendly, some I can never talk to. But I do want to. I want to talk about the Ragnarok trailer and I want to talk about the Lord of the Rings and Supernatural and the new Doctor Who trailer. I want to talk about Rivendell, and I want to talk about whether Mary Winchester coming back from the dead is good, or does it spell certain doom?

I spend more or less every waking hour here, so removed from the rest of the world, as if a glass dome were separating me and Madhapur and its offices and its food trucks. It’s almost crazy to think that if I were to climb onto the side terrace by the Art Lab and make a long leap, a la Jessica Jones, I’d be near the bus stand. It feels like it’s a world apart. As if, just by walking through the gate, I’ve entered a parallel dimension where everything looks okay, but all that matters is work and deadlines and patterns and motifs and fabric and inspiration. I forget that mom gets migraines and dad gets cramps and my granddad forgets things and makes amazing Batenburg cake and draws a to- scale diagram dividing up sauce to fruit to ice cream ratio when he makes faluda. I forget my cousin loves orange. I miss chopping up carrots so finely (I can sit down with a knife and 1 carrot for a good two hours) and making fried rice from yesterday’s leftovers. I miss being my own person with a life outside of work and I miss sitting down to write something and just keep going for pages and pages. I miss not feeling like everything I do is a misstep and inadequate. I actually miss my acne, compared to my weird washed out tired one tone skin right now. I miss giving a damn about how I look and I love my college, but I hate letting it bleed into everything else. I miss the chance to turn off. 

But college is a total hoot you guys, 10/10 would recommend.

-Me

[plobbiwrites]

I Knew This Was Coming,

...So why do I still hate it?

Dear Someone,

First off, I’m going to take the fact that I’m not writing about a boy as....character development? Na, I’m writing about you, noodle. Our friendship was not magical. We had our fights and our share of not talking, you gave up on me and sometimes, I feel like we still never understood you. Sure, we made our jokes and we had our fun and we thought, ‘how great would a TV show about us be?’

And maybe I’m not feeling very generous right now, but maybe we felt all that because we wanted to? We wanted to have a magical friendship so we ignored all the awkward gaps and the subtle mood swings and shared a tiny plate of overpriced canteen food. We ignored the strained silences and congratulated ourselves if we managed to laugh at the same time. I wanted to be your friend. I forgave you and you forgave me, and you know I’m a nice person so I hope you accept it when I say that would you did to me was way worse than what I did to you. Because you promised this wouldn’t happen. After the first time, you told me that I was a wonderful person and that no one in their right mind would want me out of their lives. I knew then that that wasn’t true. Hun, that was just stupid. I was just happy because I thought it meant we had something stronger. I never did give two hoots about other people. No, you made me a promise, even after I told you not to, because even way back then, I knew we’d end up here. You could have just not said anything, you know? It would have hurt, but, today, when we’re in different colleges, I think I’d understand why you never said anything that day.

But you did. You did say something inspite of me telling you not to, and I’m sorry I took it to heart.  I wanted it to work and you wanted it to work, and our friendship wasn’t magical but we both wanted it to work and that’s what’s important. If you never said anything that day, then maybe we wouldn’t have even spoken for as long as we have now. Maybe you’d go off in one direction and be all brainy and I’d go another and be all craftsy and maybe when we’d catch up, I’d expect awkward stilted conversation. I’d have been fully okay if you didn’t say anything to me that day and who knows, maybe one day you’d have told your friends or boyfriend about this one French friend you had.

I know we can’t help drifting apart but I’m sorry I took offense and got hurt when you said ‘Here are 5 things I want to tell my friends from other colleges’ and you completely forgot about me. I’m sorry for wasting your time but in my defense, I didn’t know I was being written out of your life. And you know what? I know we can’t help drifting apart and I know I still love you and I will always be there for you, even if I’m not your first choice of people to reach out to, and most importantly, I know that you and I have always been great with words,but the worst part is, if you notice this and you read it, I know it’ll be hard and I’ll have caused you pain, but this is how I heal and I won’t stop doing that. I need to get over this and I’m sorry to has to be like this. But I also know that you probably won’t have too much trouble getting over it too. Because you already have, haven’t you? And if there’s one thing I surely know, it’s okay. It’s okay that’s you’re there I’m still trying to hang on. I’ll get there too. I just wish I could get there with you waiting on top. But we can’t have it all, and I suppose that’s just as well.

Vague feels always, Me.

[plobbiwrites]

Why I overthink things.

So my friend gave me an idea, back when we were still wading through our exams. He said, “Hey, in the summer, you should start a blog”. Stuff happened, we learnt we liked each other over the summer, and that lasted all of 4 weeks. But still, even though I’m not sure of where we are right now, he DID have a good idea. Too bad I wasn’t one of them.

Dear Someone,

I remember, the last time I wrote about you, I was deliriously happy. I finally had that one thing I’d always wanted- someone who wasn’t weirded out by me.

And that seems silly right? I understand that. If someone (boys especially) were talking to me, it was usually to ask for homework. So me liking a boy and actually talking to them was out of the question.

It first happened with the first crush I ever had. For three years, I had these childish dreams, too lofty for my own good. I realised in the fourth year, when I was in the 10th grade, that whether this person came to enjoy my company as a friend or not, he was always going to be that one guy that I constantly wanted to prove myself too.

I realised, after four full miserable years that the only way I could get over that guy and assemble what little self respect I had left was to wait it out. Seeing him in school everyday was not helping me get over him, so I decided that I’d just wait till we graduated (which happens after class 10 here) so I could get over him. 

When the 10th class summer rolled around, I was ‘once bitten, twice shy’. I didn’t even understand what was happening then. All through summer and 11th grade, I kept joking about being too emotionally invested in TV shows to even begin to care about boys. I realise now, while I’m typing this out, that I had it completely wrong. It was the other way around. I was too scared to take a chance again, call it a crush hangover, if you will. And Supernatural and Doctor Who and fanfiction were my greasy cure all breakfast.

I finally stopped wondering if I’d ever be good enough for someone, not because of a new, skyrocketing self esteem, but because the oppurtunity stopped presenting itself. For months, maybe even a whole two years, what someone else, especially a boy, thought didn’t matter because now I belonged in a much larger family, where I was loved and appreciated. Yup, I’m talking about a fandom. Not a cult.

In hindsight, that was stupid of me. It was stupid of me to think that I was a bigger, better person now that I’d chosen to stop caring. Because the truth is, I never actually stopped caring.

So when you and I saw each other around in school (readers, this is the ‘someone I’m addressing the letter to) I only went so far as to think ‘Hmm. I bet we’d get along really well.’ because you were basically a male me, from what I saw anyway.

Of course, I never actually spoke to you too much. Because that would require, you know, actual human, face to face communication. The other problem I had with basically not talking to a boy for 2 years is that I developed all these rules and principles.

These are the shitsticks that caused this mess I’m in right now. Seriously, word to the wise, try not to have rules. They are inconvenient and messy and pesky and extremely hard to explain to someone. But the most exasperating thing about these rules I’d developed is that anyone who cares enough to listen will call you ‘brave and mature and strong’ and all kinds of other fancy words, but the minute they are on the other end of those annoying principles, suddenly, you’re not worth it. It’s easy to appreciate principles as long as you’re not on the other end of them.

So what principles am I talking about? Well, dear someone, when you told me you liked me, they were what made me tell you that I wasn’t ready to date anyone just yet and that it might be a good three years before I was.

So where were yours when you told me that that was okay? When I finally told you about my doubts, where was your understanding nature when you said you found these insecurities ‘off putting’? Where was your common sense when you failed to realise that this particular set of insecurities weren’t and aren’t something I choose to have? Where was that sense of punctuality you prided yourself on having when you said you’d call me later and you never did? Where was your solid determination when you said ‘I don’t think I can wait for three years’? Because I definitely felt it when you said that we’re smart people and we’d figure this out. Where were those amazingly profound feelings I see in your writing, when you told me, over the phone, very bluntly, that you thought this wasn’t going very well? Where were your communication skills when I explicitly asked you if you’d be okay with us not going out alone for the forseeable future, right when you told me you liked me, and you said that that was okay? Where was that maturity I thought you had when you said that you understood and that we’d try to make it work anyway?

I felt good for a while, because you got me. You understood me. You knew I was freaking out or panicing just from the way I said ‘okay’ over text. So where was your understanding of basic English words when you texted me, ‘Hey we need to talk. Don’t panic or hyperventilate, everything is fine’ followed by a smiely face and then proceeded to break up with me?

That’s what I get for keeping a cool head for once in my life. One long chat conversation we had before this happened where we got along like a house on fire, a set of great memories tainted because you probably don’t care enough to remember them as I will and a return ticket to square 1.

Thanks dude, I had a blast.

Also, fuck you.

And to answer your last question, no, I’m not freaking okay.

Sincerely, Me.