719, 718, 717

Ill so in Bombay.

Things have been good so far.

Life at home usually is.

Realized that some friendships are going to be very very hard to maintain and so decided to let go of one of them. There is a very painful memory attached to it. Maybe it was being low energy, but it felt like there was a lot of energy required at just pushing aside that memory to just be calm with that person.

Also, opened up comments now even though they are being moderated. Some of the anonymous commenters with their diarrheatic ugliness are writing in. :-) (So, you still kept coming, yes?) I think about that girl who claimed to be my friend and look up to me or whatever else and then went on to paste anonymous comments - I wonder if it was her who commented on my family or not but then, when people feel really ugly about themselves, the rottenness takes many forms. To me, she has become the poster-child of all the anonymous commenters out there - those souls who want to belong to the cool tribe. They may live in an address that doesn't gain much currency with the swish set - so they do the token activities - a photography class, host a workshop, maybe do an overnight trek or a filmmaking workshop somewhere with enough stack of photos to show 'hey, I don't conform.' But the resentment brews. So let's say they find someone who is part of their not-so-hip suburb but who, in their eyes, is interesting because she has the 'right' creds (the way I maybe did - studied in St. Xavier's, grew up in Bandra, lived and worked in Delhi, had freelanced for a newspaper), they seek validation very very thirstily. But there may still be a fear that if they come right out and say something real or true, they may not be liked. So they become anonymous and start commenting - sometimes innocuously saying things like 'oh...this is not as nicely written as that other piece' to 'you deserve all these comments for the way you dress' to 'it's shameful how your family allows you to be that way'. I think this girl wrote all that because one day she saw her face in the mirror and felt lost and ugly. (Ditto for any guy who's done that also - on this blog or somewhere else.) Maybe they do it because there's a latent ugliness - all grey and scaly due to a lifetime of resentment that comes to the fore when something triggers their gaping need for validation that will not even be acknowledged.

Anyway, I got my work cut out with having to fight fever.

 

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