Stuff comes up on a full moon night

 It is amazing how early a day can begin and how late it can end but nothing much gets done. 

A heavy day today. Actually I am feeling more sad than what I had expected. 

It was a beautiful full moon night. So I just left everything late evening and went out for a walk. It had been emotionally exhausting. 

A friend has been unwell and it can be quite serious. A colleague's last day at work. Another colleague is going to move out of my project next week. 

Too many people going away.

Just feel a little...like you are at the station watching your friends get onto the train and go for a  excursion while you return to school with Sister Mabel to clean classrooms.

I always forget that these things end. That everything ends. This little vein of dazzling connection with a collaborator. It ends. Your colleague who sends you pictures of her little pup over weekends...that ends. The wrapping up of a tense little project but where you met decent people with courteous manners...that ends. A panic message at 4 am met with a soothing response ends. 

Sometimes as a freelancer, I think that I have made myself that way...this armoured tough person who can walk away from anything. And I can. And usually I do. 

The flaw in that design is...I don't quite know what to do when I am not the one who's leaving.

Anyway, the full moon. It was resplendent. It shone like it had forgotten what it was like to wane.

That's important I think. One must forget that things end. That's how you remain open to greeting something new, I guess.

But... today I couldn't forget. Today I remembered. I also remembered that night when I heard a song that would give me the words to possibly describe every meaningful relationship I had.

It was a rainy night. I was working really late, past 2 am, in a teensy little office at Kalbadevi. There was a techie friend with me. He stepped out for a smoke and pulled down the shutters of the office. The radio was on. Mostly Hindi music. But around 3 am, there were old English songs. Songs sung in low, deep voices. 

One of the songs started and the melody, the voice were haunting, the lyrics so beautiful...I wrote them down, quickly, furiously on the printer paper lying about. 

My friend returned with coffee and egg bhurjee for us. By that time, the song was over. So I read out the lyrics to him. He didn't get what the big deal was but noticed the catch in my throat. He asked me to go to sleep. Maybe the exhaustion was catching up.

Anyway, as some of the people I have connected with leave (or have left) I wonder what it would have been like to have a little bit longer with them...to understand how their brains ticked, how their journeys started, where they were headed, what rainbows they chased... People I never met in person, will possibly never meet again. 

Anyway, I don't have the paper with the lyrics now but I remember this...my favourite verse from the song:

When they begin the overture
They start to end the show
When you think I'll never need you
Then I knew that you would go
The sound of all our laughter
Is now echoed in a sigh
And the first time that we said hello
Began our last goodbye

All for the best, I suppose. Good people deserve to enjoy moonlight in peace and joy, wherever that might be. 

So, to the surprise of a doggy and a teenager doing squats, I sat on a park bench and waved at the moon. 

Maybe we were all looking up at it at the same time.

Anyway... onwards.

Love this

 Barood se aise

Yeh shabd phoote bum jaise

Daaru se hum

Chaddhe sir pe yeh rum jaise

Rum se yaad aaya

Tere bevde baap ko salaam bol

jaankaari lele beta

Kaam bhaari kaam bol

- MC Sher and Kaam Bhaari, Gully Boy

Check out the song here - https://youtu.be/CJG8Whdc_Ko

Image reference - From Pinterest

Stuff I sketched

 

It's not going to happen

 Today I just got the sense that I will never be ahead of the curve. I will never be able to stand by my principles as staunchly as I want. I will never be able to make time to write my book. I will never have enough money to make my studio, take time off for meditation, engage in legal aid, call out prejudice. I will live a life waiting for people's approval and validation that will never come. I will never have time to be with people close to me. It will be a life of half-chewn mediocrity and I will never be able to make a happy, joyous world for my daughter.

Someday, baby girl, forgive me for...

Whatever follows those ellipses. 

May as well lead with this...

 There is a man called Gio Mckluskey who has a Facebook page. He puts up interesting, eerie, whimsical photos. This one made me want to hug this lady and crushed me bright and early on a Monday morning. May as well. Why delay meeting what Life will send your way?

And the ball dropped

 I woke up this morning to a few messages from someone who seemed to be having a rough time trying to get over someone or something. I asked who. This person who had messaged me...we weren't friends. I think we had chatted a bit many years ago. Then he had made some snide comment about me. Which I thought I had let go off but clearly not. And then weeks later I get this message. I ask for details...to be fair, mainly to be polite. I really wasn't interested. The state in which all my projects have now reached video-game level complexity and my damn controls are jammed. So someone else's life really just irritated me. 

The person declined to give any further details and I asked why he thought he should contact me. He said that his own friends wouldn't understand him and think he is making too big a deal about stuff. Then he said, "Forget it. Let it be." And I let it be for 5 minutes. Then I told him to not contact me again and blocked him. 

When this year began, I had thought that I would not block people or behave with such emotional immaturity. Well, I couldn't manage.

Iknow that what I am about to say now will sound churlish given how fragile and tender the issue of mental health is. But I will say it anyway. You know how people say that if you are going through something dark and you are not in a good place, you must reach out to someone and talk? I think no. Don't talk. Write it out. Talking doesn't help unless the other person is willing, able and strong enough to handle the listening. And the average, untrained person isn't. Forget untrained people. Even trained people, unless they come with strong references, can do more harm than good. 

People just don't have that kind of emotional wallet to pay for your low moods. I care deeply about people's mental health as well as my own. Yet the way I am snapping with people around, clients, teammates, friends, etc., , you would think that I don't.

This has happened before and I did reach out to people I was close to. And it didn't help. For one thing, no one will really know what you are going through. They just won't. Just as you won't ever know - in your heart - why they said what they said. They are all good, kind people who will operate from their own value system and your priorities will just not be theirs. Like when this person contacted me the first thing this morning, when I was trying to understand the feedback I had received on 5 courses I had to deliver today and then also have a 1 hour call with someone else...he was just one more mess in my day to deal with. At this point, each one of my projects feels so sticky, that his message felt selfish. Now obviously, he wouldn't know what all was going in my mind. But maybe he was anyway feeling abandoned and alone. And now that feeling may have been multiplied. 

This is why I feel one should write. Not a public blog but a personal journal. For people to respond to you, you also have to be receptive. And to be receptive, you have to empty yourself out. And you have to do this by letting people off the hook.

I sensed today that I am getting a little too touchy about feedback. Rather, I am currently working with 8 clients, and I feel irritated with 6 of them. I never get a straight answer, something is always wrong, everything is last minute and haphazard, and most importantly, I feel that I am letting all of them down. (How all these 8 clients have come together at the same time is the reason why I will actively seek out a manager or someone to help me out with.)

All these assignments are special and I just feel like I am not doing justice to them. And I am not doing justice because I feel, in turn, let down by all of them. No one cares about my schedule when I had told them that I have other work. And even as I write it, I see how silly it is. They don't owe me anything, really. Yes, clarity and softness would have been good. But I bet they expect the same. 

And I realise that it's bothering me a lot now because I am running on empty only with corrosive expectations as fuel. So from tomorrow, I will write all my dark thoughts in a diary, get free inside, and work. 

The work is really precious. All 8 projects. Each one them is diamond in the rough. I should be behaving like it's the time of my life. But I am not. 

Someday I will write about journaling as my preferred coping mechanism. I honestly think that people do want to show up for you, be the sweetest, strongest version of yourself when you are feeling down. But they can't. Your sadness can be triggering for them. I stopped 'talking' about my down days when I realised that what can someone else tell you that you don't already know? And who is above the mess themselves? 

All of this is just my own experience, of course. It's not based on data or research. So if you are going through a rough time, get help if you need.But write a diary. Only for your eyes and yourself. Just the way your handwriting shifts as you write through different things is a good indication of just what all is going on.

I found that writing didn't solve my problem. It helped me gauge how vast the mess is. That's still something.

Will begin tomorrow again. 

Superpowers that make sense to me

 1. Always remember where you keep your keys and spectacles

2. Always see through conditioning - yours and every one else's

3. Spot a puppy every day

4. Always get a vegan option for whatever you love

5. Always live in a place with a yellow door

6. All delivery folks find your place without having to call you for directions

7. Ola and Uber never cancel

8. Travel to the bottom of the sea and rest there for as long as I like

9. Filter coffee always available

10. Masseuse always available

The little joyous things

 I will list a few things on YouTube that make me happy:

1. The Graham Norton show. He is such a charming, cheery host. A couple of my favourite episodes have Russell Brand and Emily Blunt, Naomi Campbell, Kevin Hart and Kate Winslet...I just put those one sometimes while working.

2. Trinny Woodhall's channel. A long time ago, she used to do this show called 'What not to wear' with one of her friends, Susannah. I didn't quite like her all that much then. Found her terse. But I love her shows now. There's a softness and maturity about her that's lovely! And boy, does she know how to style stuff! Sequins and shimmer for a daytime office look, clashing prints, opening up her closets to show her range of coats, scarves, shoes...it's lovely. There's a segment where she goes to Zara and some other stores in London for her shop-ups. She browses through the store and talks through the collection and such stuff. Those bits really drive home the fact that if you have spent a lifetime doing something, it just oozes out of you. She could pick out a regular jumper and link it back to Stella McCartney's opening show where she introduced a splintered lapel in a blazer. Also I love Zara. I miss it so much. Sometimes I just watch it for that.

3. Any interview of Salman Rushdie. His voice is so good. It is a storyteller's voice. And in hours crowded and cramped with unfinished things, his voice feels like cool lemonade on a parched, summer day. 

Memory 4 - That tub of stuff

 St. Xavier's.

Saturday afternoon. Class cancelled. 

First year of college so every tiny segment of free time was lush with either ennui or enthusiasm. 

This Friday it was enthusiasm.

Br, a guy in my class asked a bunch of us to go for a movie. 

Where?

Sterling, of course.

Gorgeous Sterling. In that teeny strip of tree-lined Avenue near VT. Near the beautiful, white, so pristine that pigeons got polite and didn't poop building of Deutsche Bank. 

Sterling with curved stairs, large areas for balcony seatings, little alcoves for Dress Circle, a massive square for the general junta that clapped and hooted and threw pennies...that space called 'Stalls'. And everything pointed to that large swathe of magic that took you away for a spell...the silver screen.

But Sterling was expensive.

Which movie? Speed. Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. (It's the movie that got me to watch films by myself. But will write about the movie another day.)

But Br told me that it wasn't about the film at Sterling. It was about something else. Since I had given him Pol. Science notes, he would treat me to something special. 

He had said that aloud and for no real reason I blushed. Mainly because the fools around me went, "Ooooh! Something special?! What? What?'

Br said nothing. I don't think he registered the joke. But ten of us went trooping to Sterling.

And inside while we waited with a bunch of others, we smelled it...a bouquet of warmth, sweetness, candy, butter...we smelled caramel popcorn. 

"It's sweet and salted", Br said. "I'll get you some."

It was really expensive. At least three times the price of the regular salted ones.

"You don't need to share", he said. But I did anyway. I offered. But the reaction from the group was that if they had to spend that much cash on taste they couldn't understand, they may as well have the chilli ice-cream at Bachelor's. 

I held that small tub. The grease soaked through the thin paper. It smelled even more decadent every passing minute. 

We went in and you could almost see the halo of caramel popcorn around the few people who had them. It was that distinctive at the time.

It tasted so lovely. It tasted like perfection one didn't know was possible. Each kernel reminded me of every perfect sweet and crisp combination I had had...vanilla ice-cream cones, bread butter toast with sugar, crisp dosas with ghee and honey...this was so good.

I remember I came home and told Ma and Papa about it. I wrote about it to my grandfather. When my cousin called from Delhi, I cited caramel popcorn as the definitive clincher that Bombay was a better city than Delhi. (It was quite a raging debate back then.)

Sterling used to be the only place that sold it for a while. And for that reason alone, I loved going there. We build our sanctuaries young. One of mine was going to the movies by myself, getting coffee and a packet of caramel popcorn and going away wherever the moving lights on the screen took me.

It has easily been a year since I have had caramel popcorn. 

Maybe it took this long for my palate to get cleansed so that I remember what it tasted like for the very first time.

If it's tough, keep going

Diwali.

And I wake up to three or four emails indicating that 4 of my projects need to be wrapped up today. So there's that. Okay then.

Enough of all this angry, sad mush I've been saddled with since the last few days. 

Time to get back to work. More focus, less feelings.

Happy Diwali everyone. 

A good day

 It was a good, happy day yesterday. Woke up with a feeling of just wanting to get out of the house. Was feeling trapped.

Went to my friend's place. She had done it up so well! Rangoli and fairy lights, sweets and her really trio of fish swimming about in a decorated fish bowl. They seem like babies - so cute they are. 

Had wanted to write about this yesterday but couldn't. I don't know...my heart still feels heavy and I still feel angry but...it will pass. 

I called up the sample guy I had written about earlier. I said I would share some links next week. He said that he didn't need it. He had googled me and checked out my writing. Said he'd come across my blog and the post. He asked me if I was not afraid that people would not give me work considering how 'open' I was there. I think he had read a few posts from really far back - I think when I had written about my divorce.

I can't say for sure but I think he may be having some problems with his partner. It's hard to say. I mean I couldn't make out when my own marriage was unraveling so it's rather rich for me to think that I can predict someone else's...especially three minutes after 'Hello'. 

Anyway, responding to his question on whether I lost work because of my blog...I didn't think so. I lost work because some people see me as 'too much'. So, I don't think they see me as too bad. Just not worth the trouble.

In my head, I had thought that if he followed up that thread of 'not being worth the trouble', then he was having problems in his marriage. The kind of problems where everything has started becoming stale. You can't recognise the person you wake up next to. You loathe the person you see in the mirror. Yet you hold on. You try to white-knuckle through the pain of what you are going through because the marriage was good. I am not talking about societal pressure or family disappointment or whatever. Just between you and your partner. It was good. When you were together, you knew you had found a solid friend. You knew you had a permanent shelter from the storm. 

And you want.that.back. I could relate. 

He asked me how I knew whether something was too much trouble...in my scheme of things. And I knew that we weren't talking about work anymore. But we both had to pretend that we were. 

I don't think I knew anything back then. Except that, I didn't make someone happy to be with me anymore. That's not easy. Actually, I feel that when you are in the thick of things, you don't realize that the other person is in pain too. That maybe he also felt tired for fighting for respect, maybe he also felt unworthy, or stretched or suffocated. That maybe there were shared screams of 'When will it be my turn?' You feel the exact same thing. It's the point when you don't realise it but you stop being each other's windows to a different world and you become each other's mirrors. You reflect back the same dense shadows of a loving sun that shone once but has set now. 

I just knew that after a point I had absolutely no clue how to make things work except that if I tried harder, maybe it would. I am sure he thought the same. But I suppose some of us are wiser to know that effort is actually doing more harm than good and it is unavoidable. Around that time I returned to Bombay from Delhi and I have no real memory of what I did around then. I know I started working. I remember staying away from family with some flatmates who were the bestest people in the world. And I know the solid, solid family support I got for what I was going through. And yes, I remember being angry. I mean, I don't think I have felt that kind of pain or anger ever. (Also it's not pain OR anger. Usually, pain IS anger.) If you were loyal and loving and were a good enough decent person, shouldn't you get a happily ever after? Apparently not. 

What made it even tougher was that I had been married to a very good man. A really good friend who had my head, my heart, my imagination, everything. And maybe that was too much for one person to be. I think when I love anything, an icecream or a person or a project, I tend to behave like a big dog in a small room. And if you aren't used to that kind of jumping, tail-wagging heft, I can imagine one being put off or scared. And he loved like a cat - quiet, will show affection in ways that need you to allow the creature to come up to you, can't be rushed, can't be forced. I think you need o allow time for that understanding to develop. And time means making something a priority for a while. And also allowing yourself to unlearn whatever you may have thought of what love looks like or what a good relationship looks like. And we don't make time for Time, do we?

I would never have ended anything until one day, it just suddenly started feeling like a lie...to continue this way.Not having the conversation, not deciding, not making up my mind. It started feeling plastic. That's when I sensed that maybe what I was feeling now is what he had started feeling a long time ago. And he was being nice about taking things to the finish line. Even so, I wouldn't have either. Again, just because I felt that love would sot everything out between two people who care for each other so much but had just lost the way. But no. I am obviously no expert on relationships. But I think that what I was considering love was attachment. What I was thinking of as commitment was clinging. These associations go way deep. To break out of that is to really splinter yourself and who likes that? 

One day I was having very dark and vengeful thoughts and was talking to my mom. She asked me how I thought any kind of relationship could even stand a chance of healing if there was so much poison. Then Ma said that you should never lose the ability to stay happy for someone else - no matter what the situation. She told me to leave if I had to but leave well. With some sense of peace. And after letting the anger run out. If I had to devolve into such pettiness, then maybe there was no love to begin with. I then argued with my mom and went off to Juhu beach. There's nothing like a soothing Bombay crowd to make you feel that it's all going on anyway. Stuff will move on and move away. 

I watched the sea. There was a big, juicy moon out. Children were playing. There were some chanaa-choor garam  people milling out. Thimble style cups of coffee being sold to accompany the channaa choor. It suddenly started to rain and it was glorious. Just suddenly. 

November rain. 

I walked into the sea looking around to check for cops. It had started pouring now and some people and kids had run towards the pav bhaaji and gola stalls to get away from the rain. And some of us didn't. I was wading across the water and some kids were laughing and running about. Some couples were holding hands and getting cosy. There were quite a few of us out there. I realized that I love storms. I always have. Maybe it really was time to leave the shelter. Maybe the shelter didn't want to be a spot for those running away from the storm either. Maybe it wanted to be a solid home and library for stable cat-like folks. 

I felt a lot of peace then And very strong and very decisive. I don't claim that what followed was easy emotionally at all. It was two steps forward and five steps back. And then there nowhere to go. But that night, I came home and decided that it was time. I had loved and married a good man who, for whatever period of time, had loved me back. And as Marquez said, "No one can take away the dances you already had." 

When you have to leave someone you love, it's not 'goodbye'. It's 'thank you'. That makes it easier.

(And after sharing all this, I sensed that the guy really didn't want to know anything other than whether I could engage on a weekly basis or was I looking for full-time employment. Oh well, you live. You learn. You forget.)

Are we done yet?

 Couldn't go shopping today. Couldn't meet my friend or do my reading or my writing. 

I had to revisit some writing today after ages. It is a daunting process for a writer like me who is pretty much a first draft or second draft writer. Then all these gentle edits etc.just feel like you are dressing a corpse. So I just opened a fresh page and started. And that was okay-ish.

And then I did one more and I am finally fatigued in a kind of energising way. But...I don't know. I feel bled out now. Happy with what I put out.

(That's what I had typed yesterday but couldn't post.)

Today was rough. It was rougher than what I signed up for and really, at this point I don't think I deserve to be treated this way. Anyway I think it was also a reminder of my early lesson when I started working as a freelancer. Don't take it personally. And I did. 

I don't know... maybe things were building up for while. Maybe it was the text from a person who I had cut off all ties with and he messaged. Maybe it is the arrogance of a few people who feel that they are better than me so they get to pass comments on my work. 

 It got to the point where I was talking to this man who wanted to see samples of my writing. And he just assumed that I will be sending it to him right away. I told him that I will take time. Then he said, "Why? I thought you were a freelancer..." I burst a blood vessel and I asked him who did he think he was to review my writing? Could he take me through some of the documents that he has reviewed? Any dunce can give an opinion. Feedback is different. It's feedback when you have the spine to support the person you delivered feedback to, to see it through. He said sorry and hung up.

And then it was a downward spiral from there. There are a few things that irk me to dangerous levels...

one is disloyalty. You don't collaborate to abandon. You don't gossip about a teammate behind their back. Even if it kills you to do this, give them the benefit of doubt until the very end. 

Two is inauthenticity. It's easier, I find, to be around the jerks who know they are jerks. And they tell you that they are and you still sign on for the ride. It's irritating. But I have always left with some affection for these persons.

And three...a huge, HUGE one is when I feel taken for granted. And this happened so much today for all the projects that  I felt were close to my heart...that something just died inside of me.

When I returned from Bangalore, I had just decided to not work with Indian men anymore...or teams that  were peopled by men with no female representation. Heterosexual Indian men. (I like the LHBTQ community.)  

That level of selfishness...me, my idea,my company, my vision, my sacrifice, my plan, my silence, my speech, my budget, my comfort, my need, ME.ME.ME. First. Last. Alsays. And this is one man. Now imagine a team of 4-5 such people and no one's listening to the other. I was  sick of that.

So I stopped working with such groups and it was good. It was better than good. I was creating so much wealth. Health was good, I was happy. I was getting strong emotionally and my rhythm was so nice. I really respond to a culture of nourishment. And I find that kind of a certain warmth in women's teams. I am a girl's girl and unlike that cliche that two women can't be friends...I can. I have. If I have sustained this long after losing my mom, working 18 hour days, it's because the women I worked with...they weren't friends or anything...they didn't even know I was grieving. But they were there. They showed up for me...for the writer who was helping them in their work.

And this all macho guy gangs...they will not get on your side, nor will they get out of the way. And if ever an opportunity arose to let you know that you were being an inconvenience and difficult, they didn't let that opportunity pass.

So why did I choose to work with them? Because I got it in my head to oversee my bias. I know that some people have strong reservations against me. And for the longest time I wondered why didn't they just get over it. But as one knows, everyone is pretty much a mirror for all the gunk you carry. If I saw pathological stubbornness there, I absolutely have it in me.

But even in that Caviar Club of Narcicissm, I thought three of them weren't like that. And today I sensed that I may have been wrong.

It was really gutting. Of course, I am old enough to know that people don't hurt you. Your expectations of people do. And just as they have their behaviour, I have my biases. There's no point in hating the haters or getting so sick that I can't get out of bed.

And then, one guy who is working on a different project called me. He is a really nice graphic artist. I don't know...I have never met him or never will. He hasn't met me. And we know each other only for two weeks now. He may have sensed something in my voice. So with a lot of gentleness he asked me if he should call later. And he waited for an answer. I felt so overwhelmed. I think in the whole month or so, he was the only person who was talking to me about my work unrushed. He waited. I said sure and we finished work. I thanked him a little too earnestly I think. I might have scared him a bit. I had to finish something for him 6 hours earlier but I didn't because I was busy trying to get replies to my emails from those other groups who are curiously never out of time to tell me how busy they are. Too busy to help me out for projects they have recruited me for. I felt so guilty for delaying this other guy's work that I asked him generally about his other projects...just to see if there was something else I could assist with. And if my storyboard was okay for him. He was so sweet. 

In his broken Hindi and English he asked me to explain something if I didn't mind.

He asked me about my email signature. I sign off with this phrase, "Amor Fati". He asked me what it means. I was so surprised. In all these years, maybe 3 people have asked me that. And one of them was Ma. 

I told him that it was Latin for Love your fate or destiny. Tried to explain the Stoic philosophy as best as I could.

Then he hung up. 

I realised why I had taken on the projects I had. Because I lived in a world so fractured by people who are convinced that they are entitled to their pain. And this kind of pain only comes from prejudice. One day I had told my father that I will never talk to a section of people again. My father quoted Gerald Durell who had gone to concentration camp. When they asked him if he had wanted the Germans dead or whether he despised them, he said that he didn't hate in plurals. 

 I was getting prejudiced. That's just living with an albatross round your neck. And no matter how I live, I definitely intend to die free. And I can't do that believing that I have all the reason in the world to write off people. I was ready to just walk off from all of them today. But this one call and this one question made me smile. This guy was so simple. And that's what made him a kind, observant teammate. 

So, I think I just have to dial back a lot. Take things really slow. One lives in hope.

Still, dear God. I really have had enough. It shouldn't have to be THID painful. I just can't carry on like this anymore. 

I will have coffee now with chocolate.

†***"**

Had coffee. Thought about all the people as a mirror. Every single thing I am complaining about, I have had someone say that about me. Hmm. There's work to be done.

I will call that sample guy tomorrow. Maybe I will share the link to this article. 😀 mm

Memory 3 - A lady, a life, a lesson

Many years ago Mumbai did not have a metro and the trains from Churchgate were always crowded. Ladies would hurl themselves into the compartment first and then hurl their purses to catch a seat in the train, and once seated would open their little tiffin boxes to eat morsels of sustenance to tide them through long, endless journeys.

6:30 pm train from Churchgate to Bandra. Packed. 

You can smell 7 armpits at a minimum. Regular women's rowdiness. Someone yelling 'tera marad toh kucch nahin karta...' in anger on losing the window seat. (Literally translated it means that your man cannot do anything. The phrase here I think refers to the man's sexual incompetence. One never asked because one would be responded to. In detail. Anyway, some women are very insulted by this slight. This window-seat usurper was not. She opened her newspaper packet of sookha bhel and started eating.) 

Someone else was squished at the entrance of the compartment. She seemed to be pressed deep into that tinny door and seemed to be in pain. Her squisher was a young girl with headphones who didn't bother to look around and almost beheaded a few people when she swung her purse over her shoulder. The squishee was yelling 'Aye halkat, tereko bahar phainku kya?' (You idiot - in slang. Shall I throw you out?) 

Then a few more choice abuses were hurled somewhere else in the compartment and the local started. 

This was a fast train so it wouldn't stop at all stations. Also, in very crowded trains like this, regulars had a rule of not allowing more than 3 people at any station. After 3 women had squeezed in, these women would form a barrier and block everyone else. The crowd left on the station would shout blue murder but the train would have zipped on by then. 

And inside a very strange kind of peace and quiet would descend on us passengers who remained on board. Something about high-pressure cruel conditions of existence can soothe us all - as long as we are doing it together without talking to one another.

If you weren't a regular, this could be traumatic. And one day, one such irregular traveler was a woman in her mid to late 60s. She wore a crisp sari and carried a dirty-old blood brown handbag. She was very obviously a newbie in the train. But she had on sensible slippers and her sari was slightly hitched up. You could sense that she obviously walked a fair bit. 

Maybe she was a regular on a bus. And in Bombay, you could make that out. People who mainly traveled by buses. And people who mainly traveled by trains. Both encountered crushing crowds and general harassment...but the ones who traveled by trains were sturdier. We were the cactus to the bus travelers' aloe vera, if you know what I mean. We were just a little more hardened and didn't care too much that we were. The bus travelers could still snap and melt if it got too much.   

When she got in, a crowd of young girls helped her in, made space for her and told her that they would push her out when her station came so that she didn't miss it. Yes, shoving someone out was an act of assistance and no one raised an eye-brow. Then another stop came. This lady saw these girls block out women from entering the compartment. This appalled her. These things didn't happen in the train. The conductor would do all this for the people. In the locals, people took matters into their own hands.

She said something to the effect that why are you all so selfish. This stung one of them - the prettiest one with the smoothest hair and soft candy gloss on her lips. "At your age, you would have been trampled," she said. "You are so old you could have died if we didn't bring you in", she said. "You are so old and you are taking up so much space. Because you are so old." The other girls started sticking up for their friend. The lady continued to argue. She said that even though she was old she was still able to walk. She still could carry her bag and she still had places to go to. The pretty girl then said, "Why are you talking? You are so old you should shut up. Just shut up. You are so old." This young girl's face was maybe inches away from that older lady's face and she was yelling into it.  

At this point, everyone started feeling that the hostility was getting a little out of hand. That girl's friends tried to calm her down. I told that lady to squeeze behind me and just get away from those girls. And...the clincher - the woman who had made numerous observations about other women and their marads even offered her the seat. (If you are not familiar with this environment, let me just put it out there that people would be more willing to give up a kidney than offer a seat.) 

The old woman was getting tired, she was shaking slightly and was getting slightly incoherent. Then it was her turn to get down Some of the girls very willingly shoved her off. The pretty girl shouted out one last time, "You argue too much for such an old person. God knows how you must be at home! Nagging all the time!"

The old lady was moving through the crowd that had exited the train then. But determined to have a last word she turned and shouted back, "Nobody talks to me at home. Nobody. Nobody."

The train zipped on.

Bad dreams but day goes on

 I had a very bad dream in the afternoon. I generally work through the night and take a nap in the afternoon. I saw Ma and she was sad. It was a bad dream. I remember just hugging her and holding her. But she was sad. And then I woke up and my father said that he is going out tomorrow. I don't approve one bit but...I mean, no one here is really looking for my permission to do what they like. 

Anyway, I had to have a few calls in the evening. And one of them went really well. It is such a Irish pleasure when you and a visual designer connect. I can't explain it.So much is made of 'love at first sight'and all that - but when I meet someone who can give visuals to my words, I just feel like there is some meaning in my life. That was good.

Then I had another call. And it went on longer than I expected but I learned a lot in that time. Those are the best bits I feel in a workday...when you just log in for a regular call but you come out with a little bit of marvel of what you didn't know.

Then of course I needed to really, really talk to my friend. So I called up J who was about to go for a late-night walk and then off to bed. And I have no clue how we got started talking about masturbation and she thinks it is not a good idea. I think it is. I think overall, sex is a stupid idea. I mean...maybe it has its place and all that. But really - I feel that our culture has just built it up way too much. Like I don't understand this great pain and divide over sexless marriages. I feel that that's the best kind of marriage...one can talk, connect, be silent, give space, etc. Unless you want kids...and even then, there are so many around. But really - this documentation around adoption in India -man! (The process just has to be easier for those of us who want to adopt. It is too tough and too much. And whatever that psychological audit the counsellors want you to do - especially for single women...I think it is unfair. It is a very good exercise but it's...not really correct, I think. I mean...how can anyone predict what kind of a parent you can be? Predict to the point of certainty? But yes, a baby is a very special entity. Too important to take a chance with.)

Anyway, back to sex. I was learning yoga in Bangalore. A teacher would come to teach me at home. One day she very gently asked me if I got guests home. I said yes and talked a little bit about my friends. Then she coughed and asked me if men came over. I said sometimes. I mean I didn't have any guy friends there but maybe a couple of them had hung out. Then she sensed that I was probably not getting her point and just came right out and said that I needed to 'have sex' because it was good for health, mood, and hormone. I disagreed. Maybe I come from the school of thought (or Convent school, to be precise) that abstinence is far more powerful than sex can be. Also, less of a hassle and all that. Then my friend had also said that women really need to copulate to be hormonally balanced, etc. But I don't know. I think sex is like green tea...overhyped, over-marketed, and very dubiously positioned as being good for health. I am not entirely opposed to either but if it really has to be good, it has to be authentic - not the random, everyday stuff that is so commonly available. And I genuinely think that it is not for everyone. 

But it is quite unnecessary. J feels like we give too much thought to it. And I am anyway messed up because of my Convent education. Well, she may have a point.

I have nearly 8 large projects to complete over the weekend and I have started feeling overwhelmed. But there is a thing that I have started praying for. I have started praying for a very specific strength - the strength to surrender. Not like a loser who wants to avoid the pain. Like a swimmer who dives into the ocean and gets lifted up. 

I generally like to take on more than I can chew. But even for my standards, the current volume of work and calls and online meetings and proposals and storyboards and content calendars and negotiations is feeling like it is too much. But maybe this is the extent of what I feel I can do based on past experience. Maybe it is time to stretch and fly. Always better to experiment with work rather than sex. That's for sure.

Maybe I will come through the other side with peace. There's this thing I read that gives me solace: "Who you think you are cannot handle the challenges you face; but who you really are can and will."

I will find out. 

Uff

 I really need a manager. Just someone sweet and funny and efficient who will manage my schedule and fill out agreements and send out timesheets and sit in for status update meetings where the upshot usually is, "Nothing much has happened in a very long time and now the deadline is softly grazing our cheek."

Dear Universe, please send someone my way. Now. 

Anyway, all's good in the hood. One tries to stay upbeat. 

I probably will have a call with a friend with who I am planning to collaborate on something. Or we will work independently on our passion projects individually. But I am really looking forward to it.

Some weeks are just filled with days where you are fighting fires so you can work peacefully over the weekend. 

But I did want to go out. Let's see. I haven't finished what I had planned to do. So I will just wrap up now. It has been ages since I enjoyed the darkness of the night.

Am sure it will ease up sweetly soon. And a manager will come my way. 

Fingers crossed and eyes closed.

Memory 2 - Downpour in the foyer

 I don't remember being a happy teenager. Many times when I think of my college days, I sense being too unfit for anything, anyone, any circumstance. It just felt as if I was carrying a dark hunk of granite inside me all the time.

It's quite a marvel how I managed to do the coursework, graduate in Sociology, and even make friends. How I could say hello, have a chat, form a connection...I don't remember being pleasant. But I remember people hanging out with me.

One of them was a girl called Alka. I think she was in my college for only 1 year or so. She was a huge fan of Shobhaa De and wanted to write novels like her. I didn't really like Shobhaa De too much until I read 'Sisters'. Then I found her voice fresh and observational. 

Anyway, it so happened that Alka actually wrote a book and brought a whole sheaf of handwritten pages to our Political Science class. These classes would be held on the terrace and although the classes were dull, the daydreaming was gold. We had glass doors and windows and you could see the pointy steeple-like tops of the Art Deco buildings that pepper town, especially near VT station. It used to get really hot in summers, cool in winters, but during the Bombay rains... that's when it got gorgeous.

We would see thick, deep grey clouds hang in patches overhead. We'd see rains lash out across the glass panes. The windows would clatter as if they would break or get unhinged any minute. It would be so loud - the rain and the roar of the wind that classes would often get dismissed because the professor could not be heard over the din of a season that meant business. 

During one such day, when classes had been suspended, I started reading Alka's story. It was a sweet, simple story of a sweet, simple girl. I stopped midway and asked Alka if the rest of the story would pan out a certain way. I listed a couple of plot points that were similar to what was going on in her life. She said yes. I then asked her why write a book about yourself? There's nothing new in the book for anyone who knows you.

"No one knows me."

I don't know why I remember that phrase so vividly. That plaintive, definitive way in which she said, "No one knows me." I think she was also sad about no one wanting to know her either, unless it was neatly and conveniently laid out bare in a book. I don't remember if I countered her with, "But I know you." Looking back I sense that I didn't matter.

When people say 'No one...' like that, they usually mean 'Someone...'

I handed over the pages to her and told her to insert a murder or a crime midway. As an editorial suggestion, it was junk and received that way.

The rain had stopped and the class resumed. I drifted off.

By the time the class had ended, it was bright, hot, and sunny. Around this time, I had started flaking off from college quite a bit. So I thought that I would just get out of college and return home. And flake off there. 

Alka stayed elsewhere but we both took trains from VT. As we were walking out, Alka held my elbow and pulled me back. She pointed to the sky and told me to look there. 

I did.

I didn't see anything.

Then she pointed again and said, "Rain."

Right at one end of the wide, bright blue sky, there was a splotch of grey. Sure enough, that grey had started spreading. As I watched, that grey splotch tore across the blue like a rip in a stocking. And then suddenly, even as we watched, the entire sky was overcast again. And it poured. Not just poured. It thumped with rain. Incessantly.

Alka and I waited in the foyer. Went to the canteen and got coffee. And a couple of hours later, we left for home.

Today I came across a quote that is crafted to spread optimism I guess. It goes, "Every storm runs out of rain."

I think of Alka and that very ordinary day and how she pointed out something that made me look, made me remember, and made me realise the speciality of 'Nooneness' all at the same time.

So, in memory of that day, I hope that every storm moves with a belly full of rain always 

A little party at midnight

 Brother's birthday.

Got an olive focaccia loaf that we cut at midnight. (He didn't want anything sweet.) 

He cut it, we had some bread late at night, and then sat around chatting for an hour and a half. It was nice. I think a family taking around a dining table - it's one of the small pleasures that you cherish as days go by.

Memory 1: That dress in that orange-red hue

Paris airport.

Flight delayed. 

I wait, my stomach in knots. I am really nervous about my client meeting in Geneva. I feel scattered. A ton of documents to go through and there was a muck-up with my flight ticket so there was a delay there and I had to finish off another project before I traveled. So all in all...my mind is in a million folders and half-finished Word documents. 

I am hungry and parched. 

I want something hot, spicy and quiche-like and large. And a warm, sweet, spicy drink. I have been off meat and liquor for a while. Otherwise a good toasted ham ad cheese sandwich, a glass of red, and a side of hash brown with bacon bits or pasta with sausage and white sauce would have been ideal.

 
And then there is the issue of the wi-fi at Orly airport which is either there or not, free or not, for you or not - who can tell. I try to remember my French and squint at the three lines of instructions with varying accents - only to understand that you must contact the airport authorities for assistance. And whatever I observed of the airport authority, they were surly, rude, very well-dressed, and possessive of the wi-fi. It was small mercy that they were equally abrasive with everyone - the German business traveler, the British mum with two very, very cute children, a group of three young people of indeterminate nationality who seem as if they have featured in random ads that require happy young people playing volleyball on the beach. And me.

So I was hungry, thirsty, nervous, and exhausted. Although I do like my eyes sunken and with dark circles and all, the sunkenness had achieved a crater look that was the stuff make-up artists win awards for, for gothic movies. 

I got a measly burger and tepid coke. Ate with dissatisfaction and wandered around. 

Then I saw her. 

I can only say 'her' because she really was too beautiful to be called a 'dress'. She was draped on an alabaster-like mannequin in a loving, daring mush of tangerine and cherry shade, woven and spun with wool and satin, mid-calf length, cinched waist, a deep neck, and soft flutter sleeves that would change the direction of the wind with their genteel cut. 

She was an Hermès.

 
They say that you know it is love when it makes you 'dare'. You go where you haven't been before. You go there willingly, disregarding the mutiny of your mind and heart, your old beliefs and your fresh new wants...you go. 

She was out of my league except that I had loved Hermès ever since I was a little girl and I played with my mom's scarves. I was always told they were very expensive and special. And those scarves themselves would be wrapped in silk my mu would especially buy to keep the scarves in. 

So Hermès had my quiet devotion as that intangible thing one aspired to be worthy of someday. And that 'someday' was certainly not that day with my heavy laptop and weathered clothes.

But I don't know. Maybe it was the fatigue, the overwhelm, the futility of planning and waiting, the hunger - or just the nobility of her silhouette, that I went inside the store.

Now a Hermès store is always stocked with beautiful things. But this dress was coated with a angelic halo. I stood next to the mannequin. Then I wiped my hand down my ratty sweatshirt and jeans. Then I stood and looked and waited. 

And then, I touched. And then, she responded.

That fabric, those seams, and this close I noticed tiny little rosettes embroidered along the hems of the sleeves and the skirt. Everything about the dress was soothing and gracious. Even the neckline that seemed to plunge deep was coquettish in the way the fabric overlapped and gave it a wrap-dress pattern. I can't say for sure - but she even smelled of sandalwood and roses. 

It's like you enter a crowded temple of pedestrian beauty and you find yourself in the sanctum sanctorum of the mesmerizing goddess herself and all the crowd has melted away. So I just stood there, touching the fabric.

I hadn't noticed her but the store lady startled me. She looked at me with the kindest grey-green eyes and asked me, "You like?" 

I nodded. I think if I had spoken anything then, I would have cried. 

Anyway, if I ever knew that one's time was up, it was then. I said "Merci" and was about to move away, when she asked me, "Would you like to try it?" 

In the spirit of the love that makes you want to do daring, foolish things, I found myself in the changing room. 

That room itself -you wouldn't guess that it was in the middle of such a bustling airport. There was a buttery, champagne coloured wall-paper, a stool with horses and harps embroidered in crimson, a door with a bright blue handle that cleverly masked the Hermès 'H'. 

I wore it and whatever angel was giving this gorgeous column of fabric a halo at the entrance was right there in the dressing room, nodding her approval. I mean, sure, I have worn well-fitted, expensive clothes before. And sure, I knew in theory, that a dress when cut to your shape really does wonders. But this was beyond magic. It was not just cut to the shape of my body, it was cut to shape of something else about me. It's like this. If I had to be the muse of a deep artist or a wonderful poet, if I could inspire that artist or poet to create something so magical that he would transform the world - if I could do that...then this dress fit that 'I'. And the fact that it did fit me, meant that that 'I' existed. Not just in me. In the person who had never known me and designed the dress. In the fingers of the seamstress who sewn it. In the lady whose grey-green eyes asked me to try it on. 

How very many people have to see the beauty in you without meeting you that they create something like this. That you find something half-way across the world in the middle of a brain-fog to get that lease of life. 

It was 7000 Euros. And she was very, very worth it. 

I did not have that kind of cash. So I took off the dress and sat on the stool holding her for some time. 

She was beautiful because she was kind. She was beautiful not because she shamed you into fitting her. She was beautiful because she was generous enough to fit you.

Anyway, I stroked it very tenderly, got dressed again (it was hard getting into that sweatshirt and jeans) and stepped out. 

That lady was there, smiling. I handed it over and said that it was a very beautiful dress and thank you. But I would not be taking it. 

She smiled so sweetly and said, "But you feel better?" 

I said yes. (I hadn't imagined that angel.)

I returned to the rows of travelers sitting on the floors near charging sockets because some 4 more flights were canceled and the passengers were choking the aisles, etc. 

The dress had gone back on the mannequin. The lady with grey-green eyes was back at the register. 

And one really tired person in a very crowded airport suddenly felt so good about her journey going forward. It was going to be all tangerine and cherries from now on.  

 

November begins

It was a good day.

Visited a friend on Sunday. Had a good time.Spoke to her fish. And ate palak khichdi after a really long time. 

Spoke to a friend this morning. It was nice. 

A quick list of things that I really would like to own if I live past 2020:

1. The white sequinned dress from Zara. In fact a ton of stuff from Zara. I fact I would like to have a really solid wardrobe overhaul where I have a closet full of beautiful sequinny stuff. Colours, sequins, and shimmer. It takes skill, art, great taste to take all this and make it look subdued - and it is possible. My closet will reflect this possibility. 

2. Great stationery. Maybe a lot of stuff from Hobonichi. The Hobonichi stationery has been o my list for a while now. I would like to have that.

3. Paint something in my house. Maybe the ceiling in swirls and roundels of blue, lavender, blush, and dove-gray 

Getting tired now and lots to do to get through the day. This is it for now.