Happy diwali and all that

I am not the festival celebrating kind… as in I love being part of it.. but I like to pretend I do it as a chore. Somehow conforming to the ritualistic nature of it always got me down. I didn’t like that it had to be done cos for generations we have been doing it and it’s a happy time, so we must do it. I would much prefer it if someone said it’s a chance to make merry and indulge ourselves. That’s all it was to me anyway. My middle class home had a mother who worked in a bank. And every year she would have applied for the diwali scheme which meant that at the time of diwali.. we all got a humungous diwali cracker package worth 3000 rupees. Every year 3000 rupees. And it had all these goodies and I used to make her exchange the sweets box for an extra box of crackers at the local shop. So we didn’t have to eat badly prepared non-traditional sweets and got to eat the yummy hot ones mom made at home, while we had more crackers to burst.

Even arguments against the noise and air pollution they caused didn’t touch a chord within me beyond a point. For in a tam bram household, very rarely did one indulge in something that was inherently wasteful. You didn’t laugh loudly, you didn’t make special dishes every week and you definitely didn’t buy new kinds of products just cos you liked the ad you saw on tv. Everything was weighed down by The Wait. We were made to wait for our first doll, first bicycle, first telephone, first television. It was ensured that every consecutive generation somehow miraculously gleaned the collective gravity of The Wait of all the previous generations. There has probably not been a single diwali when my dad and mom haven’t sat us down and told us how when they were kids they couldn’t sleep all night cos for the first time in the entire year they would get new clothes and guess what that would be – a new uniform set for school. Those were trying times and I’m sure it was rather tough growing up then.. but we didn’t care. It wasn’t our job to continue revering another’s hardship.

We wanted to burst crackers. Make some deafening noise and revel in the boundarylessness of that. No one could reprimand us for it was the nature of the ritual to make noise. We would wake up at 4 am and sit on teak wood palaghas while patti sat us down and rubbed hot oil into every pore of the body. Gleaming and slipping off red oxide floors all of us would be lined up one by one and given one pittale sombu full of hot water by patti.. and then we could use our ‘modern’ soaps and rub ourselves down. The early morning smell of manjal and nall-eNNai was heady. It told us.. it was time to celebrate. It would stay with us the whole day. Recasting our skins in new textures, the ritual changed the air around us. Suddenly malli-poo clad hair was but natural. We left our convent school sensibilities and dove right in to the traditional.

It isn’t so much the festival as the air it created – clean, sparkling, crackling and new. To be felt from the surface of our skins and radiating outwards. Like vaseline lined camera lenses in real life – or maybe my myopic eyes magically created the soft glow around everyone. It was a perfumed time, kissed by sunlight and the easy boundlessness of our innocence. Skipping along, we never knew we might need the images for nostalgia.

Un-tweetable Shortie

Stray silences and distant 'ayi-je's suddenly shake her reverie. Squatting inside the blue and yelllow bathroom, she realises even her happiness is dysfunctional.

Sigh now. It's the end of an era.

Bandra. Neel. Bandra. Work. Bandra. And then some.

The end of wanton mornings, and hopelessly over-longed for evenings.. of weird new house parties, and truck driver's hangouts. Of mothering myself, mothering another, being un-mothered and then mothering some more.

Its going to be a new freedom now. Freedom from negative labour, negative card balances and an overload of carbs. Now for some of that thing they call family life, whatever that is. It's been too long, I've forgotten what it is. Not that I regret not having it much.. but there's a new pining. A pining for a tiny hot meal after 400 hours of ugly airports and over-done hostesses. Of no time to sleep and too much time to read without the power to concentrate. Of too much hard disk space wasted without time to watch. Of a perenially poor larder and walls that insist on growing. I'm over saturated now.. like my bedroom wall.. retaining too much water.

Now it's the time for padding up the wallet, and unpadding the seat of my pants.. of shared nights and also, shared mornings. Of having many things to get away from at the start of the day and returning to chirpiness at the end of it. Look forward, without teteering on thin ice. Unlock the dreams stocked up, let go rather than grasp desperately.

6 years of wantonness.. and now I'm done. Working on life is bloody hard work.. I'm happy to share the load. Now for some of that 'reaping the fruits'.

Oh! To be able to tuck in at night and wait for sleep to come.

Lists

Its been a whirlwind 4 months now and I haven't had the time to sit and think about it. And it doesn't promise to stop for another month. Life has relentlessly dished out event after event. And suddenly without warning she threw a week into my lap. A week to sit and think and do as I would 'ideally have done it'. And that's just it.. I don't know what to do it the moment the road ahead is clear and unhurried. I am so used to running off into what-could-have-beens that when I actually get the chance to do it, I'm lost. And no it's not because 'I'm happiest when I'm whiny' as some cynics would like to believe.

This sudden expansion of time into an unbounded, lazily meandering, weightless thing of sorts makes my mind explode with the possibilities. Suddenly things that seemed like they belonged to a different time and space, and to the different person I was, seem awfully close enough to be touched. Time decided to stop rapping on my knuckles and stopped to stand next to me. And so, this has turned into a barmy, deliciously lazy indulgence. And it seems criminal to load it with another set of chores, another set of duties and timelines.

Lists. Those delightfully back-breaking creatures women love to load themselves with. Helping us find our feet, telling us that we can actually let out our desires on endlessly repeated uncurling of 5 unmanicured fingers on each hand, and put them out there. On a piece of paper, cyberspace or phone conversation. Giving us the chance to allow ourselves this very moment of utter helplessness against the machinery of the everyday.

A list is a testimonial to all that is womanly about us. Especially those who make themselves strong enough to bring multiple worlds together. Its not a search for perfection, its the sound of our endless hunger for life. Letting us live out our daily sexual hunger for life, helping us pepper it with things to look forward to, so that the immediate doesn't seem so bad.

And so, what I do with this sudden bounty of time, is make lists of all the things I want for my next 'sudden bounty of time'. For when life will proceed without my intervention, and yet leave me sated enough to want to look outside. I like living too much to not get affected by the disharmony I currently reside in. Ironically enough, I want to be grounded enough to allow myself to scatter. That is why running out of a list of things undone seems like such a pitiful situation to be in.

What we 'independent free thinking women' of today want is in reality to not be calm, to not be serene and sated. Its criminal to have come this far to sit back and 'settle down'. When things are made permanent it just means there is one thing out of our way, so we can move on to the next. That's why shiny happy people scare me. Not because they aren't dark or 'twisted' enough to be cynical. Not because they are simple or stupid. I envy their mental simplicity. But I'm afraid that if i ever get there it would mark the beginning of the end of my hunger.

So the point-and-smirk-ers may please stand aside and glue their mouths shut.. I have a list to rewrite.

That elusive bitch

It's 1.27am as I sit down to write. I've got my trusty cup of tea, some music from the playlist I call 'mellow' and 4 pieces of something I dare not mention. And the music is speaking to me again.. that heartless bastard of a thing - refuses to come to me unless I get to it first. I am not and have never been the kind of person who could break into song at the drop of a hat - or had songs suddenly play in my head because of a mood or a setting or a conversation. Somehow she always makes me go to her, never comes over willingly.

For the last 7 years of my life it's been bothering me that I have lost the ability to put a song writer, song name and piece of music together. I know all of them and yet I know none. Similarly with authors and their work. Or other artists for that matter. I don't know how I manage to consume different parts of one piece of work at different points of time. Its bizarre and infinitely annoying. Someone gave me a fancy sounding name for this problem, but that just makes me even more uncomfortable.

I spend hours, days even 'sorting' out my music. I spend long auto rides pondering this unsettling phenomenon. Why do I simultaneously know and not know something I love so dearly - what does it make me? There have been instances where I've opened my mouth and heard myself confidently declare things that are wrong.

..

And suddenly like that, I forgot what I wanted to say next.

Another year comes and goes, and I've got ingrowth in my toes.

A new year has begun. The last one ended. Tumultuous it was. And it left casting its long shadow on this one. Telling me once again to stand up, scratch out the cruds and open it for the sun to get a long burning look at it.

Designing arguments is merely one skill. It probably makes people take notice, not get things done. Its tough carrying so much on a pair of narrow shoulders. The number of people I have to be has only increased over time. In a bid to reduce the number, I ended up multiplying it. Those who throw their hands up in the air are probably smarter than the likes of me.

But thats just it. This is who I am. And theres no changing it. I cant do it any other way. I dont want to. Even after all this much. Apparently good things come to those who wait. What they dont tell you is it doesnt mean you can just stand and watch. And just like that, I landed up in a brand new home. Bringing the promise of new beginnings, old closets cleaned up and things like that. And yet, its been a chore in this fabulously fucked up city of ours. Putting things together with 2 hands, a forced imagination and a rapidly thinning wallet. But once in a while it pays up.

Its an unexpectedly pretty day today..the walls of this new house suddenly seem to slowly want to come alive..my kitchen smells of familydom…slowly seeping into every other room…filled with the sounds of happy chirpy voices…something that is probably regular feature in normal households. I have been away from this for a while now. Trying vaguely to replace it with random television noises...and sometimes with the loudness of my own thoughts. I cant speak aloud to myself…have never been able to. Its like singing in the bathroom I suppose, an act of generally being comfortably lost in oneself. The idea of being vocal while happy is something that always seemed impossible for me to do.

As I sit here in this new whitewalled, old smelling new house in a corner on a private road surrounded by one fir tree and several other nameless ones that are commonly found, an odd stray dog or two, netted windows that allow light to escape, but not images..as I sit in one such place, there is a calm weariness that sits itself on the contours of my skin…the back of my knees, the curve of my ankle. I am 27 now..a step away from 3 decades of existence. Ive lead so many double lives..sometimes its tough to know which identity im living at that moment..am I the rebel that ran away or the rebel that entered another life..a girl that wants to be married..or a girl that wants to not want to marry anymore..i don’t know. There is a weird equilibrium of the improper kinds..maybe ive lived in limbo so long that I cant really fathom a life of permanence.. I concoct new goals, new destinations to be reached..cos I crave the unfinished-ness of a life of limbo. Or do i? I don’t know. Maybe im just livng out a cliche i have pinpointed to myself yet.

It would be great if I were just that. It would be great if atleast one of the things I do makes me feel like im doing something that’s obviously normal.

I heard this chet baker song yesterday…it felt like it managed to contain everything about everyone’s life. Maybe music can encapsulate what words can only begin to attempt.

Its weird the calm im feeling today. Maybe one of the dreams from the last 2 years just came true..fell into place without warning. There is something so dreamy about this moment..surreal. ive got my prettiness lying in exhausted stupor mostly..in the other room. And here I am with jazz, smoke and yellow light, I realize I will probably end up being the girl I always wanted to be. Ive reached my ideal equilibrium. I must capture this fully…eat it up, drink it and let it seep in. Before the next turn comes my way. Soon he will be with me everyday. And we can have silly fun on weekends..fulfilling conversations, pretty, comfortable sleeps. A life no more within silent improper walls, no more in waiting. Someday. Soon.