Oh, to be a poem.

I day dream a lot.
Sometimes it’s a boon, and other times, it’s not.

Take my last day dream, for instance.
It just occurred to me by chance.

What if I was a poet’s muse?
Someone whose mind I’d wander in, without any excuse?
One day, he’d see me sitting in a garden amongst the flowers
He would liken me to a rainbow, peeking out after heavy showers.
One day, he’d think of me as a star in the night sky
Maybe would smile looking up at me, maybe he would cry.
One day, he’d think I was an artist with endless hues
Only with the color of love on my brush, should he so choose.
One day, he’d imagine me to be the biscuit in his chai
Just right, not too soggy, neither too dry.

I wake up from my daydream as a car honks at me on the street.
I realize I’m walking alone, the breeze rustling my hair, my heart skipping a beat.
I’m just a girl, I tell myself again and again.
I’m a character, yes, but perhaps not the main?

My mind whispers, “but what if you are?”
It might be just a dream, but it can take you so far.
To a world where you’re a poem, a muse
Even if you don’t come back from there,
What do you even have to lose?

Why I Ghosted My Therapist

*One new message*
*Two new messages*
*Three new messages* 

I was sitting on my bed in my tiny, ends-before-it-begins Mumbai apartment trying to see if the dark spot on my ceiling was mold or dust, when my phone made the sound I’m still unfamiliar with. Given that my phone has been on silent since 2009, it’s still relatively new for me to hear the unapologetic ding of a new text message. But I digress. 

The dings went on, and it sounded to me as though they were getting more and more desperate. “Please. Please, not her.” I mumbled to myself while I braced myself for feeling deeply uncomfortable. 

It was her. Yvonne.

“When are we meeting next?” 

“Can we talk next Saturday?”
“Let me know when you are free.”

I told myself I could do this. I could be a big girl and tell Yvonne I wasn’t interested anymore. I had nothing to be ashamed of. But I did what any avoidance pro would do. That damned dark spot, I thought. It’s more important right now. Unlike Yvonne, it wouldn’t judge me. Also, I still needed to find out if it was dust or mold- the conclusion was still up in the air. And on my ceiling. 

I grabbed an old tshirt to try to clean it myself, but my mind was more on leaving a text unread. I can never do this, by the way- my inbox always has to be free of unread emails, my phone must be free of all unread notifications. While I half heartedly spanked the ceiling with the t-shirt, the mother of all horrid thoughts popped into my head- what if Yvonne decided to call because I wasn’t replying? I grabbed my phone, took a deep breath, and opened the chat. 

Yvonne was a good woman. I met her through a friend, who thought she was perfect for me. Everyone knows finding the right therapist is harder than finding the right man- sorry, SATC- and my friend had high expectations from this alliance. Our first meeting, Yvonne spent 30 minutes telling me all about herself. What she studied, where she worked, her achievements…impressive, I thought, but maybe coming on a little strong. Still, I figured she was owed another chance. After all, I badly needed a therapist, and she was one. 

My second meeting with Yvonne was mildly better- but it did feel like she was trying to become my spiritual guide. Her advice was as deep as the water that pools at the bottom of a freshly washed cup: “Oh, just don’t think about it.” she said when I told her about my job hunting anxiety. Or “Everyone has to compromise” when I told her about my struggle with being myself in a new family. No shit, Sherlock. I bet even the daily horoscope in the newspaper gives better advice than this. And I don’t have to fork out 2000 bucks after reading it. 

Four sessions and 8000 why-am-i-spending-money-on-you rupees later, I gave myself a little liberty to vent to my best friend, S. I figured she’d get it, because she was seeing Yvonne too. Turns out, I wasn’t the only one counting red flags. She’d been very pushy with S, too- constantly texting and trying to set the next appointment, giving advice that wasn’t too different than a fortune cookie, and also rescheduling appointments 5 minutes before they were about to begin. The ice is getting too thin, S warned. She’d been too patient with Yvonne- perhaps even more than she’d been with a boyfriend. 

As far as I knew, S had already told Yvonne they were done- for good. I framed my best break-up text in my head and started typing. “Hey Yvonne, sorry for the delay in responding.” Wait- too much. It’s only been 7.5 minutes since she messaged. I tried again. “Hey Yvonne, it’s not you it’s me, but…” Wait- it was her, it wasn’t me. Once more. “Hey Yvonne, I just thought of something fun- roses are red, violets are blue, your advice is dead, and I’m out too.” I laughed. Better delete this and send her something formal and vague, I thought. And pressed send. 

Unadulterated panic hit me as I saw the single tick quickly turn into a double tick. Serves me right, I thought. So much for being formal and vague. With shaking hands, I managed to delete the message (God bless WhatsApp updates!) before she saw it. But now that I had sent (and deleted) a text, I could no longer put this off. 

“Hey Yvonne. Just wanted to let you know that I will be continuing my therapy sessions with my old therapist from now on. Thank you so much for your time and patience with me, I appreciate it. Have a good day and take care!” 

Pleased with myself, I sent the text. Immediately, I saw her come online and read it- which freaked me out. So I did what I will always be embarrassed of- I blocked her. I didn’t want her to try to convince me to do another session and try a different approach- which given my people pleasing tendencies would easily happen- or tell me that I had to be patient- or worse still, be understanding and let me go quietly. 

Whatever it was, a wave of guilty relief washed over me. I had officially called it quits with my therapist. Who knew I would end up in a way, ghosting my therapist? Given my lifelong search for irony, this was funny, but now I could at least spend my time on more important things- like that dark spot on my ceiling. Dust? Mold? The jury was still out, and so was I. Maybe some other time, I told myself, and walked out. 

The Nice Girl of Bombay

~ Dedicated to one of the nicest people I know

Bombay, the city where dreams come true
Was packed with bad people, and some good ones too.
The good ones were simple and kind, like me and you
And then there was the Nice Girl who everyone knew.

The Nice Girl loved to smile and say hello to friends and strangers
Her acts of kindness were often called ‘game changers’

Don’t believe me? Read on and you’ll see.

The Nice Girl was walking one fine morning to a café
When something happened without warning.
She said hello to a homeless man to brighten his day
The homeless man smiled back and waved
The Nice Girl looked into his eyes, and her dear heart caved!
She stopped to chat and be the Nice Person she was
But a group of more homeless people approached, making her pause.

They asked her for money in exchange for good energy
She only had 30 bucks, is that alright, wondered she?
The people shook their heads with disdain.
We get only 30 bucks, while you have so much to gain?
The Nice Girl tried her best to make them see.
This was all she had, but then they started laughing with glee.
We have UPI, they said.
Give us 5000, so we can all be fed.
The Nice Girl was scared, they were closing in on her.
But she gave them 1000 rupees, because she didn’t want to cause a big stir.

After a lot of nagging, they let her go.
And the Nice Girl wondered if she should have said a stern no.

But as she sat down to have her latte
She let it go and went on with her day.
Never said a bad word about any of them in any way
That’s how nice, was the Nice Girl Of Bombay.

Don’t ask her to take notes.

Don’t ask her to take notes in every meeting
Subtly force her to keep shut for the time being.
You got a woman in the room
But letting her voicing her opinions is still too soon.
Don’t avoid meeting her eyes when you discuss her work
Instead praising her male colleague, so he can be a bigger jerk.
You know she can’t react- she’s afraid of being called emotional
Erratic, crazy, psycho chick, or whatever feels more sensational.
Don’t pretend to be a feminist
When you’re unable to even co-exist.
Own your shallow self, instead?
Call yourself the misogynist, who women will dread.
Overreactions! This is why we don’t hire women, you say
You’re a valuable part of this team, and will be so every day
I promise, we will work on this as a team.
But for now, how about keeping your mouth shut, and taking the minutes of this meeting?

The F Word

It stinks up your marriage.

No, literally. It causes you to hurl abuses at each other, if not hurl your dinner out.

Of course, I’m talking about the dreaded ‘fart’. What were you thinking about?

The first fart in front of your partner is a game changer- because it paves the way for a life where farts are fast and loose, with a partner who can’t do anything but try to hold their breath through the pain.

I’ve always wondered how “free” I’d have been with my stomach rumbles had I not married someone I knew for a very long time- someone who I had crossed these milestones with during our dating period. Would I have rushed to a different room to let loose? Or would I have silently let one out without taking ownership of the toxicity that followed? Or would I just have given in and accepted the laughter and screeching that would come along with it? If I were a man, it wouldn’t even have been a question- farting is second nature to men- and that’s because of how normal it is- in their context.

I mean, there’s nothing wrong with a little flatulence. We should learn from all the Indian uncles we know- people who freely raise one hip to let out the loudest, smelliest puffs of air- and go on talking as if they didn’t just burn our nose hair.

Sadly, when you’re a “well-raised woman”, you don’t get the same privileges. When you talk about flatulence, other women yell- sheeee stop it! Or men stop finding you attractive. Or adults call you shameless. Hello, uncle-ji, what about the deadly green stroke of air you let loose at the last dinner at my house? I’m sure it poisoned the food, but sure, I’m the one who’s shameless.

I knew a girl in school who claimed she never farted, because that wasn’t something that women did. I questioned my own body quite a bit then, until a female cousin helpfully told me the girl was lying, or she was a mutant.

Thankfully, I married someone who is very comfortable with bodily functions- and has made me comfortable with them too. Sometimes I forget the F word is only limited to my husband and me, because when I use it in front of my mother, I usually hear- “watch your language, young lady!”

Oh, the F word. It can stink up our marriage, but it’s made me more okay with my body, and with being human, than I ever thought I would be.

Writing for whose sake?

Somebody once said something on the lines of “Do what you love, and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.” I took that seriously when I was younger, and thought becoming a writer was the best thing that could happen to me. After all, writing was cathartic. It was therapy. It was an outlet. It was, for the lack of a less-cliched word, my passion.

That is, until it became my job.

It always starts out good. No, it starts out great. I started out great too- young and bright-eyed at age 18, writing features for a big newspaper, being the wunderkind. It was a big ego boost. Pouring my heart out on paper, writing my opinions, getting praised for them, and knowing that hundreds- at the very least- were reading my words because they wanted to know what I had to say. It was a rush, a high that couldn’t be put into words- not even by me. “Making your passion your career is the best decision!” was my motto.

A decade has passed since then, and I don’t know what my stand is on that anymore. I write for a living, but I no longer feel like I live to write. That thought begs for the question- what are we writing for? Are we writing because this is a passion, or are we writing because now it’s just what we do- we write to sell something, anything, and we leave it at that. There’s no original POV, no personal touch, nothing. And somewhere, that’s okay, because some of us chose that kind of job. A job where words were only meant to sell a product, a service, and sometimes, even an emotion- but someone else’s, all the time. Never your own.

So write a blog, any normal person would say. Write a book. Write a show? Just get that creative hit elsewhere. That’s what I’m trying with this- and it’s not working. It’s almost like the writer in me has left the room- and has left the copywriter behind. The copywriter, who is too tired to follow the writer- because she’s always writing for someone else, making her voice sound like someone else’s, writing from someone else’s POV. The copywriter, who is just churning out quirky headlines or pretentious scripts because she just needs to pay her bills.

So what’s the next obvious solution, I wonder. Become a writer writer? But we can’t all become the next Enid Blyton or the next Khaled Hosseini. Start scribbling words in diaries to get the creative juices flowing? Perhaps. Something about that makes my ego hurt. I’m a writer, I tell myself. I can’t do things that people who want to “learn how to write” do. I get inspired by a child swinging from the branch of a tree or an old couple holding hands, I remind myself.

Except that doesn’t happen anymore. So maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t be the worst thing to start rambling in a diary or on this blog. And maybe I’ll remember how to be a writer again. And perhaps then, I’ll write a book.

Someday, I’m going to write myself out of the copywriter’s market. Someday. Maybe. And even if I don’t, at least my day dreams don’t belong to anyone else. Yet.

Bombay, meri jaan.

As a child, every time I saw a glimpse of Bombay in a movie, an ad, a poster, I wondered- why was everything here? Why did everyone go to Bombay to fulfill their dreams? To become someone? To fall in love? To live, like they’ve never lived before? Why did everyone believe in a city so much?

As an adult, I came with big dreams and bigger misconceptions to the city. To have my local Carrie Bradshaw moment. Honestly, I could not have been more naive, but still, whenever someone asked me if I’d move back to the comforts of home, I looked at them as if they were crazy. I could never explain it, but this city charmed me in a way I didn’t understand.

What happened today is just one of the many reasons I love Bombay.

It’s summer here, and boiling. Taking the train isn’t always appealing, and since we all just got our salary, I let myself indulge a little with a cab ride to work this morning. As I got into the cab, the driver sweetly wished me a good morning, and I plugged in my headphones, smiling to myself. A new week, new work, and whatever other cliche I can fit in here. Looking outside at the flowing traffic, I didn’t realize when the driver stopped at the side.

“Kya hua?”

“Madam, woh police wale ne bola ruko. Sorry. Main abhi aaya.”

I let it go, and resumed my blissful staring at the traffic. 20 minutes later, the driver returned- some traffic signal miscalculations. He started the car, and again, the cops came back for something. The poor man apologised again, and opened the door to talk to them.

That is when my heart nearly stopped.

A speeding two wheeler rammed straight into the open door, and the cabbie. In a split second, there was a flurry of deafening sounds- a loud crash, a snap, and a grown man’s screams. The agony in his voice was unbearable- he was severely injured. His bleeding hands made me tear up too, and desperately, I ran to help- in any way. He sank onto the sidewalk, holding his hand, crying his eyes out. Even going two steps closer to him scared me, his wails haunting me like little else had before.

A bunch of people gathered, and not to watch. Someone got water, someone brought a handkerchief to temporarily bandage his bleeding hand, someone caught the biker responsible.

One of the cops present there asked me to leave, and promised me they’d take care of him. There was no way he could still drive me, so I smiled at him and asked him to go to the doctor, and ran ahead. While I was weeping and staggering, another taxi driver stopped, and asked me to get in. No questions of where I wanted to go or if he wanted to go there or anything. Just a simple, “Aap chalo, main chodd deta hoon.”

He’d seen what happened, so he asked me a few questions, and then let me cry, the shock and horror of what I’d just seen hitting me. When we reached my destination, he refused to take money for the cab ride. I was flabbergasted- why wouldn’t he take the fare? To him, he was just helping a human being. To me, it was a wonderful deed. After a lot of cajoling, he let me pay him.

I know this sounds a bit much, but honestly, he didn’t have to help me out at all. He didn’t have to refuse payment. But in this city, everyone looks out for each other. Everybody has each other’s backs. Now tell me, who would not love Bombay?

Honestly, “Aye dil, hain mushkil, jeena yaha. Zara hatke, zara bachke, yeh hai Bombay, meri jaan” is true, but “Aye dil, hai aasan, jeena yaha, suno mister, suno bandhu, ye hai Bambai, meri jaan.” is truer.

Validation, where art thou?

I’ve always wondered how we cross the threshold into adulthood: no, I don’t mean physically, but mentally, emotionally, become an adult. An adultier adult, if you please. For me, it’ll be the day I stop trying to look for validation from the adultier adults around me- be it my boss, older friends, or as cliched as this sounds, my parents and other relatives.

The IDGAF attitude will probably mean I’m a grown up, but unfortunately, I can’t see the end of the tunnel yet. So I look for something I know is toxic- validation.

Why is it so important for us to get approval from those more self-assured, more confident, more in charge of their lives? Take, for instance, my boss getting a little annoyed with me for something that wasn’t really my fault. A small thing, really. Something that happens all the time, every where. An adultier adult would have shrugged it off as stress or misdirected frustration, but I spent 8 hours wondering how to clear my name. Finally, when I did manage to fall asleep, I dreamed that I was fired. I came to work in the same mood, and gloomily told my other boss my tale of woe. She smiled brightly and reassured me with a laugh, that all was well, so I took that as my cue to feel better again.

Another example,  I’ll valiantly stand up for myself in front of my parents if they expect me to do something that’s against my principles- but then, their silent treatment and presumed disappointment will get to me so much that I’ll give in, all for that one moment of validation. Think about it, honestly, would they have stopped talking to me forever if I didn’t listen to them? No. Would they physically restrain me from doing what I feel is right? Most definitely not.

Maybe if I start validating myself, things will change, but for that, I need to be an adultier adult. Maybe it’s time. Maybe I could become a person who is so sure of herself that she really doesn’t care if a relative calls her the devil. Maybe I could live that fantasy of sassily answering people who question my line of work. Maybe I could have less pretend arguments in the shower, and more in real life. How awesome would that be? I’d be totally empowered, totally in control, totally allnicethingsIdreamofbeing

But for now, I have to go overthink that one thing one person said to me 4 years ago that expressed disappointment. More later. 🙂

 

What it’s like to be a bookworm in a world that doesn’t like reading.

The title actually says it all- I am a misfit. Holding a copy of Fitzgerald’s heartbreaking work today, every bone in my body told me the same thing, that I don’t belong here. Not here, as in where I am sitting right now, but here, in the world that chooses TV over literature, texts over letters, and laughs at you if you’ve not watched a movie, but have read the book that inspired it instead.

It goes back to childhood, of course, when no amount of baseball matches or could get me to enjoy being away from my books. Despite my mother trying her best and hiding them away in a locked suitcase, I found my way to them, every time. Children had physical hiding places, mine was in the pages of the book I was devouring at that moment. When Elizabeth spoke her mind to Mr Darcy, I beamed with pride, when Timmy and George were kept away from each other I cried, when Captain Haddock abused everyone around him I laughed till my sides hurt, and when Daisy met Gatsby after all those years, I gasped as if it was me there instead of her.

It’s funny, trying to explain why these works of art are home for some of us to a world who just doesn’t understand. And through no fault of its own- why would you be interested in musty, yellowing paper when you have a shiny screen available? Why would anyone want to dream up a character- his hair, his smooth skin, his voice, those freckles on his nose, the way he dressed, the way his nose curved when he smiled, or how his tummy jiggled when he laughed, when there was someone already all made up to play him?

I know there are more of me out there- people yearning to talk about books and characters and the musty old pages that have a secret whiff of magic and the romantic fonts that exude the emotions of the writer- and be sure, we’re going to find each other, swoon over characters and personalities, discuss authors and their works, and then, the world that doesn’t like to read, will cease to exist.

Till then, I’ll probably be wiping a tear sitting in my corner. Whether it’s because of this less-than-inclusive world or because Anthony Patch turned to alcoholism when his marriage collapsed, you’ll never know.

Satan in a smock.

What if people could also be t-shirts?
A ray of friggin sunshine, I think mine would say.
“Please, get real,” God appears in front of me and blurts.
“A ray of sunshine with a cloud of doubt, okay?”
I nod, unconvinced and a little sad.
“Look at your bank account, darling, doesn’t that make you feel bad?”
Sure.
“And being so far away from home, forced to be demure?”
Yep, not great.
“Also, what about all those tampered connections?”
I get it, there are complications.
“Just think about all that good and proper, sweetheart.”
I am, and that’s making me feel like shit.
“My work here is done, see you in a bit!”
I wallow in some sadness, maybe some pity.
Maybe I can disappear into the crowd of an alien city?
I start to look at last-minute ticket prices.
Get over with this quarter-life crisis.
Wait, logic intervenes.
You know that wasn’t really God who came to talk.
Yeah, I nod as I shut down the travel site.
Just my old friend Satan in a smock.