The Mirror Side! (7)

I am an addict, let me enlighten you on the same!

The beauty of my bedroom if I have to put it in one word it’s indispensable for me. As much as I do not appreciate it, it is one true addiction of mine. I have always had a hard time adjusting to new beds, setups, charging points, new lamps, room cooling temperature, side tables, etc and the realization hits me the hardest every time I get back home to my bedroom after a long break.

And that is more or less a month or so, but this time it was 6. Oh yeah, I am home after 6 long crazy months of being in a lock-down amidst this never-ending pandemic. Ah alas, my space, my one true love (or at least that’s what I said when I walked in).

I feel its all the more valuable to come back into your comfort bubble if you have been living in a complete culture shock. The excitement of learning something new wears out pretty quickly than you actually thought it would. The whole idea of ‘I like to go to new places and learn new things and meet new people’ is only nice when we it’s in holidays. In any other scenario of let say settling, it’s very frustrating and I speak for myself only.

It’s from going to something new every day to oh it’s the same as yesterday in a shorter span than batting an eyelid. One day you love the whole newness, the other day you wanna murder yourself, all part of the same game.

This is not your constant stimulus. You’ll instantly be hit with that and you will feel it the most once you are back home. Because this is your bubble, your space, you built this madness for yourself. Nobody was a part of your dark secrets here, the ones you lived for the first time. The first cigarette, the first sneak out, the first BYOB (bring your own boyfriend), the first book, the first medal, the first sleepover, the first fight, the first heartache, the oh so many more firsts. There are so many firsts in this bedroom, that before anyone could see you happy, sad, frustrated, or broken, this place lived it with you when it was happening.

I mean how could anything ever replace this in your head, in mine it most definitely cannot. I am addicted to this place, to my home, to my bedroom, so much so, that if I could I would never leave from here, I wouldn’t. I own every good and bad memory of this room and had it not been with me, I would not know where to go to look for peace.  This is my self-made safe haven, here I am my safe haven!

Though I get home how late, how late!

 So, I get home, ‘t will compensate.

 Better will be the ecstasy

 That they have done expecting me,

 When, night descending, dumb and dark,

 They hear my unexpected knock.

 Transporting must the moment be,

 Brewed from decades of agony!

-Emily Dickson

The Mirror Side! (6)

The downhill of an eidetic memory!

Have you ever felt a strange contraction in your mental muscles when you’re in a situation and you intend do to something and you end up doing something else completely because of some god forsaken reason?

In my case, it mostly will be only because of my eidetic memory that restricts most of my current actions depending upon what happened in the past (basically my idea of letting an incidence go is highly mothballed, I’m a major pain in the ass that way) I just do not let it go and its not like it doesn’t take a toll on me, it does but well what’s some sleepless nights over self-worth. It’s not intentional, this is just my make, i’m manufactured this way, guilty as charged. But practically speaking I cannot be held guilty for putting myself first, don’t we all… we do! ( And please don’t start with this whole – I put my family first etc.- in your head for god sake,- I’m not putting the obvious people in the same basket like others) I mean otherwise.

So, I have an eidetic memory with massive toppings of a PhD in how to never forget things. One I never forget and second it’s like a videotape that I can play in my head and watch it a million times if I want. Sometimes it’s an amazing feeling to recollect things and feel it all again but there are times it feels like an alien hand syndrome, you are the one choking yourself against your will. In moments of vulnerability, it will be at its spike to remind you of everything you want to forget desperately.

I have married (pretty loyally) the idea of revamping my mind over the years in a way that I intentionally forget what hurts or makes me vulnerable. My relationship with vulnerability hasn’t been that amazing, I hate the idea of believing that I could or will ever again feel it (again – because I have been there in my early adult life and it was scarring and of course a brilliant transformation point, but scarring). I was raised with way too much preaching of self-worth, and it runs through my veins now. I don’t feel a person is valued unless they value themselves, if I don’t hold my place high, you will not either. If I allow a certain emotion to seep in through a leaking spot, I left open, it will be put to misuse (and it has been, but I’ll give myself that I was just starting to grow up).

It has been almost a decade since then, and I have grown up to understand if I want something, I will want it on a simple term of acceptance. Acceptance of who I am, how I am and how there is no need for anyone to tell me how to live my life (unless asked). It’s significant to value the faith instilled in you by someone, the handing over of their weakest points, the very tough decision over permitting authority over some rarely sparked emotions, the irresponsible and maddening passion released without a blueprint of intimacy for once, the basic and the most obvious things – words!

The earlier it is understood that as much as language is beautiful, it is wrenching as well, the better. For a person of my mental ability who hardly ever gets impressed or agrees easily to anything, the agreement part means quite a lot. Agreement in language, in thoughts, in standing by words, in bringing the force of nature down when intimate, in being on loggerheads all the time but still knowing where to stop… there has to be an agreement that is respected and maintained.

And if not, I will always know my way to the door!

The Mirror Side! (5)

In the humble memory of “J’ s Dad” and my ability to sympathize!

I practically suck at lending a shoulder! I do, and of course, it’s not rocket science, it has got quite a lot to do with emotions and being there when one needs you etc. but then I don’t believe we are all good at it, I’m not at least, especially to people who I hold close to my heart, my sympathetic functionality nerve is more doomed than the international economic situation right now.  

A super close friend of mine – ‘J’ (sticking to his initial because you don’t know him, so take the liberty of picking whatever name you like) lost his father to a long battle of multiple organs giving up on him one after another. I mean, and this is one of the major roadblocks in his life he’s trying to overcome among a million others, but that’s a story for another time. He broke the story to me middle of the night, and I was sleeping like it was my last one (all my periods of sleep are like that, I cut off from the universe when I sleep, no beep-bloop, nothing).

I woke up to his text notification, and believe you me, if it was anyone else, I would have dropped a text of how I’m sorry about it and how they should stay strong and kept my phone to charge and continued my day normally. But no, this was not some random person, this was ‘J’, the person who has been with me in times I gave up on myself. He has been the strongest pillar of support cementing or thrashing (as and when needed) every right or wrong decision I took, with no judgmental passes, nada!

How do I tell this man that it’s okay, it’s not, I know it’s not… I know how many plans he had made to try each day to ensure that his father stands next to him when he marries the love of his life (which was supposed to be last month, but did not happen, because COVID-19) (remember when I said a million other problems, yeah). I know his world must have fallen apart, and I couldn’t make it because we are in lock-down and I suck at telling my people how I would want to fix everything for them but no I just cannot. It took me hours to text him ‘what’, just this word, and another ten minutes of writing and deleting and then finally sending an ‘I’m here’, and I cannot even begin to tell you what happened on the call.

I mean do you know those people who will crack a very wrong timing joke to avoid the awkwardness of not knowing what to say? That’d be me! I actually did that and felt so fucking stupid about technology not introducing a time machine to go back and fix the mess you make (not that this would be the only one I would fix, but whatever). But the good thing about having people who know you so well is that they know even if you say the shittiest thing to them, they’ll get it, and to put it into a perspective, it has been 15 years, he’ll get it.

I would be lying if I say I would work on this part of me and try to make it better, I know I will not. I will not change anything in me unless it is a decision, I take for myself. I have managed to earn the people around me being this person and I don’t believe I need to add anyone who feels I need fixing. If I do not demand you to fix, I will not deliver it either. For now, ‘J’ is doing better, and hope things work out well for him, he is still registering what happened but I’m sure in time he’ll come around.

If I should die and leave you here a while,

be not like others sore undone,

who keep long vigil by the silent dust.

For my sake turn again to life and smile,

nerving thy heart and trembling hand

to do something to comfort other hearts than mine.

Complete these dear unfinished tasks of mine and

I perchance may therein comfort you.

–Mary Lee Hall

• 

The Mirror Side! (4)

“Ever thine – Ever mine – Ever ours. ” – Beethoven…

There is a very sketchy difference in want and need, and this I have learnt over the years I have practically chosen to be delusional about my inhibitions. That, believe you me, are quite out in the open, and never, literally never in control.

I mean it works on very basic rules, my need for green vegetables can be fulfilled literally by any vendor out there, I get the right veggies, I’ll make my salad. But the sauce, the one that I absolutely love the taste of, no, not any walking brand can just replace my existing one, you cannot match the taste, and if I can’t find it around, I’ll make an effort to find it, I will! I am cheeky that way.

But suppose I don’t, and I am okay with whatever I get, I probably never liked that sauce enough, or it was replaceable, either way, the sauce will find its way to a different shelf in a kitchen where it belongs. While I will keep replacing the sauce, one after another, then another, then another… so on. Sad, very adjusting, but sad, coz adjusting!

See, I have always felt life itself is so small that if I spent it worrying about filtering everything, I would have wasted too many moments by the time I reach my pyre (or electrocution, whatever is environment friendly). My life has juggled between a very extreme set of parents, one ridiculously melodramatic mother who cried when Bambi’s mother died, and the other – my father, who was last moved, when 9/11 happened, that’s what it takes to move him.

So yes, I am the extracted perfume version of them both! Which I like by the way. Also, on that note, have you watched the movie, perfume, it’s amazing. What’s ironic is that, even while I’m a mixed breed, I’m a mixed breed of extremists, just imagine (Imagine, I’ll wait). It’s insane how I’d choose to be a want, over being a need, I mean I need my doormat, but I want my study lamp – You see the difference? I know you do. And in all the moments I have felt my space is being compromised, I have walked away, and left behind destruction that tends to seep in with time, never immediately. And believe you me, I never intend it, I don’t. I would rather opt for eating raw tomatoes (which I hate btw to death) than want someone to face that. Because I have seen it once, and it gets ugly.

Not that it doesn’t for me, it does but I have aced the art of ignorance towards anything overpowering. I’m a human driven by extreme emotions, if I was a graph on a Richter scale, I’d never touch a low, my mental earthquakes could tear the earth’s core. Well that’s what I am made of, extreme highs, definitely hard to handle, even harder to let go. And I’m not bragging, I am only stating theories derived out of years of incidences.

I recently was reading Beethoven’s letter (again, in the book – Love Letters of Great Men) to his immortal beloved in the times when she was leaving the city (the story behind it is quite beautiful) and I’m again dammed with a feeling, I am born in the wrong era! Legit!

“Ever thine – Ever mine – Ever ours. ” – Beethoven 

(PART-4) (END).

The Mirror Side! (3)

Living once in a while,

Forget once in a while, are we living at all. As much as of a cake walk it sounds, it’s one mammoth of a task. I guess mostly because now it is a task. ‘Tasks’ in itself is tag that emits exhaustion! Have you ever heard a group of girls saying we have to finish the task of shopping? No right, you see my point.

I have lived by, what I have grown up listening to, from my supremely (sometimes unnecessarily) optimistic mother. “There’s always something”, if my mom was the knight who was saving the princess, she would leave the castle whispering in the dragon ear, don’t worry, it happened for a reason, drop a bandage and leave.

Well, I, on the contrary, would not say such things but maybe leave a bandage behind (mothers DNA). It has been an insane fude between the two minds that walk parallel in my head. The other being my very strong headed, practical father’s DNA, who’d be like slit the dragon’s throat, we don’t have the time for tears.

While I have been between the battle of the sexes, I have fairly managed to pull through my not so perfect life and believe you me, lived it. Legitimately, lived it. I love the fact that I’m alive, I breathe, I can touch, sense, view, comprehend unfathomable beauty and atrocities, all at once and separately.

And that’s a lot for someone who constantly tries to judge, choose reactions rationally and then react, at least to my capacity. The distress and saddening hypocrisies that I come across each day is so consuming, the stereotypical money making flesh we have turned into, for what?

To pay the bill of food we decided to go eat at the fanciest restaurant in the town, while we look into our mails for the next day? To buy a health insurance for 60’s? To die in the most extravagant house with the most exotic funeral dinners or a 14 day lavish get together in case you’re a Hindu (yes, even death ritual is larger than life for us).

Remember talking? Whatever happened to that!

We don’t anymore, like we used to do!

(Part-3)(END).

The Mirror Side! (2)

I don’t know what went wrong.

Something must have gone haywire, or what I like to situationally believe and have been repeatedly told ‘we grew up’. Did we?

I’m not very good at growing up perhaps, and alas I’ve made peace with it or so I’m left to basket. What I fail to understand is that since when did growing up become a boring process of knitting a life you don’t seem to like, but choose to live. Live because, well no reason, just live it you piece of flesh, it’ll make dying less of an episode. Darling, you weren’t living anyway.

I have all my life disliked raw tomatoes, mustard oil or other little things, not out of a trivial taste test, but out of a million tries to gulp it in, in every possible way and failing. I just do not like it, in fact I cringe at the slightest of smell. But that’s not the nature of luxury I may have if I was in a scenario of food scarcity, which I’m not, so ya I don’t choose to waste it either, but I won’t force it down my throat. I’ll choose the food without it, simply.

But growing up in India doesn’t teach you that, it teaches you to learn, adjust, develop a taste for anything and everything (protocol for females only, BTW). Sad!

So I developed a taste for mustard oil while I battle with certain taste buds, still. And while that’s the state of my food log, that’s also the story for a larger picture in my life. Doing things out of sheer feeling of getting it over with, not because you want to or like to, but because you have to.

So saying that something changed with the dragon would be unfair, something or a lot of things changed with me too. People who have known me for decades would agree and be flabbergasted, all at once.

I think change, as much as is the law of nature, it also is a choice we make, mostly to survive. The question is are we only looking to survive?

Or maybe also live, once in a while?

(Part-2)(End).

The Mirror Side! (1)

Patriarchy is remarkably monotheistic, scissor handing the obvious anarchy we’re in the cemented dark woods of, at all times, the ones that otherwise we unerringly battle, or should I say, have to battle. Like charity, Patriarchy didn’t begin at home either, it began at a place that came to me all ornate, placed beautifully in the velvet pillow of stuff that dreams are made of in La La Land. 

It came as a thud, thud because calling it a contrast would be too generous. From my very own line of helps from my morning lemonade to my post dinner coffees, the shift to the other side of the table was quite something, but believe you me, I try, if not ace it, at least be decent.  

But remember how we chuckled through that doting phase when we’re ready to go against the winds, hello hummingbird effect! As much as we fancy it in the infancy, it will creepy crawly in to a nauseated melodrama. And there will not be anything ‘Mellow’ about that ‘Drama’. 

Saturation is an ugly pit stop, and is as important as the extra pair of heels you carried to a vacation ( I feel you girl), like it or not, you got it babe. And from where I started, and what I lived for 28 long years of my life, it never was a strong pursuit of mine. It never came across as something that would be a hiccup, but oh man, start living  with one fire breathing dragon, you’ll befriend emotions, you didn’t even know existed in you or even the universe, for starters.

The good thing about this fire breathing dragon was (is) that it gets conditioned to things and doesn’t realize it till the other half ‘Poofs’ from the situation. I never could or even now can understand if that’s a good thing, or is that how the world works when you cross a certain age, because this dragon’s history suggests otherwise, it was surprisingly different. Enough to shaft you to a shelf, dust yourself like your old books, sit, contemplate, analyse and throw yourself in a tunnel and ask, 

What changed? 

(Part-1)(End)