Figures of speech

English is a wonderful language. It finds a way to make poetic the most basic speech and thought blunders. There’s a way to justify two seemingly contradictory sentences (paradox), there’s a way to justify exaggeration (hyperbole), there’s even a way to justify overpromising and under-delivering (anti-climax).

If we strip them of their romanticism, figures of speech could well be the justifications of the English world.  

Justifications. How I hate the word. Justifications are these mental parasites, eating away at the psyche till closure becomes a distant dream. They make you twist, stretch and manipulate facts till they can sit comfortably in our bellies, ready to digest…

At what point in our lives does it become okay to circumvent the truth—our own, people’s and things? At what point do we start toying with the possibility of finding an explanation that can redeem us from our very worst—thoughts as well as actions?

Who are we deceiving? Ourselves? The people we’ve hurt? Or all the judges who secretly terrify us? But the more important question is when does it stop?

I think it stops the day we can find the courage to look ourselves in the eye and say sorry. A little bit of your world rights itself the day you’re able to say, “I forgive you” and mean it. Because even while we love ourselves unconditionally, we don’t always like the person we’ve become. Sometimes, we need to forgive ourselves before we ask others to. And the day we forgive ourselves, it becomes easier to apologise to others.

For a while in between, I’d forgotten to say sorry. I was so engrossed in playing the victim in one part of my life that I forgot the other part completely. The part that was still living, breathing, talking, laughing and making mistakes.  I never went back to correct those mistakes… Never looked back to see the people waiting for me…to explain…to justify.

When I finally turned around, I found those people still standing there. Because when they said through thick and thin, they meant it…And despite the things I’d done and the expectations I’d failed, they continued to love me. That’s when I realised that these people deserved more than a justification…more than platitudes and half-baked theories. They deserved a simple, straight-from-the-heart apology.

The first few steps were difficult. There was that big bite of humble pie, the slow chew and the ultimate swallow that had to be endured before the words would come out. But the aftertaste is something I’ll never forget. It was like a shot of pure oxygen… It is that something that restores vitality…

I wish I’d done it earlier. But I’m very happy I’ve done it before it’s too late. Every day, the line of people shrinks a little bit. Maybe it’s a karmic debt I’m repaying, because I’ve been waiting for so long to hear one sorry…

Even as I say those sorrys, I know that I can’t make everything right with everyone again. There are things that can never be forgotten. Just like there are things that I can’t forget. Feelings have memories that are hard to erase. I don’t know if I can ever forget how much it hurt, but I know that a sorry helps. Because even if words and actions can’t be taken back, and sometimes the hurt is so overwhelming that it implodes instead of exploding; it helps to know that your hurt is regretted…

So while I wait in someone’s line, I’m making inroads into my own… I know some of them will decide they can’t forgive, forget and move on. I can sense that some journeys are on the verge of ending. But I don’t want to rob those travellers of the dignity of closure. Even if I fucked up, I don’t want our relationship to become a figure of speech in our lives. Some day, maybe some one will show me the same respect. J

Rumpled sheets

It's been a while since I slept with someone. No, not in that way. But in the way you do when you let your guard down... When you let all your defences slip and are naked in a way that's more vulnerable than even physical nudity.

I'm not exactly the cuddling and snuggling type... But even I can recognise that sometimes, giving up half the bed to someone, the struggle for the blanket, having someone's leg flung over you... It's all worth it. Because it makes the demons go away. Because when you suddenly wake up in the middle of the night, it doesn't feel like the darkness will swallow you. Because it's nice to have someone kiss your mind into silence. Sometimes, not always.

Sure, there's the morning breath, the scratch of of his beard, the snores, the oppressive heat of a body always denting the other side of the mattress. But for once I'm wondering, would all these things be quite so bad? A little part of me wants all these things. Or wants to want it. I don't know.

Today, none of the evils seem quite as evil. Maybe I'm truly growing older. Maybe I'm just a little bit regretful... Because the only time I stayed with a boy, I insisted on a separate room. I always had a bed to slip into if I was restless. I always had a blanket that I wouldn't have to share. If it felt too much like marriage and commitment. Again, the obsessive need for a fire exit...

I'm wondering today, if the time had been right, if I hadn't been so hasty in my exit, would M and I be together today? Do I really even want the answer to that question?

Right now, I'm looking at my bed, my comforter, my pillows... And none of it is making me happy. I'd much rather have the sheets rumpled... To hear his breathing, strong and even, just like M himself is, instead of the time bomb that's been ticking inside my head since 15th September. I want to know that if I was to reach out, I wouldn't be left clutching at thin air. Because that would just kill me... To know with absolute certainty that he's gone. And so is M...

Mum and dad have been married for twenty-nine years. That's over 11,000 days and nights that they've spent together. Like every dramatic and imaginative child, I sometimes wondered, after a particularly loud screaming match, why they chose to live together and make each other miserable? Why they put up with each other's shit? I never thought sleeping together would ever figure in the varying answers that would come to my mind... Today, the answer seems as natural as the way in which their bodies curve towards each other. Just the right degree of closeness... It must have taken papa months to figure out how to be perfectly placed so that mum is protected from the direct blast of his AC and still be close enough so that if mum was to turn to him, she'd find herself safely tucked away near his heart. And it must have taken mum equally long to learn to adjust to papa's freezing temperatures and many pillows...

Maybe if I'd stayed all those nights... Maybe if, instead of roaming around the house after he was asleep, I'd stayed and wriggled in his arms till I found my perfect spot, I'd wake up to rumpled sheets too, like mum will, tomorrow, and every other morning of their lives.

Courting Romance

I went on a date tonight.

I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. I wasn't expecting to enjoy myself quite this much. And I certainly wasn't expecting to come back home giggly and with wine-stained lips. And I most certainly wasn't expecting to check my phone every 90 seconds to see if he had messaged. :)

If I were a different person, a younger version of myself; this feeling would probably be the indicator of a new relationship being just around the corner. But I'm not that person. So if this isn't a relationship and if I'm not in the market for a fling, what is this feeling? And exactly where are we going with this?

The answer is simple--it's romance.

I'd forgotten how good it felt to be wooed. To have someone call you 50 times a day, talk with to you till the sun starts to appear on the horizon and travel across town for a coffee date. It's a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling--knowing that you're worth ditching that meeting for. No matter how confident I am in my person, it takes romance to make me feel truly sexy. I suspect that might be the case for a whole lot of women I know as well. It was good to be reminded of all those things that I'd let myself forget, It felt good to come out of hiding. I'd forgotten there was a world beyond the rock I was hiding under. For the past few months, I'd been so hung up on love, friendship and all those BIG feelings, that I'd completely turned my back on the unassuming joys of the littler feelings like romance. I hear people complaining that the romance has gone out of their relationships. And I've never been able to empathise... Not because romance has been my constant companion, but because for me, when feelings linger beyond the death of romance, that's when I know I'm in trouble. Once before, it made me incredibly happy. Because I knew I was in love. The second time around, it petrified me. Because I knew this could and would end badly... Maybe I'm a product of faulty wiring, but that's how it is. In my head, love is such an overwhelming emotion, it doesn't even need romance to sustain it. Which is why I never fall out of love. I just learn how to deal with it, dilute it and lock it up inside.

But thinking about love and romance also made me wonder, if it's just about feeling sexy and being wooed, what would it take to prise me away from Mr T? If it's just that, isn't it entirely possible, even probable, that I'm just playing a waiting game... That I'm here, in this thing, only until the next guy comes along? Someone with better things to say, someone who makes me laugh harder, someone more intelligent, someone better at romance?

As much as I hate to admit it, the answer is yes. It probably would not take much for me to walk out of Mr T's life and into someone else's. I know I'm thinking like a selfish bitch, but stripped of the romance and what could be, should be, but will NOT be, this is my truth. For now, at least.

For many reasons, I don't have what it would take to fall in love. There is a boundary that the past has set and I can't imagine anyone crossing it in the foreseeable future. At this point in time, I don't even trust myself, let alone trusting anyone else, so I know this thing with Mr T isn't going to culminate in love and a happily ever after. Because I won't let myself fall in love and the day I realise he might, I'll walk away.

As far as relationships go, thinking the way I am probably doesn't bode too well for its future. I started this post thinking I'd write about something else entirely. While writing it, I was a little sickened to see how clinically and dispassionately I could analyse my feelings. But right now, I'm not feeling too guilty. I'm okay about feeling this way.

Because I've realised, it's okay to not think about the future, and it's okay to not make plans and then try to alter things to fit into those plans. Because life has a wicked way of making you want to wear lace when you really should be wearing woolens. And sometimes, you just have to get hypothermia before you quietly wrap yourself in a sweater.

A few months ago, I thought I had it all figured out. I'd decided to marry Mr Right, I'd decided I wouldn't expect anything from Mr Wrong. I'd decided this and I'd decided that and my life was going to be okay. Today Mr Right is married to Mrs Right and I still sometimes cry when I think about Mr Wrong and how things simply imploded one day... All the planning came to nothing, and I can't muster the strength to go through the process again.

So for the first time in my life, I don't have a future. It's scary, but it's exhilarating. This relationship might not have a future, but it has a present--he's courting me and I'm courting romance. :)

Putting a dream on hold

Yesterday, I made a very tough decision.

I love writing. It's my thing, it's what I know best, it's what makes me happy. It's the only way I know to emote. Things I can't say, things I won't say, things I don't say... Once they're on paper, they don't seem quite as terrifying as before. Writing gives me strength--to accept my feelings and deal with them.

So I like calling myself a writer.

And like every other self-proclaimed writer, I sometimes think I'm the cat's whiskers. On the good days, when I'm able to drive every other thought from my mind, I dream my childhood dream. I see a book in my favourite book store. I don't know what that book is, I can't read the title, I can't see the cover, but I can see the name of the author. It's mine.

I see copies of this book flying off the shelves, I see people smiling as they read it in coffee shops. I see the book making someone feel better. I see the book saying things that someone somewhere can't find the right words for. It wasn't a big dream but it was something to hold on to when I was sad, something that kept darkness from filling up my heart entirely...

For as long as I can remember, this has been my dream. A few weeks ago, I found myself on the first rung of the ladder that would take me to it. There was a chance, a good one at that, of the dream coming true. I was so excited, I wanted to stand on the terrace of a really really tall building and shout out to the world. I thought nothing could stop me now.

Except, there is something that is stopping me.

Last week I finished writing the most important chapter in my book. It was the thought that had been burning in my mind and heart for a long long time. The volcano that had been building up for almost three months found release in my book. And so I vomited out all the poison I had in me. I didn't even realise how much hatred I’d kept locked away in my heart till I read what I wrote. I hate someone from every fibre of my being, and it was showing.

I thought I'd feel better after I'd written it. It was supposed to be a healing process, a kind of catharsis. But things have changed this week. I realised that the hate was just one part of a much larger picture. There were so many more ways in which I had been affected... So many more wounds that needed to heal before I could hope to become my former self again...

I thought that if I focused on the anger, if I refused to acknowledge the devastating pain, I'd be okay. I thought I was protecting myself, but it didn't work out like that... Anyway, yesterday when I read what I'd written, I wanted to cry. It's not that it wasn't good; on the contrary, it is probably my best work to date, but it's just not me.

I've never been a hateful person. Bitchy, yes, but never this cynical. I used to believe in goodness, in love, in friendship... The person who wrote the chapter did not. This person is cynical, jaded and hell-bent on seeking revenge. This person doesn't trust anyone--not even herself. It terrifies me when I look into the mirror and see what I've become. And it makes me angry that this change is mine by default. That I didn't choose it...

But something Mr M said to me made me realise that I may not have had a say in what I've become, but I do have a say in what I do with the knowledge... So I've made a decision. I've chosen to keep my dream safe from the person who's made me the monster that I am today. She's robbed my happiness, my respect and my dignity, but I won't let her rob me of my dream.

My dream was supposed to give me joy, it was to be a memory that I can cherish forever... But the person I am today is not the person who saw this dream. Things have changed. I have changed. I don't know if I'll ever be that girl again, but I know I have to try. Because I can't let her become a part of my dream, or my life, forever... I have to try because unless I do, we’re going to be inextricably linked to each other for life. I can’t let that happen…

So I've put the dream on hold. Just until I find myself... Just until this cloud of hurt lifts... Just until M stops seeing the haunted look he sees in my eyes... Until then, I’ll keep my dream safe in its special box.

What do you do when you can't do anything?

Today was a strange day. There was drama, laughter, tears and an overwhelming feeling of sadness as I waited for the traffic to move on the way back home.

What happened was this...

Miss K had been suspecting for a while that her maid had been playing fastest fingers first around the house. After months of consistently losing money and trinkets from the kitchen, her cupboards and bags, she finally decided to put an end to it. And no matter how insignificant the matter, it feels good to have a say in what happens in our lives and to us. No matter how fleeting, the illusion of control is essential for our survival...

So anyway, together, we set up the web cam, left money in her bag and tottered off to lunch. In the one hour we were away, our minds kept going back to what might be going on in the house and what we'd see in the video. It was juvenile, but I was excited. Just one of those silly things that you do simply because it'll make for a great story some day. So exactly an hour after we left, we rushed home to check if she'd stolen any more money, and more importantly, if the camera had captured everything. Sure enough, the money was missing. But what we saw on the camera stunned us. So basically, before stealing the money, the maid had put the lens cap on. We could hear the rustle of money, but the screen remained a resolute blank. A few minutes later, the money was gone and the lens cap was off.

To say that Miss K and I were left speechless would be an understatement. We just kept looking incredulously at each other for a few minutes. This was like a slap across the face. I don't know a better way of saying, "So what you gonna do?"

Nothing.

The answer is nothing. Miss K will no doubt fire the maid and not pay her the month's salary. But it's not about the money... It's about the nothingness of the situation Miss K now finds herself in. Because beyond putting up a token fight, there's really nothing that can be done about the situation. It's bad enough when you know it. But it's infinitely worse when your opponent knows it to. Understandably, Miss K was upset. I was too, for her.

On the way back home tonight, I heard something very upsetting. It was a chapter I thought I had finished writing. I'd even thought that the ink would finally dry this time around. But I guess it was stupid of me to assume so. Because dignity doesn't come with a price tag. And some people only understand the language of buy, sell and auction. I made the mistake of allowing one such person access to my life and my feelings. And now I was paying the price. Which is fine, but I had truly thought my time in this self-constructed prison was over. I thought I'd turned the corner. That the worse was behind me.

And for some reason I thought of Miss K and the maid. And I realised that it might be a somewhat watered down version of the feeling, but Miss K was probably feeling what I was: a searing feeling of helplessness. Because when it comes right down to it, there's really nothing I can do about what's happening in my life, either. As a fairly intelligent and extremely stubborn girl, I was used to controlling my life and making the decisions that steered it in a certain direction. So the helplessness that I feel now is a new experience. Which brings me to the point of this post: what do you do when you can't do anything?

Since last weekend, I've been feeling like I'm sitting in the passenger seat rather than the driver's in the journey of my life. There are so many questions in my head. So many feelings, some of them rather self-destructive too, that I've been trying to deal with. But nothing seems easy or manageable anymore. There's a debilitating sense of sadness that just won't go. This whole week, I've cried myself to sleep. I've woken up with swollen red eyes, tried to bury myself under work and felt like acid was being poured on my insides every time I realised what a public spectacle my life has become.

When the sadness abates, it's place is taken by anger. Why should I be given this private trip to hell? How can this be my lot in life? I know it's churlish to look at the ceiling in the night and wonder, for the thousandth time, 'why me?'. Why should I become this non-trusting, cynical person because someone else thought I wasn't worth it? You think you'll find the answer in tears, you think you'll find the answer in anger, you think that if you ask the questions often enough, try and make some sense of what happened, you'll finally reach a place where it doesn't hurt quite this much. If such a place exists, I haven't found it yet. All that happens is that every time you torture your mind with the questions, the knife that feels like a permanent resident in my gut now, twists more painfully, it cuts me up deeper, makes me bleed more in places that I can't show to people. And in places that I won't talk about.

The questions hurt like hell. Not having an answer to any of them hurts even more.

After the fourth or fifth malicious rumour we heard about me, Miss N told me that when it gets this ugly, walk away. The other person may not have any dignity or pride, but we can never compromise on ours. It's sound advice. It would be the sensible thing to do. Except, how do I walk away from my own life. And if I walked away right now, wouldn't that mean treating myself like the dirty little secret that someone else has reduced me to? I can't just cut off a whole portion of my life, right? I can't pretend that it didn't happen. Because it did. Am I ashamed of it? No.

Miss N, in her nicer moments, says that I am an 'exceptionally mature' 24-year-old. But I don't feel mature anymore. I don't know if I even want to be that person for a while. For the first time in my life, I want to be taken care of like all other girls are. I want to be hugged and told that everything will be okay. I want to be able to believe it. I don't want to be scarred forever. The idea of giving up on friends and friendship scares me. I want to be able to behave like any other 24-year-old girl who got her heart broken. I don't want to be strong anymore.

So here it is: I lost. You won. You broke me. And I can't do anything about it. Congratulations. Isn't that what you wanted all along?

Miss N and Mr M :)

Today's post is dedicated to two people who've held me together like glue in the past 2 months--Miss N and Mr M.

Miss N is one of the most difficult people I know. She'll turn up her snooty nose at you, call you an idiot and bully you. If you survive all that intact, you've got a friend that will literally sit on people and pummel them if they hurt you, no questions asked. It's refreshing to have people like that in your life. People who will call your nemesis a 'chudail' without waiting for explanations. The other side of the coin doesn't really matter to Miss N. Unless you've committed murder or something.

I think somewhere inside, we all still cling on to our childhood need to be loved and accepted unconditionally. I have friends and acquaintances who say that every relationship is independent of every other relationship, but I don't see how that actually works. The only thing I see coming out of such an on-the-fence kind of attitude towards relationships is that you belong to no one. How can I tell you that it feels like someone drove a knife into my gut when I can't be sure that you weren't the one who handed her the knife?

With Miss N, there is no ambiguity like that. In some ways, she's the exact opposite of me. While she believes in wearing her heart on the sleeve and saying exactly what she feels, I'm more into keeping up pretences. I can't imagine expressing my feelings as openly as she does. Especially to people capable of hurting me. Any sign of pain, fear and need will be hidden under layers of assumed indifference, carelessness and, most often, a frustratingly uncommunicative attitude. In some ways, Miss N has helped me loosen up. She helps me talk about the things that hurt me instead of being vague and non-committal about them. She makes it okay to be sad. Whether it's around her or alone. And she's helping me wade through that giant, Olympic-sized pool called feelings. Thank you, N. :)

Next, Mr M. Mr M is THE most amazing man I know. Second to absolutely no one. He is uncomplicated, sweet and as strong as a rock. His feelings about things and people are as unambiguous as Miss N's. Which is probably why both of them approve of the other's role in my life so much. Mr M is just there for you. Always. Once he's decided you're important to him, there's no confusion in his mind that your happiness is his responsibility. No pain is too great, no effort too much to make. If Miss N makes it okay to feel sad, Mr M makes it okay to ask for help. I'm not someone given to seeking support and crying on shoulders, but with Mr M, it's easy to just let yourself go. It's easy to let him take care of things, and of you. Ever since he came into my life, I can't think of a time when I needed someone and he wasn't there. The only times I was alone was when I chose to be. For a life that that attracts drama the way mine has this past year, that's saying something.

But the MOST fantastic thing about Mr M is his way of dealing with changes. In the one year that I've known him this closely, we've gone from dating casually, to becoming friends, to me moving in with him, to going on a break, to getting engaged, to calling it off, to becoming friends again and finally, to him finding The Right One for himself. In a lot of ways, it was a waiting game for me. After every major shift in our relationship, I thought that this would be it, that our time was up. Left to me, our relationship would have collapsed after the very first 180-degree swing. But M is not someone who'll just leave it to you. There are few people I know who apply the 'if it's important, it's worth fighting for', rule so wholly in their lives. Long ago I'd told someone that I was the kind of girl who needed to be sought. I needed to be singled out. M understands this need of mine. So through the peaks and valleys of our relationship, he's made sure that I never question my importance in his life. He’s the only guy I’ve dated who is still on my speed dial. It isn't an ego thing for him, to be needed by a girl who is so constitutionally opposed to being needy in any way. For M, it's a friend thing.

I love the respect with which he acknowledges our relationship. It forces others around us to do the same. I wouldn’t have realised how much it matters if I hadn’t been feeling so cheap and trashy lately. Even though we didn’t work out, M’s treated me with so much grace and dignity that it’s impossible not to love him. Or feel the fierce loyalty that I’ve learnt to feel for him. I don’t know what the future will be like. I don’t know whether we’ll continue being such an active part of each other’s life in the days and changes to come. But I know we’ll always be friends. Because loyalty like that lasts forever.

Recently, I landed myself in a huge financial mess. I didn't know what I was going to do or how I was going to deal with it. I can't remember who I called first, Miss N, or Mr M. But unsurprisingly, both of them gave me the exact same advice. Today, Mr M took the whole sordid mess off my hands. And Miss N did her best to trump skankola, as we call her. Some day, I want to be a friend like these two. :)

The arrogance of intelligence

It's 4am in the morning and I'm at the Taj. I've just celebrated a friend's engagement and rebuffed a firang's attempt to get me in his bed. I should be happy for my friend, should feel a little sorry for myself because I'm not even close to finding The One. It should bother me I'd much rather be sitting alone in a coffee shop at 4am than go out and do those things that 24-year-olds do on Saturday night.

But I'm neither happy, nor sad. Is this the start of finding myself, or losing myself?

For a while now, I've been on a somewhat fractured journey to find the real me. I fell in love with the wrong guy, abused my body, tortured my mind, made friends with prostitutes, came close to becoming someone's bitch, cut myself, burnt myself and did everything I could to destroy myself. I'm surprised I've survived. God knows there are people more deserving of the shot at life that I've been given. I can't see it, but I suppose that there must be a reason I've been chosen to stay on. I thought if I experienced everything, if I pushed the boundaries hard enough, I'd find some answers. I thought I'd understand myself better. But that didn't happen. Instead, a kind of a fatigue has set in. My friend RD says that I've abused my mind so much that it can't do without the dizzying highs and the pitiful lows anymore...

But all of that has changed, these last few weeks.

I respect people who have managed to attune their minds to their hearts. And their hearts to their souls. It's a skill I'd sell my right arm for. Anything that can help untangle the million live wires in my brain is worth its weight in gold. I'm THAT tired of the constant whirring in my brain. And of a life that changes so fast, so often. I'd like to know what it feels like to be aware... To not question everything I do and say. Maybe I'm just getting older. In a way, it feels like I'm losing my mind. Because it resists things I’d learnt to accept. It’s fighting my treatment of it. It resists pain a lot more than it used to. It allows access to fewer people. And it asks for vacations--something that never used to happen before. I've never connected with minds that can empty themselves for any lengths of time. Maybe that is the reason I find it so difficult to fall in love, and once I'm in love, to fall out of it. Because I believe that even when nothing is being said, even when there's no physical contact, two brains continue to communicate.

I thought I could control the trajectory of my life. I thought I’d be the one calling the shots at the fork in the road. Perhaps I was too arrogant. Perhaps I took my mind for granted. I trusted my intelligence over my instinct. I truly believed that no matter what else I didn’t have control over, I’d have complete mastery over my brain. I don’t know when it happened, but sometime in the last few weeks, I lost that power.

And again I wonder, is this the way to finding oneself? When decisions are made by default and you con yourself into believing that you had a say in them? Or is this the beginning of losing oneself forever? Because if you can’t be bothered to fight to regain the power, if what you stand to gain isn’t worth the fight, isn’t that the first step towards not being able to identify yourself in a crowd?