Tales of passive-agressiveness

I am home, again. I have been a little unwell, and I have a small surgery coming up. Its small, but I am nervous. My relatives have been calling Ma frequently, just to take updates, also slipping tiny notes about the necessity of getting married, since I am now 31. 

The last time[which was last month], none of this happened because Ma had not told my mashis and pishis that I am not keeping well. After an age, all your illnesses and problems are about you being single. I am sure this is something unmarried women go through all over the globe. But its really annoying. 

Karim keeps on sending me these one liner notes sometimes, and I am trying very hard to tell him that this is improper, and our story is over. It ended, only because of you. But if I say that to him, I feel it will be a good-bye forever. And I dont know I am still living in that narrative that someday magically he and I will find the strength within us to move past, to address the elephant in the room. So, any talk of love and marriage right now, just breaks my heart. 

There is also so much drama in my circle of friends right now, two of them[who were best friends since 2004] have had a nasty spat. And I am choosing to side with one of them, because of the other girl has been just obnoxious the other. But its a painful moment for all of us, I never imagined that any of us would losing friends post 30, I would like to think that we could have better ways of addressing the issues between us. 

Okay, and can I also say this erstwhile brother* has become this really hot 37 year old bearded guy. I last saw him in 2008, when I was all of 22 and madly in love with DC. The occasion was his marriage, I never even thought that he was worth a second look until I met him recently. And when we hugged, I swear I thought I'd die. And he also touched my left cheek with his index finger and said that 'oh you've grown up', and in my mind I was like yeah, please just fuck me. 

I kid you not. I rarely feel this sexually attracted to someone. But I guess I think he still feels I am this sweet younger sister-type family acquaintance. Ugh. But I have imagine many a kiss and make out scenes in my head already. I sent his picture to K and Polo, and they approved of his hotness. 

Surgery day after tomorrow, will have to be in the hospital by tomorrow afternoon though.

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All my vegetables were over by yesterday but I had zero enthusiasm to buy groceries for this coming week. So today I just made some eggs and coffee, and thats all I have had today, feeling starved but too lazy to do anything about it.

Job scene is still shit, no idea about our payments. But someone else has asked me to touch base early next month. I have two papers to submit by the end of this month, and Delhi is fucking hot, somebody give a gold medal to the sun so that it can pipe down somewhat.

This person who wants to contemplate about some work that both of us can collaborate on, she has asked me to write a project proposal, a short one. I have no idea how these things work. I have never been a collaborator, forget about writing a project proposal. Obviously it'll be one person, or two people at max kind of proposal. So for now, that is my real job. And since I've received that email, I feel ridiculously lazy. 

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Its been a while since me and Karim stopped speaking to each other, he sends me these heart felt mails or songs once in a while, or some stupid photograph, saying that it reminds me of him. And I feel like telling him, dilli summers and rains will always remind of him. But I dont say it because I have little value for nostalgia that way. I do wallow in it though. We've known each other for about 8 years now and I think I've made peace with the fact that I would always be this khanabadosh kind of a person. You know when you really love someone, really love them, but you want to be great friends at max, because love has never worked out the way you've wanted it to, but because love remains something that tends to not work out in your favour so as soon as the boat reaches you, you close your port and redirect it. 

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I do wonder sometimes whether I will always like to be by myself. That one day, the fraud police will knock my door and say that your time is over, and then I'll be overcome by this crippling anxiety of wanting a stable partner, and I will be so sad and hopeless just thinking about how my love life has always been crap and maybe I should have negotiated some more. It feels like a nightmare when I think of it. 

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I remember how you played with my fingers before we tightly shut our eyes to kiss each other for the first time. It was the best first kiss I've had. 

I wish we met at a better time, we met when we knew ourselves better so that we wouldnt hurt each other so bad. I am thinking about him today because he sent me a poem he liked. I dont know if things would ever be okay, if I'd ever be able to forgive him, the past seems so heavy that I don't know if we could totally do away with it.

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This tune reminds me of him.

I didn’t think of it in terms of guts. I thought of it in terms of inevitability.

[Sombre thought: As you can tell from all the blog posts's I really dont give a fuck about punctuation]

I finally finished that Barnes book. It was bitter sweet. [As it turns out bitter-sweet lovelorn/failed love stories are my thing].

I reached Delhi sometime last week, and K was due to fly in from Durham later that night. So I spent a few good hours sampling from every damn food stall in the waiting lounge - a green chilly flavoured tea, some aloo paratha, some momos and a regular cappuccino at Costa, forgot that they serve american sizes, so I was just wired for the next 48 hours. 

Polo was also planning to fly in from Cal to meet the both of us, but K's mum is dying and she couldnt even stay back for a day.

She said she is losing her home. And that when she texted her mum that she has boarded the flight, there was no response. I told K that I am going to be her home, its not easy, but its cheap comfort for the time being. She was here for just some 14 hours but I took her to her favourite cafe for breakfast, got the maalishwali aunty to give her a body massage and made her mango kulfi. We were talking about her mother in between our various conversations, because it was a fact she was not yet ready to confront - I dont think any of us can ever be ready to confront any such loss. Somewhere around 12 in the noon, her aunt called up to say that cancer has spread to the lungs and now the doctor is saying 6 weeks, so she should get all the important financial papers signed. K was howling over the phone and saying that 'are you telling me that I have to tell my mother to sign these papers because she is going to die'. Yeah, talk about difficult moments. 

In other difficult moments, I resigned. We have not been paid for the last two months due to some conflict, but now she'll be forced settle our bills and Ill have enough money to live comfortably for atleast 4 months, but I hope that I do get some job before that, somehow I am not worried, Im beyond it. Worrying has never solved anything, and its basically just bullshit. 

Last week I also ordered 1 kg of palak, bok choi, red/green peppers, bottle gourd, spring onions, tomatoes, rocket leaves, brocolli without realising that I am ordering a kg each, I thought I was just ordering 250 gms of each portion. And now all the racks of the fridge are just stuffed with vegetables. 

I was pissed because it was a lot of money, and one person can only eat so much. But I found a way to actually use up 50% of the vegetables in 7 days.

I sauteed the spinach with onion and garlic, and then I pureed it. Made palak paneer, palak chicken and then palak soup. Btw, I order antibiotic free poultry from FreshHome, and I love it. 

Next I sauteed half a bottle gourd with some onion and then pureed it for some soup. 

I roasted the broccoli with some olive oil, thyme, rosemary, black pepper and pink salt and it served as a side for my soup meals.

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I had to go and meet an acquaintance who was flying back to Berlin we met for some coffee, and I took two bites from her absolutely delish almond croissant. She then had to go to Lodhi gardens, but had an hour to kill. So we spent sometime in and around Green Park. Went to this store in Humayunpur for some gochujang and rice vinegar. We then walked back to the main market, where I bought some filter coffee from A2B[not bad], sambar powder and some gongura rice paste.

We still had sometime to kill so we went to Aurobindo market to check out some new nose pins, and I bought one which looks like those flat-round notice board pins. It was for half the price it showed online. 

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A friend's friend was stayed with me for 4 days, and he was showing me some photos from his time at the Film school in Prague, and now all I want to do is do a course from there. I spend so much time looking at that damn website.

I will of course be applying for Phd later this year in Europe/UK, but I am doing it out of some compulsion, I dont relate to academics that way, and I cant for the life of me imagine myself teaching in a class.

There are things I want to do, and depression and anxiety have both slowed down those processes. Life hasnt been bad, I am actually very grateful for the experiences - both good and bad, they've been rich and they've moulded me as a person. But I am STILL not sure about what is it that I want to do and that sometimes bothers me, makes me angry. 

I guess its all okay though, I am just on my own kind of journey like so many others out there. 

Its windy and rainy in Delhi, the sky is overcast with dark grey clouds and I am listening to some Dr Alban.  

We had a toaster and a kettle

Sometimes I am such a fan of my own academic writing, I have these moments once in 7 years. I am happy about the field report I submitted but this realisation that none of us would be able to take this forward, because of all the crap our boss has put us through - it really breaks my heart. Right now there is stereo silence about the contract, but I wish I could see this through.

We all need validation, and my sense of validation often comes from work because everything else is really not in my control - what my friends think of me, what my coworkers think of me. It has taken a lot of effort to get here, at some point all I wanted was the validation of being loved back by the people Ive loved, and nothing else really mattered. But that doesn't last long, and the hurt of that love coming to an end, however lasts long, and how. Maybe its me, I have a propensity to hold on to the hurt than the nice memories I shared with someone once. 

I finally fly back to Delhi on Tuesday. I feel like crap. House-moving, flat-hunting is draining. 

And to start at the beginning, what would you do for money?

The titles of the recent blog posts are all random phrases from Julian Barnes 'The Only Story', a book I am reading and re-reading these days. He really writes very well. 

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I was supposed to leave for Delhi today, but I cancelled my tix and now I leave on Sunday. I never realised I was this tired of that city.

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Its easy to be productive at home, clean house, clean air, good food, a soft bed and a garden full of plants and trees. A mango tree I planted 18 years ago is now starting to fruit, Bapi has watered it so lovingly all these years. 

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Went to get a deep tissue body massage early today, its damn painful. In general I have been complaining of a lot of body ache, I am slightly anaemic, so I think it adds to the pain. I felt relaxed, but it was also extremely painful. I was snoring by the end of it though. 

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I slept for an hour at the massage parlour, till Ma got done. Then we went to the Indian Coffee House in Sadar for a brekkie. I had vegetable cutlets - I dont know how they make the beetroot+green pea+potato combination taste so delicious. We also shared a mutton chop and I had a tall glass of cold coffee while Ma had her regular darjeeling tea. We went to Iqbal's to buy fish for the afternoon - bought papda, but there were lovely fresh water prawns, so we bought some for curry and pulao. And we bought some for Sheetu Mama's family also.

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Ma informed me that Sheetu mama was diagnosed with lymphoma last October, he is doing well now. And that Tinku is at home these days taking care of him. Tinku is so pretty, she is someone I have continuously compared myself to - her beauty, her grace, her resolve to succeed in everything she does. Even when she wakes up, she looks like she is just walking out of the spa. She is training to be a historian, and History is my new favourite thing. So anyway we went to laal bari[red house] to see them, hand over the fish. I was told that I have dropped too many kgs and whether I have stopped eating food, but then when they saw that I have three piercing in one ear and two in the other, they just went 'tcchh, what is all this style'. I know why I lack style, thats because no one in my family even gets what style is. 

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I have finally finally decided that I am taking a flight on sunday or monday at the latest, so now I have to go meet all my relatives, sleep some more, soak in some more love, and prepare myself to get back in the hustle. what is life evennnnnnnn

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Its a krautrock kind of a day. I think the men are incredibly talented and I have a crush on all of them. This music helps me write and focus.

Can - Mother Sky

Because there are no others

I am in a good mood but this is a sad sad song. I love all their basement live session recordings. I love Radiohead.

she makes a big cake for the fancy boys

Hard to believe that in this day and age, I was stuck with poor internet connection for the past week. Yes, Im back home, and it feels great actually. I don't feel like going back to Delhi but I know I will because I miss my cat terribly. I think of cuddling him and playing with him all through the day. I have done zero work in the past few days and my boss will not be unfair in wanting to sack me, she gets exasperated easily and this would be enough to really exasperate her. 

Its great to see that my family, neighbours and a couple of my childhood friends do not passively disapprove my life and its choices, like they have done in the past. The be-positive brigade though really gets me still, and I think they are dangerously disillusioned or maybe I am, I dont know, who amongst us the tougher row to hoe. 

Everyone finds it easier to talk to me now, and I listen to them patiently, nodding at appropriate junctures with a poignant 'hmm'. Grief, panic and anxiety, I think its only a matter of circumstance, whether we are there to see it or not in everyone else. This realisation though doesn't give me any peace. Anyway, I guess they find it easy because pandemonium has struck me so many times, and look at me, sitting here and blogging away. 

The first day I reached home, I asked Bapi to order mutton chops and mixed fruit truffle from John's, and I slept for 14 hours that day. My sleep hours have reduced to the normal 7 hours now and I feel well rested in a way I have not felt in months. My only attachment to Delhi right now are my plants and my cat. Other than that, happy to fly away somewhere else. If I am being dreamy, I might as well put it on record that I'd want to settle in some beach town, but not Bombay, matchbox existence is not what I want right now. 

I was going through my old hand written journals, and I realise that mentally things for me have not changed much. A friendship gone wrong hurts me way more than an affair gone wrong, I guess because according to my idea of love, there is fatality to it, whereas friendship feels timeless. But everything is time bound. I understand the impracticality of love more intricately now. And I also understand my own inability to sustain interest or feelings of love[any kind] for too long, except for my cats and plants - my love for them is forever, and I am damn sure of that. A few memories still hit me like a concrete fence post falling into a pool of water[thanks Barnes]. And that it has not been entirely possible to cut off completely from people I felt hurt by. Because not everytime can you unpick an unwise choice. 

I have extended my leave till the end of this week, then I fly back to Delhi and on the same day I travel to Dehradun to meet A, after some 2-3 years I guess, I dont remember her face but I remember face - get it?

Ma says that work is the antidote to all of this, but what if you feel that you suck at what you do?

Plugging this track by Moby. When I was growing up, the early 2000 channel  [V] playlist would blast Moby so often.