To be Privy to Myself

Differences get more pronounced when you put them against a backdrop of seeming homogeneity. Changes seem more alien when you keep them next to what had once been familiar. I went out with a friend today and when I spoke to her, I realised just how much I had changed from the person I had been. From the smallest things, from the way I held myself to my hairstyle to my way of speaking, everything has changed quite a bit. I view them all as positive changes, I am quite happy with the changes, they are changes I have wanted for a long time and they are finally happening. But I had not been privy to my own change–it sounds extremely dumb, how can I not be privy to things that happen to me? But that’s what it is, I have been quite spectacularly clueless about myself (I still am, but growth curves, they are quite real).

Another uncomfortable thing I realised today was that till date, the biggest compliment that anyone can give me is to say that I have lost weight. I seem to have quite an unhealthy obsession with weight, with wanting to lose it and feeling inordinately pleased when someone says that I have lost weight. It is an extremely insidious thing, I feel, to feel that way about myself, because I end up fat-shaming myself if I don’t lose weight. Possible serious issues that could raise because of this includes eating disorders, and I don’t want that on my plate (okay, that was an unintended pun, but a good one nonetheless). So I am going to actively try to stop myself from this obsession, it is difficult, especially in a family where weight is given a lot of ‘weight,’ where judgments are passed freely for weight, where being shamed for weight is normalised and is actually considered to be a motivator. I am probably at my healthiest right now and my weight should not be dictating my ideas and thoughts like this.

I do concede that just a year back, I had been a lot heavier and a lot less healthy. My weight was adding to my period complications and it was only after I came to Ashoka that I started losing weight. I was also losing weight fast, and a lot of it was also due to unhealthy eating habits. I have lost nearly 10/11 kgs in this one year I have been in college and in numbers, that is quite a mind-boggling thing. But I think this is where I shall draw myself a line, I don’t think I want to be heavier than this but I also am apprehensive of getting lower than this. I am probably still in the overweight BMI scale, but it is pretty skewed and not quite accurate and so I am just trusting what I feel about my own general health and I feel quite positive about (and I pray I am not jinxing that) that.

I also felt weirdly pretty today and just when I was feeling quite happy about myself and my life, I was whistled to on the road and I felt a rage I could not explain. I had been cycling to meet my friend and this man on a motorcycle was travelling the other direction and he just whistled to me in the cinematic hoohoo way. And before I could respond, he was gone and I had to go on my way. At the beach, as I was trying to find a place to park my cycle, I was once again stared and pointed at by a group of men. It all made me extremely angry, I was finally feeling in control of my own body and finally learning to feel confident in my own body and skin and this just pulled me down. And I felt helpless too because it felt like I could not do anything against them. They knew it too, they thrived in the knowledge that nothing would affect them. Well, that was a ruined mood, but I refuse to let it boil for longer than this in my head. I had sambar vadai, I am going to a movie probably tomorrow, and I am excited to do it all. So, I am going to sleep after a tiring day and because of tired hands that cannot type. My break will be good, right?

And that’s my memory for the day.

Stable Beauty

I am finally back in Chennai after quite a long while. I had not even realised that I had unconsciously missed it quite a bit, the different sights and sounds inside my own house. I think I am also consciously holding myself back from proclaiming it as my “home” because I know that right now, I probably don’t have a material interpretation for “home.” But that is not to say I don’t feel at home in multiple places, just Ashoka, for example. I feel comfortable and at home there, like I belong there (which is sometimes hard to find even within my own family). I live and thrive in the material space, I am very earthly in that way (also, fun star thing, I am apparently a Taurus and this is how they are supposed to behave, apparently).

I think one of the deals about quite a bit of travelling like I did today is that I am left completely exhausted to the bone. But my brain is still running fast inside my skull and I feel completely out of my body in a weird weird way. Today was an extremely fun day and I absolutely enjoyed it. Moreover, I put an effort to look pretty and I think it paid off quite nicely, I did feel pretty. And it felt nice to feel pretty because that is not something I feel very often. Especially not recently, and well, I don’t have anyone else to blame but myself because I let things affect me and make myself feel things. There are times when someone might say something because they don’t necessarily know that it could affect me. It could be a completely normal thing for them to say, something they have said before, but I could blow up for that because I don’t like it or it pricks a part of me that I am not very keen on getting pricked.

But regardless, coming back to the question of feeling pretty and putting an effort. I have always been a very materially rooted person, I define a lot of things in my life based on material and physical terms and ideas. I love photos, for example, and I love the small things that people might do unconsciously for me. It could be a simple thing as getting my phone for me when I leave it somewhere by mistake, moving without even thinking about it to accommodate me in a particular space, a hug, an unexpected text message, and so on. The concept of beauty too, in my head, has been strongly rooted in this material and physical world. Don’t misunderstand me, I don’t mean this in an “I condone the idea of objective standards for beauty or I only accept conventional beauty standards” way. I mean it more in an “I believe that a person’s beauty comes in their physical self” way. This beauty is not objective, it cannot be defined. So, if I find someone beautiful, I find their physical self beautiful and if I know them well enough, this beauty I find on their outside and on the inside converge and become a concrete whole that I cannot differentiate between. This happens with me with almost all my friends, especially those that I grow close to.

So, for me to find myself pretty today meant a lot of things. But the most important thing for me was that I found what was inside of me beautiful too. I was surprisingly happy with myself, I didn’t hate myself (as I tend to do at times). That is a strong feeling, to be able to smile at yourself in the mirror (and no, let’s not get into the whole image/real, other/self question). This didn’t have anything to do with an objective view of my own prettiness today, it had to do with my own response to what I was seeing. I could have looked hideous to anyone else’s eyes, but if I found myself pretty then that was key. Am I even making sense? I am in a terribly sleepy state and I feel like I am not making as much sense as I would like. But then, if we all made perfect sense all the time, then we would be doubly critical of people who make mistakes. And honestly, I don’t think they need to berated more, not when they probably berate themselves for it more than others do. We all make mistakes, forget where we are rooted and lose our footing, but then, at the core of it all, there does exist the stability we crave and maybe one day, I will find it for myself?

And that’s my memory for the day.

The Battle of Beauty

Today, a friend of mine told me to my face that I was not gorgeous. Maybe I should provide some context of where it came. We had been talking about the Freshers’ party and how the freshmen were supposed to ask seniors out for the party. I was telling her that no one had asked me and she had been telling me that maybe that was because I had a “motherly” look to me. Well, I was not really making much of what she said, much less equating being “motherly” to not being “gorgeous.” It was at this point that my roommate and her friend entered the room and my friend asked them if they were going to the Freshers’ party. When they replied that they weren’t, she asked them “how come gorgeous women like yourselves are not going and didn’t get asked out?” At this point, I felt the need to interject and say, “Hey! You’ve never said that about me!” And she told me, “but you’re not gorgeous”, while we all just looked horrified at her.

I need to clarify that this was not a friend who would generally tease me. I have friends like that who I also regularly tease, like a friend of mine who I tease about going bald. This friend just made a very nasty comment (and here, I feel it is important to say that I won’t say it is untrue because different people find different things beautiful) and it really shook me. It brought back memories of insecurities when I would sit and wish I were prettier. I have always been the “fat kid,” the one who was chubby but not in the cute kind. I was not the person people would say, “but you have a pretty face” (like that discounts their general fat-shaming, nasty attitude). But anyway, I had always considered myself to be pretty average in the looks department. I would never be called gorgeous and it took me a lot of time to come to terms with my own ‘beauty.’ Of course, I still struggle with it, a fact that is brought into sharp focus by my very apparent shock over the hurtful comment made by the girl.

But nevertheless, this got me thinking more about what it implies, her statement. That no one asked you out because well, you are not pretty enough. How toxic is that idea? Even though I realised that, I was subconsciously applying it to my life at the moment, especially with that guy I have a crush on. Who is to say that he finds me pretty? I am not conventionally ‘beautiful,’ I doubt I ever will be, while he is conventionally quite handsome. Going down that road, there are probably much more pretty girls he could potentially be interested in (and maybe guys too) and well, here was someone who had clearly told me what she thought of my looks, a thought I necessarily did not disagree with. Do you see the number of problems I had with myself and the way I was thinking through this, but also how easy it was to think all of that?

We are all fed these narratives of what and who is pretty and desirable, we are told that this is who we should like and trust (and when I say this, I don’t necessarily mean that we are explicitly told anything), we are told so many things, so many ideologies, so many biases and so much hatred. It is crazy, the amount of hatred that you can breed in your own farm, let alone in someone else’s farm. And this hatred, in the name of protecting your farm, shall burn and destroy the very institutions that hold your farm together. It is insidious, scary and downright manipulative. And well, someone told me to my face that they thought something of me. Not everyone does that. How much are we harbouring in secret that accidental confessions have the capability to shake the very foundations of our being? And well, she tried immediately, after realising what she’d said, to try and make half-baked justifications, none of them convincing and well, none of them refuting her previous statement. It hurt me, of course it did, but maybe I should stop caring this much about this because she doesn’t know that there are battles to be fought within myself?

And that’s my memory for the day.

Trip Day 3

I hate the inevitable exhaustion and pain and suffering that travel entails, my feet are aching and no amount of pressing or massaging does anything for it. My head is aching, in fact, my whole body aches from the exhaustion and I am so close to completely collapsing and falling asleep. Of course, this is where my blog comes into the picture and I am sitting here, in Paris, at 1:50am at night, having just come to our accommodation from an exhausting day trip, ready to sleep. In fact, I am going to stop this blog post right here and update it later. I will, won’t I?

I did, I have come back to edit this post today, it is 12 am and I am as exhausted as can be. But today’s experiences are for another blog post altogether. I need to finish this post first. But before that, I feel the need to share a beautiful picture of the Eiffel Tower. Well, it is by no means a great picture probably, but the beauty of the tower should hopefully make up for my non-existent photography skills. The tower is marvellous, it completely had me under its spell, I could not take my eyes off it, or off the view that it provided me. I got the opportunity to go to the summit and even though I froze because of the cold, fast wind that blew up there, and there were too many people and too little space, I still would consider it the highlight of my trip. After all, it is not very often that people get to visit the Eiffel Tower (except maybe if you lived in Paris, but then, why would you want to go there every day? The cost would be insane)

The day started when we left the house in the morning to drive to Paris. I had course registration that morning, but I could not do it. Instead, I had asked a senior to do it for me and he did it, even though I did not exactly get my first preference in one course. But that doesn’t matter because I got a place with another professor offering the same course, and well, my friends also moved here because of a multitude of reasons (one of them could have been yours truly), so I have my fingers crossed for a good semester. The course I am most excited for though is this course on Language politics and linguistic anthropology in South Asia, with a professor I adored last semester. Now I get to have another class with her, in a very small capacity (only 16 people in the course). She is brilliant and well, I cannot wait for the class. She is a visiting professor and her return this semester had been quite a question mark until recently, but I am glad (super happy) that she is back. This time, my week is slightly better distributed, with a little more breathing time than usual. All my courses are intensive though, more intensive than the last semester, so I only hope this semester goes well.

Back to the trip, we went to Paris and my uncle dropped us off at the Louvre Museum. And what a museum it was! Humongous, filled with artistic treasures from as early as 4000 BC, it was the one museum that I shall not forget for a very long time. Of course, the Mona Lisa is there but I actually did not spend much time near it, nor did I take any photos. It was quite weird for my parents who didn’t really see the point of the museum, “it’s all only pictures and statues,” they said. But I did not know how to explain it to them, in a way they could comprehend, that I found meaning and joy in looking at those pictures and sculptures. I tried though, I made sure to tell them stories from the Roman and Greek mythology that were being depicted in some sculptures, the Biblical stories (even though I myself know VERY LITTLE) that inspired some paintings, etc. I think, compared to the last time they had been here (alone, for an exam my mother had to give in France), this time they were able to better appreciate the artistic genius they were witnessing. And well, even if they don’t really get why I was so excited about the museum, at least they were able to enjoy parts of it because I was there.

Tired, after nearly 5.5 hours walking around the museum (my feet had died and been resurrected so many times, they deserved a few paintings of their own), we made our way to the metro station to get tickets to go to the Arc de Triomphe. It was a station called Charles de Gaulle (I simply don’t know how to pronounce these things) that we had to get down at, from the station near the museum (I forgot its name and don’t really want to google it at the middle of the night, I have another post to write). After a brief struggle trying to explain to the ticket guy what we wanted tickets for, we finally got our tickets (even the ones to get to our accommodation) and boarded the metro. For someone who had really seen quite a lot of the London Underground, this metro was way different. From the seats, to the setting, to the languages spoken, to the announcements (or their non-existence), everything was a brand new experience. I think I prefer the London Underground though. When we did get to the Arc de Triomphe, we did not climb up because the queue was too long and we also wanted to get to the Eiffel Tower. Moreover, there was a parade at the foot of the arch, so we turned tail (after a few photographs, of course) and made our way to the station to get to Bir Hakeim, the station for the Eiffel Tower.

There were some issues with the train tickets, I might have experienced a mild form of racism at the enquiry counter, and a few other things happened. But I don’t really see the point of letting those minor things get in the way of the ultimate beauty and brilliance of the tower and my experience of it. I got the opportunity to eat a pain au chocolat (it was super nice, fluffy and soft and flaky all together) and that was a good experience too (though I wish I could have had the opportunity and the culinary tolerance to try different other things from French cuisine). The line at the tower was too long though, my already dead legs put up a very brave fight until the very end, but they died as soon as I could get back to where we were staying. We went to the summit, taking two lifts to get there, but on the way down, we got down to the second floor and climbed down on foot. This was a very interesting experience and I am sure I would have enjoyed it better had my legs not been that close to giving way. In fact, the last few steps, I nearly collapsed because my legs did give way. When I finally got to the place we were staying (the train back to the accommodation place was beautiful!), I collapsed. That was the end and that’s when I started this post. Now I have another post to write for today, I shall be able to do that, won’t I?

And that’s my memory for the day.

Crash and the Process of Self-Love

I cannot explain the complete, utter burnout crash I experienced today. I haven’t crashed like this since last semester, when due to lack of sleep and loads of work and stress, I was vulnerable to these periods of times, where I would crash close to passing out for hours on straight, beyond my control. But what is refreshing for me is that, unlike those times where I would be possessed by a deep, anguished guilt for sleeping and wasting my time instead of getting my work done, this time, I feel refreshed and I am truly able to appreciate the rest my body forcefully made me take. Though I am still confused and don’t really understand what could have caused this, because today was probably one of the days when I was completely fine and definitely the least exhausting of all the days that have passed in this week. But that could also explain the crash, being a logical conclusion to these last few days of exhaustion.

I have recently been finding myself obsessed with a couple of songs, hearing them on repeat so many times that they probably have lost their impact, but that doesn’t faze me. I can only remember a handful of times when that has happened before, when I listened to a song too many times that they became irrelevant in my mind. And almost all of those times, they were preceded by a time of mental stress or issues. There could have been a personal thing that would have been bothering me too much and like the escapist I am, I would drown my sorrows in that song or those songs. It was my belief that if I listened to that song too many times, just like how the song would lose its meaning in my head, so would the problem. For a few days, that song would only make me remember whatever it was that was causing my problems. But after that initial, mostly painful phase, the problem and the song would vanish slowly from my memory. There are quite a few songs like that that exist in my library now, that leave a vague ache in my heart when I see their names. But aside from that small prick that I have now come to accept as inevitable, the songs cease to really pain me as much as they used to. They also lost their meaning, I don’t really listen to them anymore. I am more insulated and protected, so to speak.

I wrote an email today, or rather, I am writing one side by side to this post. An email that I felt needed to be written, an email that really took its time getting written but that which left me feeling better and lighter. It was to a good friend, about something important that had been in my mind for a very long time. I will not say much more here for fear of revealing it all, but the mail was something I felt I needed to write. While I don’t know how it would be received, whether I would be seen as a nosy arse who couldn’t mind her own business or as a dedicated friend who had their best interests at heart. But that is out of my control at the moment, I have tried my best to be as good as possible and I was extremely sincere about it. I can only hope that it shines through my otherwise quite immature words, that they will see through it to see the deep care I feel for them that prompted me to write the email in the first place. Does that make me a bad person, disguising a potentially nosy email as one of care, so as to escape retribution? I really don’t know and I fear, if I dug a little too deep, I would not be pleased with the answers. But isn’t that the case with everything, when you dig deep, you discover problems non-existent before.

But coming back to the songs that helped me cope with pain. I have been vocal about my struggles with weight. It has been a huge part of my life, adding to a lot of insecurity I have felt about myself, The construct of attractiveness and beauty, of what is worthy of love and affection and care. Through school, I drilled into my own head that I would never be worthy of love and that I would be better off being alone all my life. While the second part is something I still think about from time to time, I would like to believe that I have outgrown the first part. But there is still a part of me, one that rears its ugly head a lot of the time, when I walk past a mirror, to hiss in my mind, “look at yourself, how absolutely ugly, how do you think people would find you attractive enough to like you”. And to my utter shame, there are times when I nod my head (metaphorically, of course) and think “fair enough”, with an air of carelessness and acceptance of my ‘fate’. But here was the deal, this judgement only came towards myself. I found other plus-sized women gorgeous and beautiful (not just as words to comment on their pictures on social media, but from the bottom of my heart), I just couldn’t translate that to myself.

I would like to think that the shame I feel with concurring with that stupid voice in my head is proof that I am more than those sad and insecure thoughts. That somehow, I am becoming better, that I am overcoming these ideas and thoughts, toxic thoughts that they are. I like to think that I am fighting against that poison, and the fight is hard, so extremely hard and there are times when I am winning and times when I am losing. But the war never ends, I am preparing for the next leg of the war as the previous one gets finished. It is a constant process, I guess, this business of loving oneself past your external flaws and appearances. There are times when it works, sometimes when it doesn’t, sometimes when it just doesn’t matter at all. Regardless, I like to think that I am in the process, this process that apparently could last a lifetime. Are there really people who don’t go through this process every day?

And that’s my memory for the day.

Difference, Humility, and Beauty

Today was a splendid, absolutely wonderful, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (I love Mary Poppins and Julie Andrews) day. I cannot even begin to start to explain what a treat the day was. I had gone to meet my childhood friend in London. We went to the Victoria and Albert Museum, I spent quite a bit of time there, especially because there was just so much to see and read. I still could not even get to two whole levels in the museum and I did not even manage to read most of the descriptions. I was just in awe of the whole place, the layout, the lighting, the beauty, completely. It was a spectacular experience, one I shall most definitely want to relive. I decided that I will, most definitely, make my way to the museum once again, hopefully soon. To look more at the thousands of exhibits on display, to read all the descriptions, listen to all the audio pods–just do more, see more, and experience more.

The whole museum trip reminded me of the few times I had visited the museum in Chennai. The first time I had gone there, it had been on a school trip. We went around, looking at a variety of exhibits, all quite wonderful, extremely fascinating. The rich history, the memories each of the exhibits no doubt held, but which no one would even know, have always been a great source of curiosity for me. Museums always leave me with a strong sense of humility. It is extremely humbling to know that my experiences, myself, everything is just a small speck in history. My blog right here, it is going to be one small venture in a whole world of ventures. It is humbling and sobering to know that what you consider your world is probably just another exhibit for someone else.

It is also a learning opportunity, for the humbling and sobering is not one-way. Another person’s whole world could probably be just another exhibit for us. In addition to understanding our own position in the exhibit, we also understand other positions. You understand how vast and different the world is, and the best part is, you realise that what you see overall, is again going to be just a small part of what is actually there to see. It is a constant humbling learning opportunity, and somehow that makes me happy. For me, anything that exposes me to unfamiliar things reinforces my belief that differences can be overcome by awareness and empathy. When you start to understand your own ‘smallness’ (and I mean that in a completely good way), you start to not hold it close to you as a jealous possession. You are more willing to look at other things, the world becomes more and more peaceful. Your ignorance may be bliss for you, but it is probably not for someone else. Knowledge, and the understanding it fosters, I have always believed, can bring bliss to all.

Knowledge reminds me of how there is an emphasis on hands-on experiences. It is this thing where you ‘do and learn’. In addition to just seeing an exhibit to understand it, you take part in it. It becomes a place of sharing experiences, fostering a deeper culture of understanding and empathy. Today, at the museum, there was a theatre exhibit, and they had costumes for people to try on. I spent a good twenty minutes, roughly, there, trying on a variety of costumes, twirling around, goofing around, and having fun. When I first saw that we could try on these costumes, I had been thrilled to get a chance at wearing s theatre costume. Theatre has always fascinated me, this opportunity of being someone else, of literally putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, it is a fascinating thing. So as soon as I saw these stuff for me to trial, I jumped at the chance and took out the first dress that caught my attention.

It was a deep purple gown, apparently Juliet’s costume, and I just stood there for a few minutes, staring at it in disbelief and apprehension. I wasn’t sure that I could try it on (even though the board said that I could) and I wasn’t sure it’d fit. But the makers had gone all out, it would be able to fit a variety of sizes, it was just wonderfully designed that way. I wore it on top of my own clothes, comfortably, and I could not believe that I was wearing that beautiful article of clothing. I started twirling in front of their mirror when another lady, a tourist, came by. She smiled at me, complimented me on the dress (“that looks beautiful”) and she was also quite disbelieving until I excitedly assured her that we could try those costumes on. She even picked out a new costume for me, picked one out for herself. Then her friends came along and we were all collectively gushing over how wonderful it was that we could try these stuff on.

I think that was a wonderful moment when I started to see to really notice the diversity of people’s experiences and the beauty of shared ones. The lady was a white, American woman and I was a brown, Indian woman. But together, we found joy in a purple Juliet gown in a museum in London. I am not using our colour and nationality here as a way to negatively point out differences. It is just an observation, almost like saying the colour of the sky is blue. These differences gave us different experiences, one can never deny that. She probably never ate in a small, roadside hotel in a grubby street in India, while I have never had a hot dog in my life (and I probably never will). But that does not take away from our shared experience of trying on those costumes, it should not. I think, at the end of the day, what I realised was that we are all our own exhibits in a huge museum. We sometimes tend to stick to the familiar ones, scared to venture out and see other exhibits. But maybe, if we tried, we would be able to find and experience the shared, collective beauty on display, right?

And that’s my memory for the day.

Seeking Comfort, Home, Hope

Today was a day when quite a few things happened. Some things made me sad, I was on the verge of tears. Pain and sadness, they are inevitable. I just have to learn to take it in, breathe in, breathe out and trudge on ahead. But that episode made me seek comfort and something soothing, and I turned to music. More specifically, melodious music, songs that are sung by my favourite singers, with calming tunes, and beautiful therapeutic lyrics. I have a playlist of these songs that I listen to when I need something to comfort me. It is like that hug from another dimension, that thing that warms me and makes me feel better. I would assume that’s how hugs from special people might feel. I am kidding, I get hugs from special people all the time. My friends, my mother, my grandparents, even my brother (even though he is an annoying nuisance a lot of the time).

One of the songs that I listen to, is this beautiful song called “Kaatrin Mozhi” (The Language of the Wind) from this movie called “Mozhi” (Language), sung by a wonderful singer called Sujatha Mohan (the female version, that is). It is a heartwarming movie, about the love between a deaf and mute girl, and a musician. It is funny, endearing, and just beautiful. This song has always been one of my favourites, because of the lyrics and also because the singer’s voice drips like honey. So smooth, so melodic and it vibrates inside your chest. I get goosebumps whenever I listen to the song. It just soothes me, makes me feel more at peace, calm.

I listened to the song the first time while watching the movie when I was around 7 years old. We had been our small one-bedroom apartment back then. That apartment had been my parents’ first house, my early childhood was spent in that house. We had a small TV that we kept in our bedroom. It was kept high up (I still don’t know why they did that). There was not much space for us to have a stand for the TV, so that’s probably why they kept it up there. When you entered the room, the door was to the left of the room. The TV was kept in the front, left-hand side corner, facing the bed which was on the right side of the room. We would all watch movies from the bed, gazing up at the screen. Well, at least my parents used to do that. I used to climb up into my bunk bed, and watch TV from there. I remember watching Mozhi that way, with a chocolate in my hand.

The chocolates, Milka ones, were a gift from the neighbour aunty. She was a middle-aged Christian lady, who loved dogs and also had adopted two of her own. Her house always used to smell of dogs, the watchman uncle (his name was Charlie) used to walk the dogs for her. the Milka chocolates came in a small purple bag, shaped like the Milka cow. Inside it were numerous tiny individual pieces of chocolate and also a big bar of chocolate. My mother gave me the bag and kept the chocolates in the fridge, and I would walk by the kitchen from time to time to pop a chocolate in my mouth. The kitchen was right next to the bedroom door, so I could just pop by, take a chocolate and come back really fast. The only downside (haha) was that I had to come down every time I wanted to eat a chocolate. The Chennai weather was such that I could not store a chocolate with myself, it would just melt and be difficult to eat.

I loved getting chocolate all over my fingers, but I preferred to first have it nice and solid before it could melt (this feels like a dirty joke waiting to happen). But yes, I watched the movie like that, with chocolate dripping on my fingers, my mouth smeared with chocolate, my curly hair in two braids but still managing to poof up all over the place, my parents on the bottom bunk. I somehow don’t remember where my brother was. He was probably asleep in his cradle in the living room, again, just outside the bedroom door. The house was really simple, one living room, one bathroom which had two doors, one that connected to the living room, another to the bedroom. It was to the left of the bedroom door. To the right of the bedroom door was the kitchen. When you entered the house, there was a small balcony in front of the living room. The door was to the right-hand side of the house. The bathroom door and the bedroom door all came to the left.

Sometimes I remember that house and I am struck with a thousand memories. My brother’s first birthday, my ideas for creating a snow world in my house, my first time writing a leave letter for myself (in a scrap piece of paper, I was doing it as a challenge), playing Barbie and other kinds of game with friends (particularly this one special friend I had called Shuba). There are a thousand crazy things that I have done in that house, so much life and comfort that I derived out of it. It is funny because no other place after that seems to have given me all that it did. Maybe I grew old, maybe other places didn’t have the same charm. Regardless, that place is still there, in my memory, in our possession. I told my parents that I would like that house for myself one day, it was old but still beautiful, quaint and cosy. Things I aspire to be sometimes, just to be that charming, cosy place for people around me. Of course, in return, I seek the same things. Despite everything, the human tendency to seek comfort shall always hold strong, hope always sustains, right?

And that’s my memory for the day.

Exhaustion and the Invisibility of Light

There are days that completely exhaust you but somehow, you don’t notice it at all until your work is all done and you feel like you are going to crash. And you do–you do crash and what a crash it is! But somehow that doesn’t dampen your spirits, because it was also an exciting kind of work that you’d taken up. It is brand new, something you have never done before, and you are enjoying it. Here’s where that pesky mind peeps in to casually pop that happy, buzz bubble you’ve got there. What if you’re happy with this job just because you have spent all these days in complete boredom? Now, when you are being given an opportunity to do anything else at all, you are pumped and ready to jump at it like a thirst-ravaged man at a desert finding water. Dilemmas and confusions, and surprisingly, a good, long nap didn’t provide any solution or answers. All it does provide is relaxation and now, an over-alert and awake mind at 12am.

I am awake and hungry because I didn’t have dinner. I had slept through it, reassuring my mother while half-asleep that if I got hungry, when and if I woke up again, I would fix myself something to eat. But that promise has gone down the drain because I don’t want to be eating anything at midnight. I would just have to make up for it during breakfast tomorrow and to be honest, with my mother’s cooking, it would be no hard task at all. I started my volunteering job at the British Heart Foundation charity store over here, and it was an exhausting day. I was constantly moving here and there on the floor, fixing tags, getting price cards, guiding customers to the assistant managers (because I was new and was yet to familiarise myself with the floor and the stuff on sale), learning things on the go. I managed to walk so much today that I can positively feel my legs go slightly numb. I could not do my lunges for the day yet. I will try and maybe just do fifty instead of a hundred.

Retail is a very hard job, I think we don’t give it that much credit. We have quite conveniently pushed it to make it quite invisible. It is easily one of the most important jobs too, everyone is dependent on stores for their everyday needs. Our lives are filled with consumer goods–from food items to the beds we sleep on, to the toilet seats we poop in. I work in the furniture and electricals store of the British Heart Foundation here and I am constantly amazed by the sheer number of things on sale, things that I have in my house too, but which I had never realised, truly, came from a store. I mean, it is a thought in the back of your head, but when you actually start to think of it, retail forms the backbone of everything people do in their lives. It is so surprising, and people generally don’t care about retail that much too. In fact, to work in a shop would be considered, according to many people I know, quite a menial job. Not one worthy of any mention, like say, a work of a doctor is. But even a doctor needs can only prescribe medicines, who can make them reach the patient? Retail.

Wow, I just said so much about retail right now. Things I hadn’t even realised I had been thinking of. In fact, this whole rant reminds me of my own inhibitions of applying to be a volunteer here. I had also, quite ashamedly, thought that this was not such a great job that would warrant any kind of mention. But I guess, for me, the fact that this is voluntary makes a difference. I am giving my time and energy to something with a cause, free of cost. Yes, it is not helping me financially, but the truth is, I can afford to do this. As I said that day, I believe that this would somehow be balancing me out. Voluntary work is something that is admirable and shows a great deal of patience and sacrifice. Not everyone would be willing to spend their time and resources for free. So the fact that I want to do this, would speak a great deal about me than quite many internships would. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to do any internships–I do, it will help build my skills in other areas too. But this summer, what with doing a course at King’s and this volunteering job, I think I am doing quite a bit. I would keep these a priority, at least for this summer.

Thinking about all of this reminds me of a post I wrote on my older blog. It was about light being invisible–I had been in my physics coaching class and my teacher, a brilliant man, made this point. I was taken aback for a second, what a beautiful philosophy! Light, which helps everything become visible, is invisible by itself! It is quite a deep thought if you think about it. Everyone wants to be the flashy colours, but we often forget that without the light, the colours are never going to be seen. The light, being invisible itself, manages to completely hold together the world we live in, bringing out its beauty and helping it dazzle its way into our eyes and thoughts. I think, light is underrated but very easily the most important thing. Sometimes when I feel invisible, I think to myself that I need to just continue doing what I do, for it helps some colour somewhere to flash. It is quite a reassuring thought, to think that I am also like the light. I guess, to be that point of brightness, that small speck of a star that shall shine merrily, we first have to be comfortable in our own invisibility, right?

And that’s my memory for the day.

Shining Memory Sparks

What is it about memories that make them so irresistible? I mean, we are always looking for opportunities to make some memory or the other. We want to hold on to every waking and living moment just so that they will continue to be lived, in our mind. I started this whole blog because I wanted to remember, I wanted to document my memories. And what memories they have been! There have been bad days, horrible days, days pushing me to break down, days when peace overwhelmed me, days when I could look up at the sky and smile for no reason at all, days when some light would light the way up for me and make me feel warm, comforted, and safe. Each of these days, I have written a post every day. Each day has had countless memories, numerous quirks in each of them, that I obviously could not write down about. Many, I have probably already forgotten, it is after all the way of the brain. But the small spark that they no doubt set off in my brain will not be forgotten.

Speaking of memories and forgetting, I was looking at my father’s old laptop. It had been the second laptop of the family, we had got it some time in 2008 or 2009. It had become extremely slow and quite sad, but it had gone through a lot and had served the family faithfully for quite a long time. It had been the computer I had been obsessed by, all that I learnt with and about a computer, was from that computer. Naturally, it held a lot of my old documents, pictures, assignments, and projects. I was curious, I wanted to remember what young 9-year-old Yashasvi had been up to.

Now, as far I remembered, I used to fancy myself as a smart kid–I thought I was smart, creative, and also good in English. Well, naturally, I used to be a much more self-assured kid back then. Then puberty and high-school hit me and down the drain went everything. I think it has become quite convenient for me to blame so many things for my own dwindling self-esteem and other problems. But then, it is also the truth, they contributed immensely to my own failings. But that’s the thing right? They contributed to my failings, not someone else’s. I am reminded of something my parents say–they say, regardless of what people say about you, or whatever happens to you, you are the one who would get affected. The others are not going to go through what you will. So you better not gift yourself that punishment. Regardless of whether puberty or high school contributed to my own failings, the fact is, I have those failings, not them. I have to deal with them, I become the recipient of this horrible prize. It is quite a liberating thought if you think about it long enough.

So I opened these videos and documents in the old laptop and spent quite a long time watching and reading them. Needless to say, I was cringing and laughing through all of them. I could not remember when I had written a few things, could not recollect properly what I had been thinking when I was dancing on stage when I was three and a half years old. It was just a pleasant buzz of memories in my head, I could recollect some vague feelings and thoughts, but that was that. But I think that is the beauty, it reminds me of these lines in a poem by Henry Derozio called A Walk by Moonlight 

“Yes; there are in the backward past
Soft hours to which we turn –
Hours which, at distance, mildly shine,
Shine on, but never burn.”

Yes, the lives we have lived so far have countless memories and thoughts and emotions and ideas. Many, we forget, some, we remember with a decent level of clarity, and quite a few remain as vague buzzes, that are pleasant and shine, but they don’t burn with the same intensity. They are like the smaller stars in the night sky, those that are quite easily masked by even light clouds but continue to shine and twinkle. You can never probably locate them properly, name them like you would be able to name the pole star or some other star, or even the moon and the sun, for that matter. But you still register their presence, they light up the sky for you nonetheless. Isn’t it beautiful? That these memories are sparks that sometimes set off a destructive wildfire, sometimes also light the stove to feed and nourish everyone. But sometimes, they only light a small candle or a lamp that would provide feeble light and warmth. But regardless, the spark is still a spark. The spark I showed in my childhood may have grown feebler, but it is still a spark, still with the potential to light the stove and feed and nourish me. I think I just have to find the right place for me to strike my stones for the spark, right?

And that’s my memory for the day.

Colouring Colours and Colourlessness

Colouring is a wonderful pastime, it is soothing and comforting. When I hold the colours in my hand and colour between the lines, when I see the blank page vanish to be filled with colour instead, there is this feeling of satisfaction, of fulfilment that overwhelms me. The picture attached is from one of my colouring books, I coloured it today. I still have a few blank spaces in the middle, but I have left them blank quite deliberately. I felt they added to the overall aesthetic rather than detract from it. After all, I guess, in our hurry to fill all voids, we sometimes forget that there exists beauty even in those that are colourless and blank.

I have always been obsessed with colouring books and colours. I had so many colouring books as a child, that I would spend hours poring over. I also had a variety of colours–oil pastels, watercolours, poster colours, colour pencils, watercolour pencils, wax crayons, and so on. I used to actively use all of them, but of course, I used only one medium per picture. I grew to really love oil pastels the best of all. It is no surprise then, that the picture attached is also oil pastels. What I loved about oil pastels was how wonderfully they blended. It was a delight, it was much smoother than other mediums, and you could scrape the extras with a scraper and it would look quite wonderful and neat. Also, the medium ensured that even if my strokes were uneven and helter-skelter, the final product looked great. It was a wonderful medium.

As I said, I used to have many colouring books–from Disney Princesses to just simple, plain children’s colouring books. When I got older, I found myself those mandala design/stress-relieving colouring books. The one in the picture is from one such book. Now, I also have some amour for curved lines in general. I don’t know why, but I absolutely love curved lines. Again, no surprise that the picture also has curved lines. I did not think this blog post through, but I guess I am extremely predictable. I am a creature of habit after all, and order is something I pay close attention to.

Anyway, as I was colouring this picture, I felt inspired to write something. But I was much too involved in the process of colouring that I ignored my brain and continued colouring. I also had decided that I wanted to write today’s post on colouring and so, when I opened my laptop to write the post, I found myself wanting to write a poem. So I did, I write my poems typically in 15-20 minutes and this one is no exception. I am still trying to figure out if I could work on poems I have written, edit them and maybe send them out to places. But that’s something I will have to work on some other time, not now. I have too many incomplete works at the moment that I owe myself to complete. But anyway, here is my poem.

What is it about colouring?
About filling empty spaces with colours,
Filling the voids, creating beauty
Aesthetics and soothing sayings
Complete and fulfilling
Satiated, drawing us again

What draws us towards colours?
The medium where even the blacks and greys have shades
Pitch black or silver grey, value added
Never detracted, never destroyed
Those books with pictures, blank and white
Till a shaking hand learns to colour between the lines

What is there between the lines?
Those lines of definition, blank between
For shaking minds to colour and to feel
Meanings, only the mind can make out
No two colours the same, different shades
Values—never united, distinct but yet not aloof

What scares us about distinction?
A choice between blues, royal or ink
Both colour the same blank space anyway
Blue, royal or ink, still sad, still a prison that
They feel trapped in
Claustrophobia is a legitimate fear after all

What impresses us about legitimacy?
That your choice of colour was the right one
The flower be coloured crimson, the sky, twilight blue
The flower can’t be blue, the sky can’t be red
But the water that fills both is colourless
Filling the blank space, colourlessly dying in the dyeing light 

What arouses us about the light?
The brightness, the shine and glitter, beauty
That kindles the amorous desire hidden between the lines
Colouring those blank spaces in the deepest recesses of the heart
Pleasure fills every pore of the body and soul
Colourless and invisible, but fulfilling anyway

I do not know the meaning of this poem, or what I was trying to say. Maybe when I sit with it one day, I will be able to extract meaning from it. But right now, they are words that tumbled out, without my control. Sometimes I feel like a dam, that holds something in, but when the dam opens, everything inside crashes out, flowing out everywhere, destructive or not, I don’t know yet. Other times I feel like I am simultaneously blank and coloured–like the light plays tricks on me to confuse me. Today was an extremely productive day for me, I went to the shop, filled out all the required forms and underwent the basic induction training. I start next Wednesday and I am nervously excited about it. But despite all this, I also felt vaguely useless and unproductive. It is a very weird place to be in. But that’s what I am feeling and sometimes you just have to let it be. Sometimes, you just let those blank spaces exist in your colourful picture, for somewhere they add to the aesthetic. I may be unable to see it right now, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have any value now, does it?

And that’s my memory for the day.