Notes to self

A set of reminders for a better everyday.

1.) Focus on being present in the moment . This has been a recurrent theme in my blog of late too. Learning the art of doing this from 14-month-old D.

2.) Set apart time for fitness. Work out at home, resume yoga, meditate for a while, go for a walk. Was regular with this but been lethargic ever since I got home to be with parents.

3.) Read good books. And read more often.

4.) Listen to music. Surprised that this is on the list because this is the one thing I used to do all the time. Now, though, my phone’s always on mute but I do play music in the background when D is eating or playing. But it’s mostly devotional or classical music, thanks to my family. Maybe pick different kinds of music too, so D is exposed to more variety.

5.) Mindless social media surfing needs to stop. My fingers and wrist hurt after a point!

6.) Start driving your car. Enough with the excuses and the baseless fears.

7.) Wear sarees more often, and learn to drape with more finesse. On a similar note, wear good clothes, give away stuff you don’t wear. Been doing this in regular intervals but wardrobe optimisation is a life-long process.

8.) Focus on self care. Seriously. It’s about time. Treat yourself to a good hair cut or a pedicure every few months at least.

9.) Practice patience. Easier said than done especially for someone like me who’s most impatient. But, but, I’m already doing a lot better than the last few weeks ever since I felt myself spiralling out of control. Point number 1 , aka, mindfulness, has helped.

10.) Get on top of your finances. Pending PF withdrawals, invoices, investment status, mutual fund returns, SIPs… get them all sorted one by one.

11.) Pick your projects. I’ve been turning down out a lot of work that’s come my way these days because I realise it’s not important now. Maybe it’s a good idea to say an outright No rather than reeling under the pressure once you’ve agreed to take on said work and then opting out. I want to spend more time with D. She’s my number one. Work scene seems more manageable now.

12.) Ask for help. You can’t and don’t have to do everything yourself. I can count on family and friends to help with babycare and more or just talk.

13.) Stay in touch with friends. And get out more to meet them. Also don’t shy away from forging new friendships.

14.) Do things you love. Sing, bake, cook, paint, photograph, write, work, laugh, play with abandon, with passion and zero expectations. And don’t think about how you’ll be perceived or if you’re good or bad. Treat everything as an opportunity to learn. Try it without holding back. Without seeking validation.

15.) stay grateful and positive. You are in a god place.

16.) Cut yourself some slack. It’s all right.

What’s holding me back

I’ve been thinking long and hard about why I’m hesitant to share my work (and my blog) on social media platforms, for instance. Pinned it down to a bunch of things that in turn snowballed into larger issues begging the question: what’s holding me back? Join me in this fun (NOT) exercise as I try and unravel the workings of my chaotic mind.

– My blog is very personal and I like the anonymity that the blogging world offers. I do not want random folks plus family and colleagues I follow on social media to make judgements about me and my journey or know too much about me.

– I’ve reconciled to the fact that sharing one’s work on social media is not a bad idea at all. I like reading what others have posted, so I wouldn’t mind sharing what I’ve written. Except that, of late, my work is restricted to research-based writing and content writing which is not anything of much merit really. Average work with not much scope for creativity. Good money. Easy and stress free work. That’s my jam now, and will be this way till the offspring is another year or two older. But I’d definitely be doing some work of personal interest for magazines I love, and I’ll make sure to share them, because I really want people to read my work!

– When I was younger, I imagined a glorious career for myself, where I’d dabble in multiple things and even win awards. So I would be a journalist, writer, baker, an interior designer, a musician, throw the best parties, have an enviable wardrobe… basically, all Avenger characters rolled into one. Now I look back at that dream and I go LOL. But funnily enough, all these are areas I love, and I still think about foraying into some of these streams. For instance, I enjoy cooking and baking, and have toyed with the idea of hosting intimate dinners for small groups of travelers (Eatwith) or at least taking small orders in the community I live in. Why don’t I do it then?

– I tend to overthink everything. Weigh in pros and cons to the point where making a decision becomes impossible.

– I’m scared it’ll bomb. Or that I won’t be able to handle it.

– I do not have any idea how to start, what the nitty-gritties are, how to put myself out there.

– I’m worried that the stress will destroy any joy that I derive out of doing said activity.

– I used to pride myself on being a doer and not a talker but I need to call myself out on that one. I don’t seem to be doing what it takes to get to where I want.

– I am torn between making money and doing something meaningful. It’s getting harder to strike a balance because meaningful work , creative work that you love and want to do, may not make much financial sense. Even with the baking and the cooking, if I were to turn it into a business, I’d struggle to even break even.

– Solution: Start small, let it be your little side hustle, in addition to doing that thing that gets you money.

– Makes sense all right? But there’s a baby on board now and not enough time or help in hand. So it can wait. And that, my friends, is how I sabotage my own plans.

Let me tell you though that mom guilt is real. I’ll be sitting and working at home in the next room and already feeling bad and guilty that my mom has to run around with D. Trust me, she loves it and there’s nothing else she’d rather do. And it’s only for a few hours; yet, I feel bad. I guess working in an office is perhaps a better idea, so you focus on work, without interruptions such as being called to help clean baby, change diaper, watch her like a hawk when she saunters into your makeshift work space, nurse her, try putting her to sleep and so on. This is also why work seems to go on forever. Because I can’t work even for 30 minutes without a squishy cutie wanting to smash my keyboard.

I guess, Apna time aayega ( can’t believe I typed a Hindi phrase). My time to shine will come. I jut need to have hope, patience and a concrete plan. Plus a bit of courage and confidence doesn’t hurt.

Ten years is a lifetime

A friend of mine shared a pic of the two of us from almost ten years ago. It was taken at another dear friend’s beach house just outside Madras and we’re both grinning like Cheshire cats. My hair looks unusually curly and teeth look gigantic in the pic, yet I’m smiling and we both seem relaxed in the way only two close friends can be when together. This set forth a wave of nostalgia and had me pining for the good old times – post work shenanigans at Zara, inside jokes and pop culture references at office, weekends with M, impromptu coffee sessions with friends, random house parties, beach house nights, fun concerts, and Madras, that beautiful seaside city which made it all possible.

But nostalgia can be tricky because it warps facts and sugar coats real life events from the past. Ten years ago, I was a complete mess. It took me a while to actually start talking to my own team mates at work. I was actually intimidated by all the seemingly cool, progressive people I went to college with. It was my first proper stint in a big city and while I’d always liked the idea of Madras as a small town girl, it was not exactly a piece of cake. I was going through trouble in the personal front right from 2008 – right after I made the rookie mistake of telling my mom that I was dating a guy and would like to marry him someday. I said it innocently enough within weeks or months of meeting M, but boy! Did my folks throw a fit. It assumed violent, disturbing and traumatic proportions in the years that followed and at 25, I was contemplating suicide. Like very seriously.

I was battling my own demons, struggling to sleep, struggling to wake up, eating too much, not eating at all, experiencing panic attacks, high blood pressure, extreme anxiety, and through it all, I envied my friends who had saner parents and normal lives wherein they did not go through a nervous breakdown when their folks called them to say hi on the phone. At work, I’d put on a facade, and joke about my situation but there have been times when I’ve broken down at office too. I did not, however, shut myself out; I did the opposite, so I was out a lot, because I couldn’t bear the thought of being alone with my thoughts or worse, with my mom, who decided to stay put with me in Madras and torture the fuck out of me every single day.

Ten years ago, the only thing that mattered to me was my career and my friends; M figured in it too I think, but only much later when family drama intensified. I was not invested in family at all, and I was sure I did not want kids, because my folks had scarred me enough and I did not want to pass it forward and screw up the genetic pool. I was ambitious and driven but never realised that I was very very depressed and anxious too. I was trying to piece myself together and just cross the bridge when I got there because thinking about my future and how I’d work things out would get me frazzled and wound up.

Cut to today, I’m married to M, mother to a delightful ten month old baby girl, I’ve come to value family more than anything else and I’m on a break from work ( something that was unimaginable even 3 years ago). Several bridges were built and compromises reached, a lot remains unresolved and I’m ok with that. You cannot really get complete closure and that’s all right as well. I choose my battles and let things go. I’m also a lot more self aware, I’m not as awkward with people, I cook pretty well and make excellent coffee. I’m more practical, more confident, stronger than earlier, more accepting of myself and other people and more acutely aware of my flaws; some of them I choose to work on, and some are simply an intangible part of who I am.

A picture can be deceptive and you’re free to interpret it any way you like. So while it seems like a happy pic, I’m honestly in a much better place now, emotionally and otherwise. I’m still smiling in the picture despite all the trouble I was having then, because I think somewhere deep down I knew things would be better. I was hopeful then just as I am, today, ten years and many battles and setbacks later. Some things don’t change.

Fear, loathing, losing your cool and learning life lessons in a new city

We never run out of things to complain about, don’t we?

I’ve listened to at least five people crib about the unbearable heat in Delhi the last couple of weeks.

But when was the last time a cool breeze gently caressed you in June? Isn’t it common knowledge that Delhi strategically aligns itself so as to expose its residents to heat-stroke-level sun once every year in May and June? Suck it up folks. It’s the same shit every year.

Of course, I’m equally terrible, given how much I whine. Today I lost my cool at the Airtel guy who had come to fix our dish for the fifth time in a month. The poor guy made me talk to his manager who I thought was rude, so I had to yell at him too, in typical Delhi aunty style. It all seems unnecessary now on hindsight. I don’t even care about whether the digital TV works or not, because I don’t watch that much TV to begin with. Except Masterchef Australia Season 7 which I follow religiously. And fighting over a meagre sum of Rs200, I know, is downright cheap and petty. I’m ashamed of the way I reacted.

It made me realise how quickly I tend to swing from happy-blissful-zen mode to all-guns-blazing-bring-the-house-down-level madness. It’s not normal no?

I’m always on my guard these days, especially since I spend a large part of the day working from home. So, every time I encounter a stranger – be it a construction worker asking for water, a plumber or AC service guy – I grow suspicious. As much as I want to be nice to them, I cannot risk my own security. Call it paranoia, but I live in a city which is dubbed the country’s rape capital – a dubious claim considering such incidents occur pretty much across the country; the ones that happen in the capital make news, the others sadly not so much.

So I hide my fear behind a thin veil of curtness and indifference, simply because I don’t want to come across as weak or gullible. It’s my immediate defence mechanism – something I have perfected over the last couple of years in this city. I’ve seen other women do this too, so over the last two-and-a-half years of living in north India, apart from learning to speak Hindi quite fluently, I have also learned to not trust easily. To not be nice to people all the time. To not expect help from people. To be completely independent, yet to know when to ask M to pick me up or help me with something. To be sensible enough to not venture out alone late in the night, instead of being the idealist I once was. To know fully well that bargaining is a survival skill and hence up my game every time I shop.

The city has helped me learn and unlearn a few core principles; it has made me both strong and street smart, it has taught me to love and let go, it has encouraged me to be independent and cautious. But more importantly, it has taught me how to survive, one day at a time. Or maybe not. I’m just getting carried away.

Music sans lyrics

I’m listening to Manu Chao as I write this. I love it but I’m already making a mental note of what I will be listening to once this album ends – and I’ve zeroed in on Babasonicos. And strangely now, I can’t wait for ‘Clandestino’ to end, so I can move on to the next album already. There I go again, planning, organising and stressing over my playlist even as I’m trying to take a break.

I like listening to music in languages I’m not familiar with, partly because I’m very open-minded when it comes to music and partly because, sometimes, I don’t want to feel the weight of words. I want to just let the music move me, make me feel a myriad of emotions all at once. I don’t want to read deeper into the lyrics or assign meanings and intentions to a string of words.

So while I have no idea what S.M.O.D is going on about in Fitri Waleya, I love the fact that it’s catchy, that the music makes me feel good, tap my feet and hum along. I’m fully aware that the song has well-thought-out lyrics that speak of something extraordinary, and I do want to know what it’s about.

It is true that sometimes, understanding the lyrics changes the way you feel about a song. Every time I listen to a song by Sixto Rodriguez, I lose myself in the lyrics, because he’s a poet first, and a musician later. Here’s proof:

Cause my heart’s become a crooked hotel full of rumours
But it’s I who pays the rent for these fingered-face out-of-tuners
and I make 16 solid half hour friendships every evening

….Cause they told me everybody’s got to pay their dues
And I explained that I had overpaid them
So overdued I went to the company store
and the clerk there said that they had just been invaded
So I set sail in a teardrop and escaped beneath the doorsill

…Cause I see my people trying to drown the sun
In weekends of whiskey sours
Cause how many times can you wake up in this comic book and plant flowers?

– Cause, Sixto Rodriguez

It’s also because he sings in a language I understand; if he were to sing the same thing in Spanish, I don’t know if the lyrics would have made much sense to me.

Let me give you another example. My favourite song by Babasonicos, an Argentinian band I discovered a few years ago, is Yegua. I don’t know, for the life of me, what the song is about, but I listen to it over and over again, and the furthest I have gone to figuring out what the song means is to google ‘Yegua’:

Actual meaning: spanish for – mare aka a female horse.

Mexican slang: a term used when talking about women, not necessarily derogatory, it is more so used commonly as a means of stating ones special female friend. It is found to be more popular in the country sides of mexico where ranching and farming is usually found.

And surprisingly (or not), it had no bearing on the way I feel about the song. If anything, I now understand why the woman in the video is a yegua.

This extends to books and other forms of creative expression too. It calls for another post – one on limitations of language and how I think language also influences your thoughts and emotions, in some way.

Also, Orange Pond Connects shared this free online test to determine your personality type, and it’s freakily accurate. I got ESTJ – The Executive and while the test threw up a few little surprises, it mostly re-affirmed what I thought about myself. Take the test, just for kicks. You might also learn something new about yourself.

So long, folks. Have a wonderful day!