A little to the right

I am very pleased with this title, because it too, like my hassled sense of self right now, is one thing that actually is many things.

(I spent a whole minute here gentle reader, trying to figure out what this type of phrase could be. A pun? Too simple. A wordy clever misnomer. Not disguise-y enough. A metaphor? Perhaps a smidge. A midsummer gin induced hallucination by our friendly neighbourhood LLM? Alas. I concede. )

It is a merely the one thing that is many things. IT IS THE SWISS ARMY KNIFE of titles yes it has come to me now.

Firstly: 

(excuse me I am being told by my watch to stand so I shall take a stroll and be right back). 

 

Right, I am back 8 days later. Firstly:

1. Delays such as this happen when my time is not my own to waste anymore. Others now freely and happily make demands on me, requiring that I put aside the decisions and plans made of my own will, to instead say, check if all teeth have been brushed, and to immediately answer what word is queyey (queue) and why is it queyey.

2. I have had a few months of extemely stressful events. I am now on a work break. It is a beautiful time, if only to look back and see how close to death DH was, and to look forward and try to think of making the world beautiful.

3. Before my work break, that exact week before, in fact, life was wonderful, idyllic, and everything I ever wanted. If you hadn't guessed, it was on a beach with family and good food and sun and spray and water and sprinklers.

***

What I have been reading:

1. Life's lessons in the form of "Frank was a Monster Who Loved to Dance", and Frank, let me warn you, surreptitiously says "What the heck" on page 13, when he thinks we are not paying attention to him, but rather to his brains which have spilled on the floor, and I am sorry to say, we paid the mostest of attention, and we are most scandalized.

2. A few pages of Panthers in Parliament. The introduction alone makes for such fascinating reading,  and there is no much thinky material crammed into these first 3 pages alone, I despair of finishing this book. Reading, requires, some stillness? Some, stretches of breathing space? I do not know, or have. I persevere still. I am the main character of a sea shanty.

3. Ali Hazelwood's Bride. Ridiculously exciting smutty love story between a vampire and a werewolf. 

4.  Heather Fawcett's -  Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries and the sequel. Cute.

Every book I now read, after the initial euphoria of being part of a story well told, then leaves me with unhappiness and fear. Why, when, how will I find the time to write? Universe, help.

***

Bruno has constant itchy scratchy fits in his ear. Bigsmol has some weird insect bites on his forearm. Smolsmol (still the same amount of teef) has an itchy forehead from the summer sweat in his hair. Me? Itchy feet.

Send relief and soothing lotion and cold compresses and lay us all up in bed alongside a healing river. Barring which, send rains. Bangalore is hot and parched and dusty, and we are forever on the lookout for storms. Mainly climate kind.

Oh, lest I forget.

1. To the right - > I have a new hair parting, and after about 3 decades of wearing my hair in ONLY side parts, I am now moving closer to centre. Not so politically, but I have long since made my peace with my weakness on political matters. My portfolio holdings in large crony polluters are in the double digits. So it swings. I forgot what all else it was supposed to signify but 8 days will do that.

Loop de loop

And so it seems that years have passed. Well over a decade. Welp. Here we are, thinking better, happier, but in some ways, so much the same.

Every year or so, or every five years or so, I mean who's keeping track really, I claim to have found the answer except now, five years past the first smol and the little teeth onto the new smol and the old smol-big and the big-dogsmol, I think I know the question?

This affectation, recently acquired is only charming when flirting. Elsewise it is thoroughly annoying. Be sure or be done with it etc. One never had much patience, and now one has parceled out the reserves for the smol and the smol-big and the big-dogsmol and the household staff (YES ONE HAS A STAFF!) and dear old DH who through it all has somehow remained constant (Truly, did we think we would be here?), and one has miniscule portions left to give and often not even that.

To be a real adult is really a terrifying and demanding experience. 

Onto the headlines then: 

I am happy
I know the questions
I went to therapy and why didn't I go sooner?
Dad has died.

So much has happened and we have much to talk about, though, really you might have gone away for a decade and come back and large parts are still the same. I took a walk in the rain, I wished I had a brighter umbrella but settled for an IKEA black. I drank tea and I felt very good about my place in the world.

Time to buy some shoes? This place has good bones, and I guess its time to roll up sleeves and begin to type.


Speaking of, in my inexhaustible drive to buy ALL THE BOOKS, I am contemplating buying a whole book just because I loved in it, one essay. Mary Oliver's Power and Time in her book Upstream has made such a profound impact. Doubly so because, gentle reader would you believe it, a real live Daddy Long Legs made its way upto my mountain retreat and sat gently on a wall next to me. How lucky am I!

Harrison

The secret to winning in life has been staring me in the face all along. And it is discipline.

If only they'd said so straight out in school, instead of making it seem like discipline was some rubbish rule that convent school nuns wanted to instill in you because it would make God love you more or some nonsense.

Anyway, I have decided, I will be the most disciplined.

***
As I write this, I look out a window, onto some other apartments, but the sunshine that falls on my table is pure california.

San Francisco is unlike any city I've been to.  Its squat. And there isn't atleast on the 18 streets I've been on so far, any visible manic energy. This Friday I am going to seek it out - try and find the Soho of SF, as it were.

I live close to a very popular gay bar called the Stud, and I want to explore it.

I want to buy a book at City Lights bookstore.

And I want to eat an ice-cream as I walk down the pier.

I want to scrunch a penny in the machine for Kabir. And I want him to know when Amma went to raise a ton of money - this is where she made a wish for good fortune and tossed a dollar into the sea.

***

snippets from 10 years of emails

aka 2-4 GB because I'm not going to pay for storage because memories are like wasabi, they're nice in small quantities.

Attempt one at reading thru about 890 emails from 2009 in 6 minutes and picking only the most important ones and the ones that dont make me cry:

Happy New Year! I'm guessing most people haven't finished/started studying. These are notes that I had made for myself for Clinic. I would suggest people read the cases from the Reading Material, but if you're in a mad rush to finish everything in one night, these may help. Please cross check though. No guarantee of good notes here. There could be mistakes.

Also three cases are missing: 1. Madras Refineries (which I didnt understand and so is incomplete and could be completely wrong); 2. Hemlata v. Collector and vice versa (which was too long and so I gave up).

Hope this helps. All the best!

***

Nave saal di tuhaanu vadhai hove
Heppy Ji

***

MCC@NALSAR: 

Please see your research passwords for LexisNexis, Westlaw, and HeinOnline
below.

***
I just heard that you won the Jessups round! CONGRATULATIONS! I just found out and was extremely happy to hear it. This is awesome news! Hope you guys go on to win the International rounds as well.

***

Book tickets for Ghajini Now, The years biggest release!

***

I'm ol.I'm invisible 

***

i wanted to tell you that you didn't call on my birthday and I
really thought you would.

***

Bommai stuff: here. of course you can plagiarise.

***

where are you? im beginning to freak out. whats your number? i am back in civilization and near std phones.

***
You never call me and I miss you. 

---fin----

Some sentiments expressed in these emails are by no means outdated. I wonder what that says about life and me, and my life. 

Bloggy and me are like Scurvy haha

Ohmygosh.

Is bloggy my oldest and dearest friend? I suppose so, though like all of my other old and dear friends bloggy too has moved countries, and maybe gotten an iphone and an accent and a british passport and friends who it brunches with, snorkels with and posh new jobs at posh life changing institutions and generally built a life of urbane suaveness and winter coats.

Me? Hi. I'm still ...me. Angsty, curious, unable to fit into my sexy shorts, always on the lookout for great haircuts and sure there are days in which I wonder what the what the what the am i doing with my life but otherwise the same, only the Cranberries have been replaced by Mumford and Sons (Caro Emerald for when I'm feeling particularly saucy) and lullabies.

Ya. Also I had a baby. Also I moved. Also new house. Also somewhat new friends. Also more social media and less reading. In the last few months I have:


1) Read the Annihilation series and some other trashy scifi and fantasy and eh

2) Read Sacred Games and wow

3) Had my insides tickled in order by DF, a gynac, multiple speculum, ultrasound wands, scrape-y instruments, what felt like (and was I think) an entire arm of an entire human doctor, a moving baby boy (whose head, a few days before he was born, I compared to a musk melon sitting on the counter) and some needles.
(I say tickled but you and I dear reader know, that I do NOT mean tickled. This is classic, what do they call it? Understatement. Yes this old dog knows new trix haha.)

4) Watched Mad Men and Marvellous Mrs Maisel and some other soppy TV shows day and night  while nursing (this is the polite word for breastfeeding or as they should accurately call it breast plucking pulling nipple roughening milk clogs glass sandpaper bruising feeling cow like sweating).

***
The thing is, there's been more angst on this blog about an unfairly graded history paper (21/50 - come on!) than ...life since 2017 Delhi. Which, in all of its glory has been ANGSTONIUS ANGTAMAXIMUS. You should have been there, or rather, bloggy should have been there.

I'll say this, I'm only sad I didn't chronicle it all because so much spectacular lazing around was done and fun was had and assholery was dealt with. DF is still around. I think I saw Amelie lying around somewhere. And 202 has not one mummy now but two. Smoke that.

***

I said yesterday to one old friend that I had dropped the ball and he said so did he and I wanted to say YES YOU DID YOU DROPPED IT YOU WERENT SUPPOSED TO but instead I shrugged and sent him baby photos. It is truth but then what else does one do at a point in life when truths are self evident but the conclusions they take you on are anything but?

Love me pick me choose me? But time zones. And time sheets.

***
I confessed I was in a maudlin mood to a somewhat new friend but then I realised it was because I missed bloggy and being able to loudly shoutily complain here. So I'm back.

***
So apparently a deficiency of Vitamin C causes the collagen that repaired old wounds to dissolve, leading to bleeding and aches, which was thought of as a new disease called scurvy but was mainly just the old wounds coming up knock knock and saying hi hello ji whether vitamin C? Odd but nice. Just how I like em ailments and boys.

***
I must go, baby will beckon shortly. But I cant stop thinking of the Butterfly, Christina Tosi, and the gentleness of Sroyon's blog. Duly we are of course grateful to Double A.

***
Hai koi hamein yeh hatecopy ke chai plates toh dilwaein?

Thinking aloud a while ago

Its that time of the year when I need to book tickets to go home and as always, I'm faced with some difficult questions.Lon-Del-Mas-Lon or simply Lon-Mas return?

There is a fabulous shoe store in Delhi that I simply must visit, and of course I must eat at Andhra Bhavan one last time before I return, but are these two reasons worth the extra ten hours either way in travel?

Edited to add in 2017.
No. They're not and you made pretty poor choices. Stupid 2012 Sow.

I love choice

Sometimes we make choices that seem like they're holding us back, but actually, they liberate us in ways we cannot even imagine.

I am making one such choice today - and while its a bit grandiose to claim that I'm going to be liberated because of this choice in ways I cannot even imagine, I *am* going many steps forward with this little step.

Goodbye tyranny, hello you bittersweet independence.

MY FIRST ENGAGEMENT LETTER

Today I had a client sign an engagement letter, officially hiring me to be their lawyer/advisor.

SO MUCH HAPPINESS.

<3 you world!

If this isn't a gold star kind of day, I don't know what is!

Being a friend to myself

I had to take out a Demand Draft today, and predictably, I asked DF "So what's the procedure to take out a DD? Have you ever taken one out?" "Nope, I don't know, but I guess you go to the bank and figure it out?", he said, rather unhelpfully. I guess the last time I used a DD was to pay for my NALSAR entrance exam application form, and mommy dearest took care of that!

Anyway, I went to my bank in Bhogal, and figured it out. #win

ALSO, I went to the dentist PREEMPTIVELY which is a big big big step for me, - I feel like I'm ready to be an adult - especially because I will have to work like an adult to pay for all the miseries my earlier dentist caused me. :X
(Pro-tip - ALWAYS go to the best dentist you can, and ALWAYS get second opinions!)

I also made a banofee pie - the dulce le leche came from a Nestle condensed milk tin and a pressure cooker. 

I feel like something has changed. Like there's something in the air (literally, and figuratively, if you live in Delhi, but whatev), something changing.

Could it be as simple as a winter blues thingy clearing up? Because I haven't been as excited in a long time - and more importantly...

 #onwards

Self-destruct sequence

I feel like I should be doing more than drinking sweet tea and eating khakras as the occasional tear pools in the rims of my large retro glasses.

I may also be the only one who remembers, well, me and bloggy. I just realised that of all the constants in my life, the only one that has remained through all of the good times and the bad, is the image of me sitting in front of a computer and tapping out on the familiar white and orange interface. Sometimes there are tears and sometimes there are such wonderful incredible highs and often times there is a wry smile and some CAPS LOVING. I love this image of me, and I should carry it around more and feed it well.

Five years since the first October 28.

I'm alone and angry and calm and melancholy, but not so much so that I can't laugh at myself and shake my head sadly.

My post after Diwali was to  be a fabulous one, filled with happiness and colour and light and the bliss of finding new family that is so so easy. But this is what procrastination does, gentle reader, and instead of bubbling over with mirth and eating homemade sweets and narrating jokes in broken Telugu, I am now sad-raging.

Appreciate, if you can, the understated tone of this post, for it is an expression of my heart's waxing and waning. I'm old enough to know nothing is fair and young enough to hate the unfairness of it anyway. Such maturity comes at a price - and that price I think is restraint, which should be the politeness of princes (not punctuality, because of course a prince(ss) is never late, the rest are merely early).

I think its time for more tea. And without sugar, I think, for the old masochistic joke about one lump or two comes to mind and we can all do without that, don't you think? xx

I'm like the sheepish call you get the morning after

You know the ones, don't you? Where you've either dropped me back home, knowing fully well that despite my calm, drunken assurance that I'll just be a moment before I pick up my passport and come back down so we can head to the airport (and fly away gloriously into an adventure), I'm going to curl up on my sofa, shoes on, spittle clinging gently to my chin and a bucket under my head, just in case, forgetting all about you.

Or where I insist that you leave the house at 3 am after a rowdy racuous argument, and then proceed to  meticulously snip the buttons off each of your shirts and dump them on the stairwell in a fit of controlled rage.

Or where I hide your glasses and go away to a party and switch my phone off, because in that moment of pique, immaturity offers the best shield under which I can hide my frustration.

Or where, well, you get the picture.

And the sheepish call. Where I don't really say, I'm sorry bloggy, I left you thinking it was the sophisticated and adult thing to do, but in the harsh, hungover, light of day, its a bit petty, what?

Yep.

***

Veiled apology to bloggy apart, for the first time, gentle reader, I realised what it was like to have someone actively and clearly try to screw me over. While one part of me was scrambling for evidence, and writing emails saying things like "this is without prejudice to the other rights under the Retainer Agreement" and calling up lawyer-friends for legal advice and forcing them to send me bills, the other part of me was like:

1)  "huh. look at that. you're getting screwed over. huh. interesting.this is what it actually feels like."
2) "clearly all the times you had to forgoe your morning flatwhite + chocolate croissant for a wonderfully exciting meeting was not actually a screw-over. huh"
3) "being asked to do timesheets was not a screw-over. huh"
4) "being paid in full without any dicking around on leave entitlements was not so routine as I thought. huh"
5) "so this is what being treated like a worthless piece of crap actually means. huh"

After a couple of fairly traumatic weeks, where I had to question self-worth, other people's worth, wish I had a chief minister aunt/uncle hidden away somewhere, make long-distance and short-distance advice seeking phone calls and draw up a vindictive game-plan, things finally ended in the most practical/unexciting manner yesterday. And it ended because I had the foresight to set up a smoking gun.

And I'll say this - no amount of literature on power-dynamics, or societal structures analysis or gyan on drafting contracts, or understanding dispute-resolution strategies could have given me the kind of learning I had in the last few weeks.

I feel like I left bruised but a winner, though not as much win as I'd like. Ah well.

***
Though its been advanced by a couple of months, I'm finally, actively, totally and unresistingly entering into a super-scary phase of life - the I AM JUST CHILLING AND NOT WORKING AT ALL UH HUH THAT'S RIGHT phase.

Not only am I be completely free to do whatever I want, I am also doing this with  
 no lifeboat/gameplan in mind for the future. Exciting in the scariest possible way! YAY!

As much as I hate you uncertainty - looks like we're going to have to become great friends - so let's get a move on.

As Day 1 of chill phase - I have woken up late, had a domestic argument, watched the most recent episode of Big Bang Theory and eaten cold pizza for lunch. I may or may not nap now. I have a feeling this is going to be fun! Await my despatches from the front.

I have the honour to remain 
Your most truly obedient servant
Spaax

A year and a day

A year and a day ago, I came to Delhi, utterly sure that I could face everything the city could throw at me. I fancied myself worldly-wise, and a sophisticate, a gentle ball of joy and wisdom that would obliviate all negativity and coat itself with rose petals.

No such luck - Delhi won, I hate the city (as much as I want to love it, I hate hate hate hate hate hate Delhi and most of its disgustoid, honky, honky, honky, overtake-y, dub stepped inhabitants).

Surprisingly, (or maybe not), most people I knew in Delhi didn't share the sentiment; to them, Delhi was either home, or an adopted home with more pluses than minuses, and it suited their purposes just fine. I despaired of finding someone who would understand how soul-crushing and spirit-defeating Delhi could be - did no one hate it as much as I did? Did no one dream that they'd find satisfying careers elsewhere? Were people really comfortable making long-term plans about staying in Delhi - WHY?

I wondered if there was something wrong with me - did Delhi leave me out of its charm-spell? Why couldn't I enjoy the gol guppas and the lehengas and the meter-using autowallahs and be happy?

I don't know, and I wish I loved Delhi - I really do, because then life would be much simpler - but seven years (bloggy's birthday is sometime now) at idreamthedream should have warned you that I never get to do simple. Its always complex, and sometimes its even batshit insane, and I guess that's what gets a blog running. Who wants to read about a simple life anyway? (looks around warily)

What else - oh, professionally, I am a mess, but not really, I think. I don't know. Clarity is lacking sorely on this front, but I trudge ahead, brave warrior, spiky ball, less gentle than I used to be - wondering why I have to look out for myself as much - what a bloody waste of time it is.

I feel like so much has happened in the last year, but I can't articulate my ineffectual grasp of it all. I lived in Delhi, I tried being in academic / public policy, I slept more than I should have, I am rested now, and I'm ready to take on the world - but I worry that I am losing my gentle, flower-child, sense of self, and am instead morphing into a (even more) manipulative thick-skinned bitch. Will I cry if children die? That's rhetorical, calm down.

I can't say I'm impressed with the last year - it was a more a lesson in what-not-to-do, rather than the opposite. But learning happens in curious ways, and knowing the things that one shouldn't do isn't any less useful than knowing the things one should do - right? I feel so anyway - and that's my silver lining for Aug 2012 - Aug 2013.

That's all my news for you - save one. Over seven years, across themes and fonts and templates, and laundry struggles, and chemo rants, and heartbreaking sadness, and loves, and crushes, and work and play and food, at places, with varying conceptions of privacy, and sense of self, this blog has been a constant in my life, and I love it dearly, and I love you dearly, gentle reader, but you probably know that there is another very special constant in my life - DF, with whom I have an arduous, complex and mostly bewildering relationship,

I've hated him, and loved him, and wanted him, and then not, but its taken nine years and then some to figure out that he isn't going anywhere. And that's fine by me. :) We're going to make this work - and as commitment phobic as I am, that's a huge step to take, isn't it? Well, unless you count the fact that we're getting married as a step - which we are, in the form of a somewhat large madras wedding hoopla, and I'm going to write about it here, but anonymously, because DF is somewhat private.


Goodbye, and Happy Independence Day, gentle reader. I leave to board a flight to Madras, to home, where I shall continue to mend a once-broken, but slowly salvaged relationship with my father. We are both survivors of such tragedies, great and small, real and perceived, some suffered jointly, some separated by 40 years of lives lived apart and before, but there is such peace in my heart these days, and I wish for him to have it too and for us to have it together.

And I wish for you to have it too - so hugs. Don't forget to watch the parade, ok?

A week in my own

Everyone says to me: "But you're _from_ here! How can there be a culture shock? You're _from_ _here_!"

And then I sigh wearily (verily, I sigh) and try to change the issue. To a select few (two) I moan in deep detail about how I miss pavements (sidewalks) and queues. I miss buying cheap alcohol. I miss daily cupcake routines. I miss the folks, oh, I miss them so much. +44 calls make me _so_ happy. I miss the email chains that begin on a bored Monday morning - about Sanskrit poems, about Rumi, about burritos for lunch from the van, or Ram Guha's speech at LSE, or the chammak challo trainee's very short skirt. 

I said in my leaving email that I was sad to be leaving, but it was not nearly the truth. What I should have said, is that 2010 to 2012 made me a whole happy person. A very nice cheery mildly crazy happy person.  I really liked who I had become (whom?) and for the first time in a long time, I was so comfortable and happy that I didn't want to leave, as such.

Coming to Delhi is a forceful acknowledgment of Ubuntu-ness. It is a lot less about the I and a lot more about the we. In the sense that India can be a we. It has now been eight days and while I am not struggling, uncomfortable, or unhappy, I am thoughtful more than I was. Crazy less than I was.

I guess I used up all of the craziness in deciding to make the move.
I asked for an adventure, an intellectual powerhouse of an office, and a stable relationship time, and GODAMMIT I think I have it all.


 

But Harry doesn't mind

"But Harry doesn't mind, if he doesn't make the scene, he's got a daytime job, he's doin alright..."


aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

"I tell myself this was a day job, tell people this is a day job, that I have projects I am working on, myserious things to do with my time, until ten years pass, and you realise, this isnt a day job anymore, it is your job, and it is all you'll ever do." - loosely transcribed from memory, how to live safely in a sci-fi universe.


aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

***

I think I will restore semblance of calmnness by getting a haircut now so I have something substantial to complain about.