Window.

The day my love walked into my life
I had opened the window to let love in.
It was Autumn, and outside my window
the sun was blazing in a bright orange hue or
was it the orange tint of the dried leaves?
I do not remember.
The little bird perched high up on the tree
was still idling around
because winter seemed so far way.
My father was out shopping groceries.
My mother was busy in her daily chores.
And my sister was, even at that time, struggling to keep together her marriage.

On such a day I let my love walk in.
Love was, umm, every beautiful thing I had ever seen?
No.
Love was sweaty from the autumn heat and humidity.
Love wore a shirt that clung to love’s body drawing the outline of love’s underclothes.
Love was constantly fidgeting with love’s hair
and frantically taking down notes on Hamlet:
“To be or not to be”,
and in my head
“To love or not to love”
Love had to rush home after class because of traffic.
Love had no time for casual flirting.
Love was so easily annoyed at teasing.
Love was, I hate to say it, boring.

But to me,
Love had twinkling eyes.
Love had unkempt hair.
Love read fancy books.
Love had cute little spacing between love’s teeth.
Love was tall.
Love was beautiful.
Love was punctual.

Love was not perfect but on that day love decided to become mine.
Love agreed to me.
Love responded to my texts.
Love wanted me.
Love accepted me.
And in that moment Love became my life.

Suddenly, Love was laughter
the sun was brighter
Love was shelter, a forever home
Love was a throbbing, pumping comfort bubble
A paradise like a mother’s womb.
Love was foolish, love was chirpy
Love was every happy emotion there can be.

And then….
Time passed
Love grew.

The twinkle in love’s eyes was water from the undetected hyperopia.
The fidgeting with the hair was from being jittery.
The fancy books came with an obsession for knowledge.
Love was so much taller than me that when love wrapped love’s arms around,
I felt intimidated.
Love was so beautiful that I became invisible.
Love did not like flirting because love had no time.
Love was punctual because love’s whole life was a race against time.

Love was a wreck. My home was a wreck.
Love was me.
A home cannot be a wreck.
My home was me.

The day my love left
I forgot to latch the window to keep love in
It was summer but the sky was misty with a grey hue
from all the gloom or the pollution?
I do not remember.
The little bird no longer lived there
on that dry, dehydrated tree.
My father was out shopping groceries, just a little withered.
My mother was busy in her daily chores, just a little slower.
And my sister had no marriage to keep together any longer.

On such a day my love decided to walk out.
Love leaving was, umm, every empty feeling I had ever imagined?
No.
Love left but the sun still rose and there was a queue in the bank
and it was hot and humid and I was sweating and my heart was aching
and I had to deposit my monthly cheque and I had no longer the need to save money
for birthdays and theatres and movies and dates and my assignments were lying on my desk and I had no heart to write about Bojack Horseman on my weekly review because I was a Diane I did not know how I felt any longer about anything. I was tired and miserable and God why does every bad thing ever happen to me?

I rush back home and yes, love leaving is every empty feeling ever.
Love was strange and weird and jittery and spectacled,
Love was too tall and too beautiful and too boring,
but love was love, my love and now love has left and gone,
and I forgot to latch the window.
I LEFT THE WINDOW OPEN.

And love left, tiptoed.
Love didn’t even fight it, fight me.
Love took the window.
The window through which love had walked in.

I SHOULD HAVE JUST CLOSED THE WINDOW.
I should have just let us stay in.
And now I leave my window open
unlatched
unforgotten
Hoping for love to walk back in.

I am a woman.

I am a woman. I am a brown woman. I am a brown woman from a South Asian Country. I am a brown bengali woman from a South Asian Country. I am a brown bengali heterosexual woman from a South Asian Country. I am an educated brown bengali heterosexual woman from a South Asian Country. I am.

I am a woman. I bleed. I have been educated in a girls’ school. I have seen girls call out girls for staining their clothes while on their menstruation. I have had friends who didn’t talk to me for a day or two because I didn’t share with them the date I started menstruating. I didn’t share my first menstruating experience because I was afraid I would be judged, or worse; casted out.

I am a woman with scars and stretch marks. I am young but with gray strands on my head. The toes of my right foot are not aligned perfectly. I have a double chin and a potruding belly. I am heavy chested. I am short. I am mostly not comfortable in my own skin.

I am a woman and I come from a female (biological gender) dominated family ( at least in numbers). My mother didn’t take a job at the bank because her brother hadn’t been employed yet. My grandmother remembered her English lessons even in her 70s but she was married off in the ninth standard.

I am a woman and I have been groped in my ass. My breasts are a sight of wonder for most shops I visit. A hospital guard once asked my boyfriend to tell me to button my shirt so that my cleavage wouldn’t peak. The metro lady has told me to tuck in my bra strap. So many other metro ladies discuss my ripped jeans. I have had to move a little to avoid being touched. I carry my bag backfront to avoid the gaze down my cleavage. I avoid empty streets past 8:30-9. I avoid walking alone. I avoid.

I am a woman and if I go by history or legends I am either vile or virtuous. If I am plain as Penelope I must be virtuous, if I am Helen I must be an enchantress. I am either a creator or a harbinger of destruction. I am either a saint or a femme fatale. I am an ‘either’ or ‘or’. Never both.

I am a woman and I have male friends who would argue being a housewife by choice is not empowering. I have male friends who talk about picking women for validation. I have male friends who believe in their voice of reason over mine. I have male friends who make fun of other boys if they are even slightly effeminate.

I am a woman and I have known women who are more a man than so many men are. I have known women who feel uncomfortable with men dressing like a woman. I have known women who make jokes on effeminate men. I have known women who believe procreation is the goal of my biological gender. I have known women to go against women and blame women for being victims of rape. I have known a woman to say that the girl should have never taken the empty bus and her decision aided in her rape. I have known sorry women who have been pawns to toxic patriarchy.

I am a woman and I have seen women ashamed of their bodies. I have seen them shame themselves and others over saggy boobs, small boobs, big boobs. I have seen them cry over never been able to maintain work and children. I have seen women feel ashamed of asking for help in rearing their child. I have seen women constantly beating themselves for calling off breastfeeding too soon. I have seen other women calling on women who decide to pump their milk out. I have seen women be vile and nasty to each other only because they are always uncomfortable with themselves.

I am a woman and I have seen women turn into each other’s hype girls. I have seen women gang up and pull through a girl in help. I have seen women fight, fall, break, bleed only so that a few other women can have a better life. I have seen women give up more in a day than most of us do in one life time.

I am a woman and I am faulty. I do not believe in special days assigned to women. I do not believe in celebrating or uncelebrating. I do not believe in showing off my scars if I am uncomfortable. I do not think applying make up is problematic (even though I did some years ago). I do not believe in feeling good about my painful abdomen during my menstruation because it is apparently (not) a gift. I do not believe in the necessity to procreate. I do not believe in a life of compromise.

I believe in choice. The choice to just be. A choice to be woman despite my biologically assigned gender. The choice to love a woman despite the dominant sexuality. The choice to be a mother despite my job. A choice to be a housewife despite my education. A choice to wear a shirt despite my heavy breasts. A choice to avoid makeup despite my acne scars. A choice to bring life into the world. A choice to leave that life if need be. A choice to a husband or a wife. A choice to a partner. A choice to multiple partners without being a whore. Just a choice.

I am a woman and I bleed every month and someday I am not going to bleed anymore and I am going to lose the firmness of my breasts. I am a woman and I try my best not get groped at public places. I try keeping my boobs as close to my body as I can. I am a woman and I find children extremely cute but that is not my maternal instinct. I am a woman and I identify with my biological structure and needs. I am a woman and I think  I am just as me as I would have been even if I weren’t naturally assigned to being one. I am a woman and even though there was no literal choice at being one, this is mostly who I want to be. I am. I am. I am. I am a woman.

Tales to Tell : Meal for One.

This is a Thursday evening and I am at a comparatively empty fast food joint, sitting alone with some fried chicken and apparently reflecting on my life. It took me hardly 15 minutes to get here by a public bus except, I waited for an hour straight before I actually got here – I was waiting for a tram. I had planned a solo tram trip to one of the only hyped cafes in the hub we call North Kolkata, but like most plans in life even that failed. I didn’t manage to get a tram and neither did I manage to go that cafe. I hopped down a stop before having remembered my prior experience and got to this place (where I am now) and ordered a meal for one. In truth, I am not hungry. Rather, far from that. But I still prefer being around food because it makes me happy?

As it is not very crowded, people are keeping their voices moderate and bearable, well at least for now. Around me, I can see a group of friends (something I simply do not have today), 2 people dining alone – one over the phone and the other also over the phone. My guess would be, both of them are watching videos. But I do not judge them. I am doing quite the same. After I write this, if I am still here, I plan on reading You, which I left half-finished like I left Huxley’s Brave New World to move on to Atwood because c’mon, who wouldn’t, right? When I walked in, I had initially decided to order a cup of tea, and even though I am always overpaying for tea everywhere, the place I am at today does not even serve in fancy cups so no pictures for the gram and hence, I preferred a meal for one. While placing my order the waiter asked me if I wanted to pack my meal, and I felt a tingling sense of liberation in saying no and that I wanted to eat it alone sitting here. I am sitting at a table for 5-6 people and it is the most independent I have felt today.

On my way here, before I took the bus, I noticed a few things. A small boy tried stealing a sweet from a shopkeeper and was caught and teased. His father bought him the sweet anyway. I do not know why this boy suddenly reminded me of Estha and that entire episode with the “Orangedrink Lemondrink man”. I overheard a girl asking her friend to wait on the opposite pavement. I saw a man run across the road because the signal had opened and I saw a person on a bike having to pay fine. I missed a bus with better seats for the tram that never came and finally took the bus and got here instead of the cafe (all of which I mentioned before). The bus I happened to take was the very bus I used to take for tuition back in the day. That bus ride used to be my bestpart about traveling to and fro from that place. There was a life in that journey which I cannot possibly explain, but no matter what I did everything to wait and occupy a window seat every 2 days a week.  The reason why I preferred coming here instead of the cafe is because the cafes in North Kolkata are not cafe-like as they are in South Kolkata. It maintains a certain autocracy in trying to decide your seat and your menu, the constant gaze and wonder as to why a person must visit a cafe alone, the question in their eyes of if my home wasn’t enough for my me-time and, why must I occupy a seat for longer than I take to finish my order is everything that I needed to do without. That does not mean there aren’t hovering eyes here. A family just came in along with a grandmother figure, and I swear it, each of them has taken turns in looking at me. I do not mind though, it gives them something to talk about. Maybe, they feel sad for me. But I am happy sitting alone. At least, right now.

Since my waking minute this morning, I have been feeling a certain low. A certain hopelessness in everything I do. I wanted to get out the house because I needed to believe it helps, but I don’t know if it does. It is a change of scenery, sure. But life remains all the same. This afternoon I thought of writing an overtly negative write up and then I didn’t because I didn’t feel like it anymore and now I am writing something I never planned to. Maybe, this is how life is. Full of moments and nothing continuous in a linearity. Today I sit here imagining my future as a writer, a blogger, a scholar (a professional ideologist as Althusser would say) but who knows if I am not just a month away from being another girl in PR or Sales. I didn’t even plan to come to this place, or to commute here by bus, I didn’t even really want this meal for one, but it all happened, mostly all for nothing or maybe all for everything, who knows? Who knows if this ever gets better, and who knows what better is? We ask the questions there aren’t answers to because life doesn’t answer. It doesn’t.

                        Picture : Darjeeling tea served with crackers at the cafe I refused to visit                                     today.

Tales to Tell:- | Stuck in Reverse |

As a toddler, my father took immense pride in me learning how to write অ,আ (Bengali alphabets) without anyone having to help me through it. As the legend goes, I apparently, quite easily learnt how to imitate the alphabets straight off my Sohoj Pat.

His pride, however, was to fade very soon.

As soon as I had settled in my pseudo Victorian boarding school, which took (and still takes) immense pride in being one of the oldest establishments (1789) in the business in the country, their Anglican ways began to rub off on me. In the beginning it was quite slow and then it was all at once.

If I have to start at the beginning, the story can be very simply put – with my very little exposure at the age of 7, every other person speaking in Hindi were non-bengalis, every north-eastern was a Chinese, every person using English as their primary mode of communication was a foreigner. In my defence, I was a child and I didn’t yet know geography. As I had entered the premises of my school, I was greeted in English, expected to communicate in English, and in fact told to as it would be next to offensive otherwise. But these are things most people from convents face. However, what is a little different about my experience comes quite literally from having to live in such an atmosphere.

Every time, in every situation, when you happen to be a minority, of any kind, your first instinct is to try and fit in. Our boarding, like I said, with its anglicized culture, housed very few Bengalis at the time. Which automatically resulted in us having to mould our ways even in the slightest. Within the first week of my stay I started making sense in English, by the second week I was eating in English, by the second month I was dressing in as westernised clothes as I could afford, and hell! by my next vacation I was apparently dreaming in English.

Gradually, the girl who was growing up watching and hearing ঠাকুমার ঝুলি & চাঁদের পাহাড় and Ray’s movies on Sunday afternoons on DD বাংলা (of course I didn’t understand them) got over them pretty quickly. If I had been spending sometime in learning my Bengali poems for elocutions and trying to read short stories along with cultivating my English, now I had moved entirely to my Grimm’s fairy tales and slowly on to my Enid Blyton. This change, not very surprisingly but quite automatically made it so much easier for me to fit in. I started relating to Anne from Anne of Green Gables and Harry Potter because my condition seemed to align with theirs and I hadn’t found an equivalent in Bengali. I started hearing and learning and even performing (quite terribly to Shakira’s Whenever) English songs. I started learning about Bands and actors absolutely so foreign to me. When I came home for vacations, my father encouraged me to eat with my fork and spoon to keep up the habit and it of course made eating fish increasingly difficult and so I rarely enjoyed my fish any longer ( and this definitely does say something because I had quite a reputation of a cat as child for almost chewing up all the bones effortlessly). I started asking my father to decorate for Christmas and I even said my prayers when I was asked to, like a performance artist in front of my relatives (things you ought toa do as a child).

By the time I was in class 4, I had anglicised quite a bit. I was no longer the butt of all “bangali” jokes but voila! I was making some myself.. Every Saturday, when my father used to visit he used to bring me dinner from home and having remembered my love for fish, he almost always packed some for me. Initially they were everything I waited for. Then I began to feel embarrassed because people constantly associated Bengalis with “machlis” (fishes). At first I tried avoiding taking them for dinner. I used to try and eat my fish in front of my father so that nobody else can see. My father always wondered why and I of course could never explain and then I asked him to stop getting me fish for dinner entirely. I asked him to get me Chow mein, get me chicken, get me anything, buy me dinner even but not fishes. I made up excuses like, I cannot share a piece of fish or two with many people and eating alone is selfish and my father eventually obliged.

At around this time, I met another girl, a Bengali, who happened to be from Bangladesh (we had quite a few people from there. Very loving and beautiful people indeed) She was just about my age. We were in the same class and unlike most of my boarding mates, she was the first one from the boarding to have Bengali with me as her second language. And oh! She was good. She knew her Bangla and with pride and she was brilliant and every living day I wished to be like her. But instead of doing anything noble and supportive, I did the only thing I shouldn’t have done – I made fun of her. Because it made me look cool. And also because, (now when look back in retrospect, I understand this with the little education I have) I wanted to make her give up all that she believed in and her identity and become like me; misplaced and so ridiculously a pawn of a sort of reverse racism or a reverse bangali-ism if you may call it. I am not trying to say anybody victimised me, I may have victimised myself, but of course I didn’t know better. And I wanted nobody to know better.
The more I started to grow up, the more my habits began to settle in. They became more a part of me than I was myself a part of them. I began to literally think, talk, eat in English. Quite effortlessly by then. My lifestyle, by that point, had been influenced quite wholly by what I read and wrote and wore which were all in English and I had no complaints. People often called me ট্যাঁশ (pseudo), or they told me how the Britishers left but they left me behind as some leftover sample and even though now I understand they were quite scathing insults, I didn’t mind any of them then. I still don’t really mind. Because my colonised mind does accept these criticisms to no effect.

I came back home again and I started eating my meals and taking a piece of fish with it again. I began watching some Bengali movies and listening to some songs. I began fleetingly observing and making assumptions regarding the Bengali community. I began enjoying Durga Pujo even though Christmas still remained my favourite time of the year. And even though things did begin to change, I did understand I am stuck in my reverse.

At this point, I have come to accept my misplaced identity. I have come to regret and even wish so many things otherwise. I have come to regret not reading, not learning, not singing, not embracing enough Bangla to be a part of this community. But despite it all, I do know, I don’t really belong here. I don’t truly belong anywhere. I am just a knock off of a supposed Anglican culture and a quite rejected member of the Bengali community. I am no longer the child who used to wait for her sister to read the serialised stories from শুকতারা. I neither am much of the carol singer.

I am stuck somewhere in between, a hybrid, in a space I don’t entirely belong and never will, a half-shared, half-isolated expanse for a lifetime. A mix of the Orient and the Occident. Sometimes I feel like I belong in another time, in another era, in a cross between an English countryside and the Modernism of Paris- myself being just as conflicted as these two modes of living.

But what I truly find comfort in is how I am not alone. How my space is mine and also a shared space with million others. How my identity is not in a language, in Bengali or English but in stories. How I have always and will always find myself in between, always alone in terms of a community and always surrounded in terms of experience. How my isolation isn’t mine alone but it belongs to a certain us instead.

An International Language Day week special, where I try to elucidate my relationship with language. 🙂

Picture: Like the lights fading away, my being knits disarray.

OCD/CDO

Picture Caption: Mumble and jumble, scattered ramble.

OCD is such a thing.
This morning I was settling my documents.
I took them from my table and put them in a file.
I arranged them.
And neatly pinned them inside.
Did I settle them carefully?
Took them out again, just to check for tiny folds on the edges.
No folds.
Put them back again.
Climbed on the stool to put them back on the top shelf, where it is usually housed.
Put them there.
Got down.
And again.
It won’t fold, right?
Quickly got back up.
Brought them down to check for folds, creases and tears one last time.
Just one last time.
Climbed back up, put them on the shelf, turned to get down,
ONE LAST TIME.
I thought I could ignore it.
I am stronger than that.
I sat on the stool.
No no no.
I am not going back up again, I told myself.
The thudding in my head got louder.
My insecurities crept in.
BUT THEY ARE YOUR ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS.
I got back up again.
To check them just three more times before I could convince myself that I don’t care anymore.
And I knew I would dream of how they have been shredded to pieces at night only to do it just 5 more times the next morning.

My lover often gets annoyed with me for the number of times I repeat the same thing.
At 1 in the morning, when he is sleepy and is wishing me night, I tell him “I love you.”
He says it back.
But his tone is sleepy.
Not full of his vibrant love for me.
How can I sleep with that?
What if he doesn’t love me anymore?
So, just to be sure, I tell him “I love you” again and again, and just one more time and at least a 10 more.
By then it’s 1:20 and he really wants to sleep now.
He wants to keep the phone but no, he used to ask me to stay on the call before, while he slept and I heard him breathe.
He did not ask me to stay today.
So, I tell him that.
He is half asleep.
Barely able to hear me, but he must to calm my head.
He must find the strength.
Or else, how will I sleep tonight?
“I love you. I love you. I love you”, please say it back to me.
But he is already asleep by then, and I have to cut the call only to call him back 5 more times hoping he returns the “I love yous” for the night.

OCD is such a thing.
My grandmother who is 85, and can barely move,
takes a bath 3 times a day even in winters.
When she falls on the bathroom floor, she bathes just one more time-
Immediately after being lifted up.
She still sweeps and swabs her room because nobody can clean it just as much.
She overpays a house-help because she only trusts her to get the work done.
She does not trust anybody with her things because she is afraid that they will not take care them like she does.
She still sleeps with her keys under her pillow and her moping stick by her bed,
because she can never be clean of her insecurities.

OCD is so frightening, that now, while I write,
I have been checking and rechecking it so many times.
I have missed prepositions, conjunctions, and made spelling errors
And now I don’t feel confident anymore.
I have missed so many “I”s.
“I”s I have missed.
“I”s… “I”s… “I”s….
Tchk.
So many… Uhh..
OCD is such a thing.

Last.

Random frame of my window basking in the golden sun.

There is always this certain bittersweet feeling about the last day of vacations. No matter how much you’ve been craving to go back to your routine, the last day always bathes you in nostalgia of all that was and fills you with the anxiety of all that is to come. Today you will find yourself counting the hours unconsciously before all this stagnancy finally comes to an end. Even dragging yourself to your meal makes you feel like you are wasting time. “One more day on my bed. Just one more.”

Back when I was a boarder, this used to be the day I had to return to school before 6pm. The mornings were the hardest then. By this time I would almost always be done with packing. I was instructed to bathe early so that I could take my time and savour the best and the last supper (until next time) and also, practically, my dinner had to be cooked and packed early. No matter how excited I got over the years to return to my friends, this afternoon was always exceptionally tough. Somehow I found it excruciatingly difficult to gulp even my favourite delicacies. I’d most often lose my appetite because my stomach would already swell with homesickness for a place I would not be having my next luncheon at. After lunch I would stroll around my house, usually checking on my luggage and bidding everything that I am to leave behind a silent goodbye. Around 4-ish my father used to get ready and leave the house to call a cab. I knew it was my signal to  get rid of my pyajamas, get into my “let’s face the world” gear and wait with my baggage (literally and metaphorically) for the cab to arrive. It wouldn’t even take 10 minutes. As soon as I could hear the horn honking in my narrow lane, I used to rush out of my house and take a seat in the cab because I was so afraid I would cry. [When I was little I used to cry a lot and even throw tantrums not to return but after 5-6 vacations, I knew it was inevitable. So… this was the best I could do.]

After fitting all my luggage in the back, my father used to take a seat beside me. That journey was almost always unusually quiet. My father tried to ask me questions but I used to brush him off. I remember counting the number of crossings that I could go back to be home. And hope for every red light to delay my cab. But eventually, like everything, I used to reach my destiny. With the approaching of the gate my stomach would churn with nervousness. I used to face this overwhelming fear of meeting everyone again and bidding my father goodbye until we meet next time. On stepping out of the cab, grabbing my bag with my sweaty palm, I would be greeted with so many smiling faces. My father would sign me in, leave my luggage to my dorm, and kiss my forehead, and disappear through the door leaving me in the crowd.
Years have passed since. So many holidays and vacations… but this bittersweet feeling still devours me.

As much as I want to fall into a routine, get back to a life that feels meaningful in ways (I am aware of the delusion) my stomach is still churning from the thought that tomorrow onwards I have to meet people, decide what to wear, chalk out my routine, manage everything within a span of 24 hours and even though it excites me it also saddens me to think, from tomorrow I will be up and about and my parents will again go back to having lunch without me and we will go on with our lives until the next vacation. 

Depression-Invisibility.

Have any of you watched Fargo season 3? I am sure a lot of you have… Remember Gloria Burgle? The police officer investigating the Stussy murder? Yeah, her. She was pretty much a relatable character from the start. The way she felt invisible (and if you have watched the show you will know that it was both literal and metaphorical), I feel the same too. I am sure that some of us do…

                                                                   Photograph: FX

“Every time I make a call it’s like I’m in a silent movie.”
                                                              – Gloria Burgle.

Anyway, so the reason I chose to rant about it today was because of this new Sarahah trend. Not that anybody cares (because no one’s going read this anyway) but if you do want to know, it is an app where you can “leave constructive messages” for people anonymously. Now, my Facebook feed has been trending green since yesterday and these “constructive messages” mostly include rants from stalkers and crushes, unrequited lovers, compliments and hate. Quite a lot of hate.

                                                                         App Logo

Guilty as charged I did try and follow the trend too. I installed the app and created an account. I don’t really know what I was thinking, but I was bored, so I will use that as an excuse. Gradually the first hour passed and I received one sweet anonymous message – it got exciting. But however, by the second hour I realized that nobody was messaging me and unlike most people on my Facebook feed, nobody was really interested in me. A few more messages followed but obviously they were from friends I knew which obviously were not really anonymous, violating the purpose of the app entirely. I decided to remove my account and uninstall it this morning, because well, I am an insecure YA looking for validation.

What was really interesting about this experience (apart from the fact that it openly promotes hate) is the shout out to people who are popular or pretty or famous. Validating people who are already validated and sidelining people who are already sidelined. Making it more legit for people to feel nonexistent by highlighting the apparently existing . I am not saying that it is anybody’s fault that they are pretty or talented or famous but it is showing how unseen the unpopular side is that creates the problem. Studies have shown social media as a propagator   of depression, and maybe I should not have created an account knowing all of this, but then again, why should I not? I deserve to have “fun” in this game too? And so do all the others out there, like me. (In case you are wondering, the grapes are sweeter on the other side. A little hypocrisy in my opinion, I am aware but why not? I can look for validation in my own post at least. Can’t I?)

I do not know what to tell you guys, (the people who share my feelings I mean) because let’s be honest, you are not going to read this, but if you do, stay strong through this trend. It is just a trend like ‘confessions’ were a few months ago, and God, if you are anything like me you must’ve hated that too, but just like that one this too will pass. I know some of you are strong and you have immense faith in yourself. Some of you have iron clad self-belief and I look up to each one of you. But it is people like me who need to be boosted and need to be told and I am telling you, being one of you, that someday, just maybe, we will be happy with just ourselves or recognized for who we are. We will be seen. But today, my darling, is not your day, but till then please just stay strong. Love yourself even if you don’t want to. The day will pass and the night will too and you will move closer to your day, even if it is again, not today.

Depression – Suicide.

A world health day sub-genre.

Depression and its causes and effects have been a recurring topic of discussion this past year. I, for one, am glad that finally mental health is being talked about, without a hush, to the point that depression has become the theme of this year’s World Health Day. I am just here, putting forward some amateur incidents and open discussions about depression and its sub-genres hoping that it might help somebody out there to know that people still care.

So today I am going to discuss suicide. I will restrict myself to discussing adolescent and youth attempts at suicide because not only do I have insufficient knowledge about the other age groups, but I am also inclined towards this by the virtue of my age.

“A lot of you cared, just not enough.”
― Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why

I have been watching Thirteen Reasons Why since last Sunday. Initially I hoped to binge watch it in a day because Hannah’s story felt important to me but as I proceeded I realized I don’t have it in my heart to hear Hannah talk about her own death all at once and I still have 4 episodes left. I am not going to go into the story but if my blog intrigues you in anyway, do give this show a watch or this book a read.

Growing up in a boarding school, I have witnessed self harm and attempted suicides quite closely. I will refrain from taking names not only to protect them but also because I could have misinterpreted or over analyzed a certain situation, again by the virtue of my maturity and age. Some of the earliest instances of self-harm witnessed by me, dates back to the time when I wasn’t even aware of the word ‘self-harm’. They were usually straight lines, slashed parallely across the arms length, inflicted by compasses or sharpeners or razor blades. It never occurred to me why someone would willingly go through that much pain but I do remember the trend spreading fast and rapidly to almost a pattern where several people resorted to this act for various reasons. I remember bleak rumours about people drinking liquid polish and phenol as well. I cannot vouch for its verity and in truth, it does not matter. The only reason why I have narrated these little vicious incidents is to tell you that for some reason or the other, most people our age, at some point of time have contemplated self-harm and suicide.

The more I grew up, I realized that so many of my close friends, inclusive of myself had started not only discussing but seriously considering its options, just in case. Even if keeping quiet about it felt normal then, it does not anymore because at this present moment, with so many broken hearts and souls, we the millennials, have already chalked out our end in case we fail or the pain gets unbearable.

“I didn’t want to wake up. I was having a much better time asleep. And that’s really sad. It was almost like a reverse nightmare, like when you wake up from a nightmare you’re so relieved. I woke up into a nightmare.”
― Ned Vizzini, It’s Kind of a Funny Story

To be absolutely honest, despite of all the statistics and the first hand experiences on frustration and rejection, suicide as a topic of discussion has occupied my mind as late as last year. With excessive pressure and nervous breakdowns, depressions due to existential crisis and contemplation on death have become a part of today’s adolescent lives. This ruthless and brutal search for meaning and this plea for acceptance with social media constantly setting the bar have dismantled several views of simplicity. No, of course I am not here to bash social media and its effects, (though that might be a topic for later discussion) but today it is about the rapid decline of mental condition to the point where self-harm is more an action than contemplation.

“Sometimes even to live is an act of courage“.  –Seneca

Here is my cry to everybody who is having a bad day, just talk. Seek help if you think you need it. Google contacts of professionals who can help you instead of “ways to die a painless death”. Talk to a friend. Talk to a stranger. Reach out to anybody. Do something you like. Read a book, watch a movie, even brainless, meaningless ones will suffice. Eat what you love. Take a day off. Go shopping. Do nothing. Do anything. Just deviate yourself from those thoughts. The moment will pass and things will get better. It does. Always. It’s a cyclic pattern. Always remember, you are stronger than your demons. And it is okay to be proud of just surviving. You are your saviour and you are worth it.

#VulnerablyHonestMusings

The last time I checked, I hated taking sugar or milk with my coffee. It made me feel all-powerful. Like, if I could drink this strong, black, bitter liqueur, why couldn’t I accept some harshness in my life?
The last time I checked, I loved applying salt to my wounds. It gave me sensations of heightened endurance. Like, if I could allow the salt to burn through my veins and bite me right in my bones, what bad could a heart-break do to me?
The last time I checked, I loved being a bitch. It gave me masochistic pleasure presenting the mean side of me. Like, if I could allow the world to hate me, how difficult would it be to detest my own existence?
The last time I checked, I trained myself to remain silent all day. It made me feel absolutely in control. Like, if I could contain my thoughts despite them thudding in my head, how could I ever get vulnerable?
But…
The last time I checked, I was also afraid of sleeping with all my lights off. It made me feel insecure. Like, if I couldn’t see the monsters under my bed how could I fight it?
The last time I checked, it also crushed my heart to see people never notice me. It made me feel invisible. Like, if nobody ever saw me how could I ever share my stories with anybody?
The last time I checked, it also broke my heart to have nobody to talk to at 3am. It made me feel lonely. Like, if being alone is that close to being lonely, how would I survive for the rest of my life?
The last time I checked, it also hurt me to watch romantic movies on Saturday nights. It made me feel very depressed. Like, if so many people could get lucky, why couldn’t I?
The last time I checked, I also had to drag myself out of the bed in the morning. It made me feel drained. Like, if I do not have anything to look forward to today, how will I go on for another day?
The last time I checked, I was also terrified of uncertainty. It made me feel anxious. Like, if I couldn’t predict my schedule, how do I right the wrongs before they can happen?

The last time I checked I was trying to maintain a regime; I was trying to work in a perfect loop so that I could be the absolute monarch of my life. Little did I know the delusion of control eluded me every time I tried to control my anarchic soul.