Turning 31, on the clock!

Mine is usually a quiet neighborhood. The bell strikes for the third time like a huge hammer on a gong and I finally bolt out of bed, eyes still shut and crusty, head heavy and mind dazed. I hurt my toe as I fumble my way to open the door, let my maid didi in and relieve myself of this morning misery. I slide under my comforter, strap myself in and go back to sleep. Out on the street a flower seller shouts, a vegetable cart proclaims the existence of vegetables, a balloon seller plays bamboo flute, a municipality vehicle arrives with a loudspeaker and a pinching voice behind it blares the importance of waste segregation and then abruptly breaks into a song, the garbage truck follows it, a fish monger pronounces her fresh catch, a scrap collector begs and bellows for scrap cardboards and bottles, a hawker tries to sell god knows what, there’s a constant beating of metal somewhere in the neighborhood and a moped without a silencer rushes past. Today is Sunday and I find myself in the middle of a circus.

But this is how I find myself placed in life. A bit unprepared and thoroughly boggled. As if I walked right into it. My dreams by far outweigh my reality, but then I have always thought this is what dreams are supposed to do. In the past I have been free-flowing and fearless, full of youthful exuberance, as people in the age mostly are. Plans and rules, scriptures and strictures don’t work out for me. I don’t always follow straight lines and marked paths; I would rather explore the wilderness, take chances in the world of consequences. If you tell me there’s some place forbidden for the fear of a dragon folklore, you would be pointing me straight to the dragon. I don’t know whether it’s foolhardy or outright stupid. Maybe this is the reason I keep getting lost. Then maybe, this is also the reason I keep getting found. The road though, from potential and promises to accomplishments, seems long.

Moving cities, shifting goalposts – “gotta go see about a girl”

I moved cities against my better judgement. One of the reasons was to get closer to the girl I loved. I categorically remember having discussed it out with her. So, a ‘no’ in her first visit was heartbreaking and I felt, a tad unfair. Six months later she told me she was seeing someone, so I had to leave commiseration behind, pick up my pieces and move on. I had joined an early-stage start-up with all but five people in the central team. I did it at a time when I was beginning to write regularly, gather form and flow and understand more about my writing and myself. I was beginning to get in touch with who I was, what I really felt and learning to put it down in simple words. The book I had been working on for the past two years was still unfinished and needed tending to. My heart told me to stay put, ride it out and complete it, but that was one more year’s work and I had run out of money. There were responsibilities weighing in. A pandemic that kept driving home the importance of health, resources, preparedness and planning. The longer the break from corporate, more difficult and slimer my chances of a smooth and graceful re-entry. So, I paid heed to my mind, rammed practicality into my decision and my heart and took the job. A job that drew from my educational background and what some like to call technical expertise. I launched the Pharma marketing business here, built a team around me and spread it across five states, something I am incredibly proud of. And yet a voice has been beckoning me to give it all up and embark on a completely different journey.

13 going 30 and 30 going 31

I am 30 turning 31 and I have questions. No, I don’t have my life figured out. I am yet to pursue the vocation of my dreams uninterrupted and unbothered. I am unmarried, not that I have been in the pursuit of marriage. In fact, quite the opposite. I have been dodging the subject and my family for a couple of years. Am trying not to drown in the deluge of oncoming proposals and I recently begun to realize that my mother and I would not like to marry the same girl. I had been hoping to just run into the one. I was counting on India’s population to make that happen. Our odds of running into each other are definitely high. Such run-ins are the reason I am so bruised, smacked right when I wasn’t paying attention. Falling on each other rather than falling for has been the norm. I have never before acknowledged it myself in my writings or otherwise, but the uncertainty of finding love has begun to weigh upon me and the acknowledgement only makes it more real and worse. Sharing it with friends from the same gender is often friendly banter, denial or scoffing at the prospects and sharing it with those from the opposite spectrum is like dealing in faulty live wires. Something would connect and someone would most certainly get electrocuted and well, be kaput. I have discovered that casual conversations often make way for serious casualties.

Loves me, loves me not

I feel Cupid’s arrows have struck me in all the wrong places. There have been some with no strings attached and then some who kept stringing me along. I have been head over heels in love. I have had flings. I have professed love only to quickly fall out of it and with great relief too. I’ve said yes, when I should have said no. I’ve been dumped, rejected, spurned, ghosted. Some tell me that I keep falling for the same kind of women. I still can’t make out the difference. I have been across all sides of the table, on top and painfully below.

My cousin who ditched, got hitched

The phrase ‘getting hitched’ takes its origin from tying horses to wagons. (This is only for my sister to read)

I just came back from my cousin sister’s wedding and I am a riot of emotions. She’s very dear to me. Somehow when things turned upside down for either of us, we found the other and were present without questions, without judgement, own circumstances notwithstanding. The deep set love I bear for her doesn’t need an exhibit. How it came to be I do not know and while the last few days were about her, this piece is not. I brought it up because at such gatherings you’re faced with people, personalities and perspectives. There, I met characters much like those I meet in all spheres of life. People who know less and speak more, for whom knowledge is inversely proportional to their eloquence and who regurgitate what little they know or have heard of. While I am very comfortable in my own skin, these are the kind that get under it. The self-endowed privilege of intellectual snobbism, without the concerted application of intellect, is magical. It is something to marvel at, the confidence to dive head-on in shallow pools. For me, it must mean certain death. I returned with a newly discovered resolve to ditch my own mediocrity, shed caution and pursue excellence in the field of my choice. To do what I love and do it with unapologetic abandon. For, if these people could have the confidence, I could certainly find something within to work with. I also came back feeling exposed, to my many relatives training their guns on me, the barrage of questions that have started to appear like pointed hooks.

The many what-Ifs

I carry a mortifying fear of what-ifs. What if for practical concerns I let go of my dreams? What if I continue my day job long enough to lose my ability to write? They say, you end up being what you do. What-if as a result of what I do, day in & day out, my own identity becomes indistinguishable from my job? What if in the blind pursuit of my dreams I lose the chance to spend quality time with my loved ones? What if the pursuit of my passion brings me to penury? What if in the quest for a supportive partner I end up choosing someone I do not love? It is after all easy to mistake care for love. What if to toe the line of my prospective love I lose control over the narrative of my life? What if I already have and it is now too late? What if it is not and I am one stumbling step away from leading the life of my dreams?

Immersive experiences in life

I love star gazing and wish to set up my own small observatory. I admit that I am a mad Selenophile. I wish to study quantum physics. I had almost completed a book in undergrad, trying to understand universe and existence. I can still make some sense of advanced mathematics. I want to write screenplay for a movie, many movies. I will soon get a book published. I wish to write from dawn till dusk and then some more, finish reading complete works of all of my favorite authors, peep out my window more often, extensively travel the world, live by the beach and the lake and in the woods, tend to my own garden, flushed with sunshine and flowers, blessed with bees and butterflies and squirrels and share silence with someone special. I wish to continue my morning run and yoga and find more time for family and friends and still be a resounding success. Those who have made my acquaintance of late, might find this overambitious, or even delusional. Those who know me really well would know I would accomplish them all, unrushed and in no particular order. Those who don’t know me at all might find this inspirational.

Italy calling

Of late, I spoke to a lady friend of mine, who was visiting India and remembered me because she happened to be reading Murakami (“What I Talk About When I Talk About Running”). We were speaking after almost a year. We have been checking up on each other for half a decade now, among other things as a selfish reassurance that the other’s still unmarried. I greatly admire her for her gumption and courage, for standing up to her fiancé who had whimsically put her on hold for his Civil Services prep, for packing her bags, enrolling for a course in Dublin, charting her way to the social sector and finally landing her dream job in Italy. During our conversation, she remarked, let’s admit we have begun to experience loneliness. Both of us are generally brimming with life, lead an active lifestyle, strive for health and pursue interests outside of work. But both of us knew what was being spoken of. Not having anyone to share difficult times does make you sad, then there’s also a strange sadness in not being able to share happiness and humor and beauty. For me, there’s suddenly a pang of anxiety over disappearing friends, fading friendships, dissolving equations and changing priorities.

When I was a little boy, I used to start by reading the end of the story, just to make sure everything was going to turn out okay. As for my own story, we will just have to see.