To my Grandfather

His palms were like paper; dry, leaf-like, almost translucent. I feared holding them. They felt so brittle under my touch. Like the bones of a tiny bird under its thin coat of feathers. I thought they would snap, just trying to be. Even so, I kept holding them like they were a precious childhood trinket. Afraid of letting them slip through the gaps between my fingers. I held them as gently as I could, humbled by how youthfully cavalier my fingers felt, wrapped around them. Not unlike the emotions you experience while handling an old book; it’s yellowing sweet-smelling paper, threatening to crumble at the slightest application of accidental force. But you want to preserve it. You want to hold on to it forever and so you protect it with everything you have.

He would never let me hold them if he were aware, I thought. Always the proud warrior, the unrelenting fighter; he would pull them back indignantly and look at me with undisguised annoyance; as if to challenge the motive behind my sentiment. His eyebrows raised just enough to question me and make me retreat to a corner with an embarrassed, sheepish smile.

I ran my index finger softly over the veins bulging out through the thin tanned skin on his forearm. The nail is filed short. As are all my other fingernails. We have to take every precaution in order to provide him with the cleanest environment possible. It reminded me of when my baby brother was born fourteen years ago and I had a cold. Every time the doctor came in to check on either the baby or the mother, I held my breath in fear. I was scared that I would sneeze, or cough and let away my carefully guarded secret. I wanted to be there so bad, in that moment, peering down the grills of the hospital crib at the tiny creature below. To reach down and touch its melting-butter skin and that tiny stubbed nose; I had to be careful. Oh so careful.

I reached down to brush my palm against the rough stubble of his cheek. He subconsciously twitched towards my touch and then his face relaxed again. Here was the man who had been a hero to two generations in our family. Here was the man larger than life, full of ideas and thoughts and opinions. Here was the man who never shied off expressing his views and argued till the end. Here was the man who dissolved into thought while we talked to him and whose smile upon being caught betrayed his age. Here was the man who could outrun all of us and push us for more. Here was the man whose approval and appreciation was paramount. Here was the majestic presence, lying frail and unaware. Restive but not resigned.

I love you. You will forever be my hero.

Self-discovery comes at times you least expect it. Possibly when you least want it too. The opportunities you come across every day; the ones you lose, perhaps defining you a little more than the ones that you grasp. The decisions you end up making, the impulsive ones that you make when faced with very little time to ponder. And you end up doing what is true to you, in the process, coming a little closer to finding what you truly are. Maybe what you truly are is what you are truly meant to be. But who reaffirms you of that? And what are you, at the end of the day?
Bad times are purgatory. They are cleansing. Purifying. They let you be exactly who you are, and allow you to let go of the image you work all your life carefully constructing. They make you let go of your stoicism, your seemingly undaunted spirit, your composure, and your forced optimism. They let you stop lying to everybody around you and for a short period of time, you are exactly who you are. You cry, you are more emotional than logical, you are less guarded. You are more raw. You are more human.
Bad times, seemingly relentless in their harshness, often end up doing you more good. They often remind you of the little things you forgot about yourself along the way. Or better still, tiny strengths and slivers of resilience and positivity and an almost stubborn will to overcome. Things you forgot while trying to be calm. The most important parts of you.
Every day is a test of your ability to overcome. There are surprises around every corner, good and bad. There is a comfort in knowing that each person's past is a testimony to their inherent urge to pull through.
No matter how hard, no matter how prolonged. There is great strength in believing in the unproven and having faith. There is great strength in being just you.

The Little Things

Hugging a pillow while lying on your right.
The mattress that changed the living room.
Dog bites and missed shots.
One play and a taxi ride.
Apple pie.
Jogging to Lemongrass.
Bandra.
Property Prices.
Baked beans, eggs, toast, juice, cold milk, cereal and pancakes.
Lunch at 5 pm.
Gay dinner providers.
Hating Lokhandwala.
Decades.
Cheese Doodles and chocolate by the sea.
Shawarma and Williamson.
Salvatore Ferragamo and the sheer strength of femurs.
Unhealthy amounts of healthy food.
Three McFlurry's.
Sad Nights. (You- 2, Me-1).
Churches and cigarettes.
Mosques and puddles.
The last bite.
Sitting on the floor outside the kitchen.
Ratatat.
The ugly chandelier.
Photobooth.
Sunday brunch.
Saturday movie.
Palladium post 11.
The rain.
Obscene mannequins.
Chicken Soup for the Sad Faggot Soul.
Zero navigational skills.
Palaise Royale and the four cranes on top.
Heavy machinery.
Ireland and St. Andrews.
Road trips to France.
Ravens, peejuns and kittens.
Six hour naps.
Fighting.
Growing up.
Losing wallets.
Dal chawal and cheeni.
"The Queen of the Suburbs".
Questionable sauce and medicinal fizzy drinks.
Icing.
Alligators.
Narcissism.
"Itna saara"
3 am talkativeness.
White chocolate torte.
Birthdays (Me- 1, You- negative 11).
Decades.
Decades.
Decades.


:)

Six

Sometimes in life, you are lost. You are surrounded by people you call your friends and who consider you theirs, but you are constantly lonely. Sometimes in life, you push limits just to test them and to test yourself and the people around you. Often this ends in disappointment in others and oneself. Some times in life you refuse to have faith but certain people edge their way in and never leave. Often those people save you.
Some times in life, you learn more lessons from one person than you have from all other experiences you have had before meeting them. Often they make you a better person and soon enough, you start changing into the kind of person you have always wanted to be. They make you selfless, thoughtful and less aggressive. They rap you on the head when you are being stupid and they grab your hand when you are crossing the road because they are convinced you WILL die, if they don't. They know when you really want dessert and are just being polite. They order you a large side of fries when you are being fussy and indecisive about food. They know when you won't bow down and will give in. They can tell when you are quiet because you are at peace and when you are quiet because you are just upset. They know what drives you crazy and do the very same thing at times. They remind you, every moment of every day, why they are the best thing that ever happened to you. They make you blessed. They fix you.

Six months of feeling like that. Six months of feeling like the luckiest person in the world.

I love you.

Happy You Know What. :)

Lessons Learned

It has been more than two weeks since I got back to Bombay and things are NOT looking up, health-wise. It's either drunken injuries that I discover a few days late and do not remember getting or bruises from overenthusiastic participants of classroom war-simulation games or your run-of-the-mill severe skin condition on the chest that pains to the point of rendering me immobile and doesn't respond to medication. In a nut shell, I just keep getting progressively more disaster-prone with time. 

After a very long time, there is a class in college that stumps me completely. I have never been able to make peace with not understanding what is taught in class, this takes it to a whole new dimension. Combine that with a spectacular lack of motivation and what you have is a major problem in your hands.

Moving into the hostel has been...I don't know...not the most comfortable of experiences. I do not like my room or my flat and the prospect of new people moving in soon. I also don't like how musty the kitchen/store smells and I can't bring myself to touch anything without analyzing it for unwanted substances. Still cannot get over the fact that this house used to be inhabited by men before we moved in. Call it prejudice or just pure sense. 

On the bright side, I have started to develop a soft spot for my (accidental) roommate. She is possibly the most innocent, harmless person I have met in my life. This obviously makes her a butt of many bitchy jibes within the hostel (not surprising, coming from girls. Women have an ingrained knack of disregarding any positives and going for the kill anyway). I like how we have found a way to adjust to living in such close quarters and yet giving each other all the space we could ask for. 

And of course, the one constant that makes everything worthwhile...the Delhiite, after six months, remains a source of unending companionship and familiarity. It fascinates me how every passing day is so full of promise. And how we manage to make memories when we least intend to. 

All in all, a pointless post. But its left me feeling better than what I felt before writing it.

More later

M

There is a thin line between realism and pessimism that I tread on all the time. It's my normal state of mind. I am always preparing for the worst but at the same time trying to look like I have hope for the best. Faith is such a weapon. Faith is such a disguise. It is the biggest folly and sometimes your only savior. It pulls you down or keeps you afloat.

And in spite of all my cynicism, I cannot deny the fact that I am living closest to a dream at present. For the last 6 months, I have been happy and secure and self assured. In a transient world and time, my biggest comfort and strongest wall of support remains a person that entered my life without plan and changed it. He changed me. Into a much nicer, more selfless, cheesier version of myself. Into someone who thinks things over more carefully and doesn't just do the first thing that comes to her mind. Into someone who cares about the consequences of her own actions. Into someone who closes her eyes and trusts. Into a better person.

It's amazing how I start every new day with the same anticipation. It's amazing how we can walk around a bookstore and lean over laughing over toy  and bookshelves. It's amazing how he can continue gently persuading me when I am being irrationally stubborn. Its amazing how he can patiently watch me try to steer his car into a crazy U-turn and not be impatient. It's amazing how he plans things to perfection. It's amazing how he can make anyone laugh. It's amazing how I can never get bored of him. It's amazing how I am always wishing for more time. It's amazing how we can just be together and yet be ourselves.

It is amazing how I can be impossibly low and start writing about him and feel much better and lucky and blessed.

It is pretty fucking amazing.

I love you. In case you still read.

When you expect the worst and prepare yourself for it, often life surprises you with quite the contrary. When you reason and argue and plead with a God whose existence you are still slightly skeptical about, you sometimes end up hearing a comforting, reassuring voice telling you to keep faith. When you hold on to that faith and try to believe, you are sometimes proved right. And when that happens, you ignore all your skepticism, you look up, and you thank God.

I am so happy.