The Unforgettable Desire

Imagine an attention deprived 14yo girl getting not only attention but also love and care for being sick. A girl who knew everyone in the school before her illness, a girl who was known in the entire school after. Attention, though enjoyable, can also be scary. From wanting to be seen to living in the fear of being watched, a lot can change for a teenager through her illness. For the most part, having known suffering, having seen suffering, despite her tantrum-throwing self, she learns to be grateful for a life that she earlier despised. It doesn’t help when everyone around her, beginning from her doctors in the ICU to strangers on the road, call her strong. What has she done to survive an illness? Will power, her doctors said. She wondered, really? Maybe. She was just a kid who got her kicks from scoring 100 in Math and wanting to be 'the' topper in class 10 boards. It was the only form of recognition she knew, till she was sick. And the verdict of being strong, of never wan...

Once upon a time (not so) long ago on an uneventful night I decided to talk to a friend in something roughly resembling poetry . He, being the poet that he is, obliged in response. I ended up saying something I was toying with for a long time, that we have imprisoned ourselves in clocks only to say, time is running out. I know the argument often is that irrespective of clocks, the sun sets and rises, time passes. Yet, it is a human construct, isn’t it? A construct made for our convenience, mostly? My relationship with time isn’t a smooth one. I didn’t understand in class 1 why the year 2000 was being called 21 st century. Where was the 1 in 2000? Why did the new class teacher keep saying so? Should it not be 20 th ? It didn’t get better. I disliked history because I couldn’t remember the dates and years of so many wars. Even now it boggles me that Mughals reigned right before Britishers, like 200 years ago. Are not they supposed to be ancient history? How does 16 th century not fee...

Or, How We Accept Care Earlier this year I was out with a couple of friends from school. I met one of them a few days ago, so I knew what’s up with her. I had absolutely no idea about the other, I was meeting him for the first time since school. As we sipped our drinks, they began sharing life stories. He was confident about his life, including marriage, pretty sorted. I wondered, how can someone be so sorted? Then, I realised, he doesn’t feel the need to fight convention. I envied him, for a moment. When she fell apart talking about her life, he comforted her, reassured her, and the phrase that comes to my mind is, like a gentle man. I adored them, the care he offered, the care she needed. It was my turn to go next. All I said was, there’s nothing wrong in my life. I sipped the last of my drink, admitting, I know I have the power to make every single change I need, I don’t want to talk about it anymore. This scene of comfort returns to me every now and then. That’s how it’s suppose...

There’s a question that every reader has had for the author, ‘Is this real, is this your story?’ It comes when the story is sold as a fiction and people find themselves in it. I used to believe that it’s an irrelevant question, or something to feed the thirst for gossip. I like to think now that the question is a cry for help – people want the hope that whatever they’re going through will pass, as it did in fiction; that things will make sense in the end. They need to know that it was real, to find some comfort. This year, oddly enough, many people have reached out to me, asking about ways to express ‘better’. Sometimes they asked for tips to communicate better. Two things I am terrible at. They like to read my blog and posts. Some have also mentioned that they are jealous that I can write during/about my poor mental and emotional health while they struggle to utter a word. There are a few pages left, I am not ready for it to end. The act of writing is cruel. It makes you pa...

A lot has been said about loneliness. A lot has been said about the difference between being lonely and being alone. I was raised in a ‘learn to be alone’ way that implied the idea of being self-sufficient. Given my childhood and teenage was dominated by my dedication to friendship, I was often asked, ‘Will any of your friends do what you do for them?’ It was based on the assumption of requiring reciprocation. I am not sure if I said it out loud, I might have, that, ‘I am not doing it for them, I am doing it because I need to do it for myself.’ A few months ago, during a conversation I asked a man if he was married. He laughed and mentioned that he is sixty nine years old. I simply added, ‘and…?’ Then he clarified that he is married and has many grand children. I understood his amusement, but I didn’t understand what age had to do with the question. A person can be widowed or divorced or homosexual or asexual or just single. Being sixty nine doesn’t say anything about his/her m...