Upside Down

Here is a cheesy, forced-to-rhyme poem for people undergoing a mid-life crisis for the third time in a decade. 

When Wednesdays get you down,
And the love of your life is out of town,

What do you do to turn that frown
Upside down?

Mami

Mami. That's how we knew her, Nim and I. For ma and pa, and maybe the rest of the world, she was Mini. Our rock. Always there, soft when she needed to be, tough when you needed her to be.

I loved her. As all of us did in our own quiet way. I just wish I hadn't waited for the cancer diagnosis to tell her that. And even then, on text. 

Looking back on my childhood, I feel like she was my third mum. First was ma, then Nim, and then her. She was the one who got me hooked on to books. She gifted me my first Harry Potter, my CD of Simon & Garfunkel the year I told her I was bored of getting books as gifts. She shaped how I viewed my role in this world. A lot. She was the person who got my hair cut really, really short the first time. Dad stopped trusting her with my haircuts after that. She made the best mac 'n' cheese in the world, and the most comforting tomato & cheese sandwiches I've had. I re-discovered those too late last year, when I was missing her. I wish I had asked her to make them again for me. Or that I had seen her more often and I could have. 

As things stood, we found out about the cancer right about the time the pandemic started. None of us could go near her, hold her, kiss her or hug her, in case we unwittingly passed on a virus to her already frail body. I couldn't hug her throughout her sickness. I remember going to meet her the night before I was to fly out to Bangalore late last year. I wanted so much to hold her hand and squeeze it. All I could manage was a kiss on the hem of her kurta. Her kurtas. She made Fabindia cooler than it was. For real. Nobody else could have carried those cottons better than her. 

Mami was the coolest. She got me my first pairs of hot pants. If she said a book was good, you read it and told the world it was the best thing you have read. Because mami had said so. My awkward social self could only bring up book conversations with her. I loved my visits with her to bookstores. She introduced me to Pico Iyer. Who later introduced me to Rumi. Who then introduced me to Shams. I knew Rumi before it was cool to quote Rumi. Rumi knew a thing or two about loss. 

When news of her passing came out, lots of writers wrote in. Talking about Nandita the Editor. I felt I had barely known her. She left a big piece of herself behind, with different people, who knew her different than how I knew her. But she was just our Mami - Nim and mine. Nobody else knew her the way we did. 

Mami was smart, she was funny. Even hilarious. She corrected your grammar without batting an eyelid. She loved selflessly. Nim and I were just a couple of kids she happened to be related to. But she checked in, she looked out. Growing up, she shared her mom-love with Nim and me. We always felt like we belonged with her when we were together. 

My favourite memory of her is from the time she spent a day with me in Bangalore. She kept refusing a meal. I finally convinced her it's no bother, and that she should eat some lunch. She sat near me in the kitchen while I made some dosas for her. I think I saw a glimmer of pride in her eyes. She did say, in her typical mami-way - 'Wah!' I think she meant it. We had a moment there. I don't know what it was. But it was special. I wish I'd taken some pictures of that day.

I will always carry a part of her in me. I will have my mami-lens on when I am doing up my house, or walking into a Fabindia, or interacting with my own nieces. I will always think of her when I pick up an author she spoke to me about, or a song she recommended, or have somebody else's shitty mac 'n' cheese. Time will heal, and with time, I hope my memories of her grow stronger. 

Take off!

It's been a crazy few months. Karthik and I had been planning to move out from our apartment into another, more spacious one, where both of us could continue to work from home more comfortably. Karthik went on a crazy spree of checking out 8-10 apartments a week, and we finally arrived at 2 that we thought we could live in for at least a couple of years. (It's a big deal, both of us are kind of fussy about our living conditions).

We almost paid up the deposit and finalized everything when we started to think. Again. What if we don't have a home, and we just shuttled between different cities for some time and lived like locals? We are restricted by the places we can go right now because of time, distance and budget. What if all those concept were more fluid for us? If we no longer paid rent, that's instant savings that can be used toward Airbnbs. Forget the finances, but what do we do with all the furniture we've bought over the years? My beautiful Sheehan bed, my favorite accent chair? My head was already in overdrive as we were discussing the plan and trying to decide. Part of me started thinking about how we'd have to fight off the parents and convince them that this isn't a terrible idea. (I still pine for their respective approvals at the ripe age of 30 something). We took three days of this back and forth. Karthik checking off all my anxiety ridden questions with seemingly simple solutions. Me adding new baseless questions knowing full well it was just my fear of the unknown making me this uncomfortable. The patient Mr. Ramesh endured through it all, and lo and behold! On 13th of October, we spoke to our landlord, letting him know of our decision. And just like that, it was decided. 

The parents took the decision surprisingly well. They were excited for us, and said, yep. Best time to do this, you have to do it while you can. 

The boss (even more surprisingly) was also on board with the idea. All good. 

And that's when the stress and sleepless nights kicked in. We only had four weekends and extremely busy weekdays to do EVERYTHING. As alway, Karthik Ramesh was chill about it. Ek din mein ho jayega? What do you have to do that's worrying you? And yep, he was right. Ho gaya. Took us a full day of moving, and an entire weekend to adjust some of our things at my in laws house and set us up for their home for a few weeks. Long story short, we moved out, we stayed with his parents for a bit, I visited my sister for a month, stayed with my parents for a bit, and then, we left our nests on 31st December!

So far, we've covered two cities. But more on that later! 

And yes, happy new year to anynody out there reading this. 

Birthdays

Karthik Ramesh never wishes people a Happy Birthday. He always goes the long route and takes the pain to say, "Many more happy returns". It's such a mouthful. Even when he has to text his wishes, he will type out the entire bloody sentence as if that's normal. It bugs the pickles out of me.

What does that sentence even mean? What returns are we talking about? It sounds as if your entire life has been an investment and it's on this day that you wish you get some returns on it. The first half sounds about right, but you ain't getting no returns on this one, son.

His argument to the above rant is going to be, for that matter, what does "Happy Birthday" mean? We are happy you were born, so let's hope today, on the day you were born ages ago, your day is happy? All the other days of the year don't mean for squat? Sigh. He will be making sense if he says that. I hate it when the man is right.

Anyhoo, I hope you're getting good returns on your life and living happily each day.

Naina

Facebookers Anynoymous

Hi everyone,

My name is Naina, and I am a Facebook addict.

Sounds like a legit statement today. I have made one unsuccessful attempt to go offline, I think I succeeded 4 days before I was back. Pavan shared an interesting TED video with me today. It made me realise I need to write about this and speak up about my spiralling condition before it gets worse. I have a hundred things running through my head right now that I want to talk about, I shall try to keep this post as structured as possible.

Let's go back a decade. Facebook was the new thing in town. Nim introduced me to it, I coaxed a bunch of people onto it, Indian population on Facebook hit critical mass, and wham! Suddenly everyone was using it. Remember how cigarette smoking was cool back in the day, before scientists discovered its harmful effects? I am not hinting at anything here, but it just felt like an interesting thing to highlight. My own dad went from, "Beta, don't put up your pictures online" to "I have a political opinion and I shall share it with the world" in a seemingly short span of time. He has also begun sharing pictures of us on his profile. I am fairly certain he is not the only dad in the world to have undergone that transformation. My sister, the very person who introduced me to the monster, decided to quit the habit before it got to her. I think that's one of the few sensible things she has ever done in her life. (Even if she was doing a course in Corporate Communications which involved pieces of Digital communication at the time). I, meanwhile, went from an overly-excited-teenager-who-liked-to-share-all-pictures-she-ever-clicked (while avoiding emotional online outbursts), to randomly updating status, to seldom changing profile picture, to silently stalking PoI, to obsessing over my newsfeed while changing my profile picture once a month routine. Facebook was also evolving. It was taking in all of my habits, feeding it into a database, learning from it, and spewing out more stuff that would keep me coming back. I hate it. I wake up at 6.59 AM every morning like clockwork. I try to rest my brain to go back to sleep. I pick up my phone telling myself it's just to check the time. Before I know it, it is already 8AM and I am watching random videos on Facebook. Videos which now have ads. On my way to work, I promise myself I will make the traffic jams productive. I end up draining 50% of my battery watching random crap on Facebook. A year back, I would idle away time spent in a car looking out the window, taking in the buildings and eateries all along the road. Today, I hardly notice where I am headed. I have to force myself to look up, out the window. Whenever I have a few minutes to myself, I am instantly bored. I pick up the stupid "smart" device, and I innocently click on the Facebook button. I have stopped arguing with Karthik when he tells me I am addicted to my phone. I agree with him. I am an addict. In fact, I spend so much time on Facebook, that each time I open the app, only the first 5-6 stories in my feed are new to me, the rest I have already browsed a few minutes earlier.
I don't think being online helps you stay connected. My attention waivers each time I am out with people, my legs are shaking and my fingers fumbling around looking for my smart phone that is just yelling to be unlocked. I am not with the people, I am without them. 8 out of 10 items on my newsfeed are not even about people. It is sponsored content, recommended content or content from some group that I follow. I know exactly which people on my friends list hate Modi and which ones love him. I have stopped reading articles or comments shared by them sub consciously because I realise they are going to be biased. I hate taking sides in political matters. I don't have an opinion any more. I am convinced we are headed towards an Orwellian world, where Facebook, Google and Apple will be the Big Brothers. We have, to some extent already lost the freedom of choice, and will continue losing control over the next few years. Before that eventuality, let's live a little more.
Giving "offline" another shot.

Tell your friends what's on your minds, no more!

Naina

Usual Rant

There is something immensely satisfying about stalking random people on Facebook and trying to speculate about the juicy details of their boring lives. It's especially fun when the person being stalked is a know relationship cheater and you stumble upon a supposedly innocent conversation made public on their walls. I am not pointing at anyone, just saying. Merely indulging in a bit of early morning musings. The weather outside is beautiful. I discovered a flying (huge!!) cockroach in my bedroom and am a little scandalised as to what that means about the reach of this disgusting creature into my inner sanctum.

I hate cockroaches. A statement that JUST doesn't get said enough. If you guys have any valuable solutions, please drop me a message. I have tried EVERYTHING under the sun to get rid of them. They just keep coming back.

Anyhoo, roaches aside. Life has been pretty exciting recently. I am trying to start work on a proper work of literature, but I think the blog has sucked the finest out of me in it's first year. (Please don't be laughing at that statement, it would break my heart!). Or I just don't have any sadness left in life. It is said people express themselves better when they are sad or in pain. I haven't felt any triggers to write recently. Brain running dry.

I have been watching brilliant things on Amazon Prime and TV. Discovering a new side to the Fitzgeralds with Z, an Amazon Prime program about the life of Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald. I tried to read This Side of Paradise post that, I think I am going to give up on it now. I am now watching Genius, a National Geographic show about the life of Albert Einstein. If the series is to be believed, he had a genius wife as well, who got caught up in the life of a mum and housewife to do much with her brilliant brains. I just realised, both these series have the same theme. The woman giving up on her dreams because she fell in love with a guy and decided to settle down. These producer guys are trying to make the most of the feminist sentiment while they can.

While taking a break from This Side of Paradise, I finished reading Old Man and the Sea. And picked up An Atlas of Impossible Longing. All this while I thought it was another Arundhati Roy book. Turns out it isn't.

I should probably start getting ready for work.

Till something pops up in my head,
Naina

For Humanity

If the 60s were known for punk rockers and flower power, the 10s are definitely going to be known for the outbreak of the feminist culture. Only, it is going to be glorified to be the the beginning of a revolution that finally led to the emancipation of women and putting them on an equal pedestal. I don't get it. The moment you start yelling men are morons, men can't stand women being at the fore, men can't this, men can't that, you are essentially doing what Kejriwal does when Modi is sitting peacefully making decisions for the country. We need to stop generalising and start accepting that the world is changing, and has, in fact, been changing for a while now. It's like what Billy Joel says, "We didn't start the fire. It was always burning."

Now I am no evolutionary expert, but right since the beginning of time, there was division of labour. Men earned food, women procreated and took care of their families. You can see the patterns among animals, we know of it from our own recent history. We are evolving out of those roles and adopting new ones. What we need to understand is the fact that this transition will take time. This is centuries of ingrained thinking we are trying to change. Now I understand that there are some humans, who are pretty jerk-like about women getting all the good things in life, but that is a different problem you want to be solving. When our beloved piss-mouth politicians make public statements that basically sound like they wouldn't think twice before molesting or harassing a woman if she comes within close proximity, THAT is when you need to be yelling bloody murder. Pick the battles that you need to fight, women. Stop picking on a puberty-ridden boy because he goes red in the face because you want to discuss your menstrual cycle with him. Or that woman who wants to fast for her husband because she wants to.  Fight for the ones that actually matter.

In all of this, I love to see how our adverts evolve. The 60s typically showed women playing roles of homemakers, the 90s were all about swag and muscle power. I don't really know what the previous decade was about, but this decade is all about the women. From Zivame showing your next door neighbour who isn't typically anorexic in her smalls (and she's killing it too!), to Tanishq calling out how motherhood isn't just about sacrifices. In fact, the new Reebok ad campaign for Be More Human showcasing a little girl trying on her mum's various shoes led to this post. Turns out the Indian campaign is actually called #FitToFight. It kind of takes away the importance you attach to your own daily fights, doesn't it?

Just my 2 cents. Don't be yelling at me if you think differently.