Mr. Brightside.

I haven't really ever understood why I write. No I get how it's cathartic or therapeutic but why does furious punching in of the keys calm me down? Like nothing else does? Even if it is just me completely blowing things out of proportion.

Do you think there are some people that are basically dark? One of my clients asks me if she attracts negativity. If that could be true for anyone, that would be true for me. I pride myself in being the anti-midas, in how I either attract the worst or facilitate the best's transformation into the worst. I mean, that's clearly what I'm doing with myself, my body, yuck,

It's pathetic really - my ability to run so fast and fall so deep within the darkness. I think some of us just enshrine it within us - and I have been building it within for too long for it to just disappear. I think I keep visiting the haunted parts of my brain to ensure they still exist. Therapy teaches you that you can't take away someone's defence mechanisms without replacing them with something healthier first. For me that was going to be love, an unconditional, everlasting love.

After binge watching a stalker series on Netflix for ten hours straight, I do kind of worry (more than the usual) that such love doesn't exist - and if it does - it isn't healthy. I also think that I am ordinary in the most boring way - fear of loneliness does creep its way into my bones even though I am so fucking good at hiding out alone. I could be with you for years and you won't really know me - I keep a part of me always hidden and as soon as you begin to see the hidden bits, I create more and more walls, barriers, obstacles to always keep me protected.

I said, it feels like there's oceans between me and you - but I create these oceans. And now I speak directly to you. Do you even know who you are? I don't. You're an amalgamation of all my pain and pleasure - all my lovers - ex and present - all my friends - if there ever were any to begin with - my family - my conscience (was I born with one?) - you, this voice in my head, I don't know you who are.

A shapeshifter.

This year is ending, thank god. I can't take any more of this voice in my head. It keeps telling me everything I have ever done wrong. I can't shake the feeling of being a horrible person. Ugly, fat, incompetent, and just plain horrible. I build it up to burn it down. Always. 

Exhausted.

1. I wish he wasn't leaving.
2. People need to be happy. Happiness needs to be fought for.
3. Inculcating empathy is hard. Developing research skills is harder.
4. I constantly miss things and people that were once a part of my life.
5. Fat. Extremely fat.
6. Ugly. Lazy. Incompetent. 
7. Does unconditional love exist?
8. Winter takes the life out of me.
9. People disappoint. Life disappoints. Prepare yourself.
10. Staying sane is exceptionally hard.

Sachchi Mohabbat Kachchi Reh Gayi

RIP.
Rain and Thunder.
2014-2018.

कोई नहीं भुल्दा यारा जींवें तू है भुल्लेया

Hey, you.

I haven't written to you lately, have I? 
Did you think I forgot about you?
Did I fool you for long enough, yet? 
Will this pain ever end?
Will the mention of your name ever stop bringing tears to my eyes?
Have we moved on?
Have you? 
Should I continue honouring our memories or delete all traces of us?
Should I hold on or let go?
How the fuck does one let go?
How will we ever find something, anything that compares? 
Do we want to?
Do you want to?
Or are we just masochists who found this love just to fuel an eternity of pain?
Are we really that broken? Or did we just break each other beyond repair?
Are we still breaking each other?
(Repeatedly and unapologetically.
over and over and over again
Rain and Thunder. 
Thunder and Rain.)

Pushing Back.

If you've been following my life closely, this past month has been really out of character for me. I have been playing the role of a reckless teenager as compared to an accountable adult. When you have been an adult for such a short period of time and are still trying to wrap your head around the concept of 'adult-ing' it makes even lesser sense, right?

Wrong.

I have been playing the adult for a long long time. I was always an empathetic child who knew what could possibly hurt someone else and would never do it - even if that meant suffering myself. I could take pain, grief, anything, everything, as long as I thought I was protecting my loved ones from these gruesome emotions. I would solve fights between friends, family and parents. I would study on my own when nobody was looking or checking. As a teenager I snapped and was incredibly difficult.

But then again came young adulthood and I learnt once more to swallow pain, misery and circumstances. I learnt to live absolutely alone in a country oceans away, without letting on how horrible it was for me. I kept my head down and worked hard till I just couldn't anymore. I kept at it for as long as it just didn't kill me. I thought, I can't be a quitter.

When the transition was made of me doing something I love, the adult-ing came easy. There was a zeal to prove myself. There was a yearning to grow, belong, love and be loved. I would never skip a class, would work way ahead of deadlines, basically I worked on every tiny flaw I had had as a school student in order to be the best possible Masters student.

And then you left.
Randomly and all at once.

I tried to be mature about it - I really did. For the first two months I cried and wailed - wrote to you - about you - travelled to you - in real and in my head - gave up - held on - anything to make sense of the fact that you're gone. You're not coming back. But the one sad thing is I couldn't hate you - not at all - so I ended up directing all that anger at myself. And then began my inner struggle, the longing to run away from every reminder of you - the need to run away from myself.

My house, my staircase, my mother's smile, my favourite hangouts, everything reeks of you. I can't even enter my room without saying your name under my breath. How do I run from someone who became a part of me?

But this is like a personal challenge and quest because amidst all this I promised myself that our memory deserves that I look at it only with happiness. So I promised myself, I will get over you with a smile on my face and a drink in my hand. I will search for ways to find laughter in a world that seems meaningless. I will try to move forward in a universe that I couldn't care less about now. I will prosper in a city that I always hated. I will do whatever it takes to be happy and selfish because you can't be the only thing that made me my happiest. No, I refuse to give you that sort of power over my entire life.

I will be happy. At least for this month, that brought me my life, I will be unapologizing-ly selfishly happy. And at the dawn of the next month, it will be time to be an adult again.

For now, just let me run wild for a while.
It's been a long time since I did.

How many goodbyes?

Always and Forever

How may goodbyes will it take?

It's been almost thirteen years since I got to know you Rats. Thirteen. Wow, that's longer than all my relationships combined. We have really grown up together, have't we? Though I don't know how much growing has happened in this span except maybe growing closer and growing a little numb to the pain that surrounds us. Maybe we have grown wiser, maybe we have lives figured out backwards, maybe we're still kids who just drive to each other's houses now instead of walking and use any and every possible hobby to connect (most recent example: yoga)! Or maybe we're just Rats and Meow and that means different things on different days - but almost always ends up meaning everything. 

How many goodbyes will it take?

We have said goodbye to each other one too many times as we grew up. Even one was hard but this continued torture of having to get used to you not being walking distance away from me is just exceptionally painstaking. I know how the world works but I guess I just am always praying for us to end up in the same city and somehow we never do.

How many goodbyes will it take?

Is there a number after which it will either get easier or so insanely difficult that life itself gives up? if yes, I would like to know because this uncertainty kills me a little bit more every time that I realise that our time together is limited. I have mental throwbacks to the Red Bus and I wish we would have talked more than we did, really talked but I guess singing songs at the top of our lungs and learning lyrics was of far greater importance. As I type this, Promiscuous (Nelly Furtado) plays and I realise how we have changed over time and eventually become the exact same person. I don't know if I'm ecstatic for me or depressed for you.

How many goodbyes will it take?

One too many my love, one too many for me to ever accept that we're not together because I carry you with me, I carry you in my heart. I carry you with me no matter where we go, I carry you to cafes and bookstores; I carry you to bars and clubs; I carry you to my lover's house and my place of work; I carry you in my dreams and hopes.

Because I've said this before and I'll say it again because you know I mean it like nobody else -
For you, a thousand times over.

Ishita, Krishna, Blogs

I am back here after a month and I promise this will be (hopefully) be the first of (many) posts that isn't about a boy, or a man, any man. 

I came here today and after years I read some other blogs and I realised why I used to come here and what this blog did for me. It took me reading some really sad and moving things to realise the absolute obvious - I'm not alone. No matter how horrible my emotional state, no matter how much I'm dreading my birthday, no matter how broken I feel from within - I'm not alone. 

Nobody is ever alone. I just need to keep reminding myself. I need to keep reading and writing like I used to - not caring who does or does not read it; not caring if it makes sense; not caring if it's good or worth it. Writing for the sole pleasure of writing is of the main reasons why I never took it up professionally. But I had promised myself that I wouldn't stop writing. That was the condition. How could I forget?

Also, I want to do this gratitude activity starting today. Here's wishing me luck and thanking all you beautiful bloggers for restoring my sanity, even if briefly. 

PS: Sappy post about BFF leaving town is incoming. Prepare yourselves. 

An apology.

It's over, it really is.

I guess I don't want to accept it but it is. It has been for a while and I don't know how but I need to wrap my head around it. Accept the finality of things. At least start entertaining the idea that there's a very real possibility that we never speak again and that you're not a part of my life. 

It's over, it really is.

I guess if it is then all I want to say one last time is that I'm sorry and I love you. I'm sorry I have pushed you to a point where you're all alone. I'm sorry that you have to doubt everything and believe the worst about possibly what was once the best thing in your life. I'm sorry that you are doing things that you hate yourself for, just to stay sane and put yourself first. I'm sorry darling that the misunderstandings have gotten the better of us and that all your worst fears and insecurities seem to be proven right. I'm sorry we have to bear the brunt of everything that went wrong in the past two years, career and family wise. I'm sorry that you have no more fight left in you.

I'm sorry that it's over. It really is. 

I love you and I want it to have meant something. Maybe it means that we spent beautiful moments together for as long as life let us. We could create magic because we were magic together. Dancing in theatres, on roads, watching Netflix and FRIENDS for days, being feminists, just being together. 

It's over. It really is. 

I have dreamt of you for a month straight and waking up has been torture. Waking up to a reality that is a complete contradiction of my dreams and my desires takes the life out of me. But I smiled today. I don't know if I will be able to smile always but today I felt that maybe the only way we meet now is in my dreams, and if so, then to hell with everything, I'll smile because I get to see you. Because I know with time this will fade too. 

It's over. It really is. 

I guess I will never run out of things I want to say to you or words that I want to write for you. You will be the first person I think of whenever something good or bad happens for a long time to come. But that doesn't change anything. 

It's over. 

I'm sorry. 

I love you. 

An Ode to Khilji.

I never wrote a review for Padmaavat, partly because it had already been spoken about so so much and partly because I could never entirely capture in words what that movie left me with - bitterness, anger, pride, sadness and a deep sense of regret. Almost as if the door wasn't shut on Khilji's dream of love, but mine.

Today I feel I want to write - not a review, no that is meaningless now but an ode to an insane lover - Khilji. The fact that this role was played by Ranvir Singh added so much power to this character and the second time around it was confirmed - I was in love - not with Khilji - but his insanity for this emotion.

I guess I am someone who has always had this one constant longing for love and a deep-rooted yearning that if at all someone does find it in him to love me, he also finds it within him somehow to fight for this love, to fight for me. 

Why this need for him to fight you might wonder. I certainly have struggled with this very question. Because I'm a fighter and I have always fought for the ideas, thoughts and people I believe in. I am willing to fight any man, woman or child who stands in the way or threatens any of these. I guess that's why I want someone who loves me to be willing to take on this fight as well. But that's still not all of it. But i'll get to that in a moment. The fact that Khilji was willing to quite literally break walls and move mountains for someone he had never even seen makes me want to believe that maybe just maybe someone will have that kind of strength. I know it's an impossible ask which is why I am in awe of the man who had it. He may have been a barbaric brute but his extent of love for her, his will and determination and in the end, his anguish at her loss... isn't something I can still capture in words. And I guess it's only fitting that if I can't capture it in words, what I'm looking for is also an impossibility to find.

I guess I'm yearning for this magnitude of love and fight because I wanted someone to fight for me since I was really young. Why? Because I didn't. And I didn't let anyone find out I needed to be fought for either. I hid the pain and the darkness for so long that it became a part of me. So oftentimes the person who tries to love me will have to fight not just the world, the circumstances but also me - because I will always need to be saved from my darkest demons. This will be the toughest fight of them all - these demons have defeated anyone in their path till date and I keep a tight lid on them because their wrath and fury spares no one - least of all the ones I love.

But why would someone do this you might wonder as well. I'm no timeless beauty, I'm just me. Why the wage these wars and fight these battles when there are easier paths to love? Because yes I'm no Padmaavati, I won't die for your love. I will kill for it. I don't believe in surrendering; there was always a warrior within me, it just took me really long to learn the need to fight; but now that I have, I never give up. If I love you, I will never give up on you. I have most experience fighting my demons and true, they do win some posts, but I will never let them conquer this battlefield. I'll fight my wars and yours, all you need to do is find it in your heart to be my warrior prince too. Be my Khilji - my insane, crazy, ziddi lover - who fights and never surrenders.

Then I promise you my love, you too will know a boundless love, like no other.
Because I might be a fighter but my superpower is love.
I can love like none other.
But deep in your heart you know that, don't you?

Such a weird feeling.

I never thought I'd be writing about this... Me with my penchant for heartbreak and tragic love stories. Me with my obsession with the girl always being left and the guy never having her back. Me with my alliance to one-sided unrequited love. But I guess I forgot that my love for my mother superceeds all others. 

This one's to you, Maa. 

I don't know if you're listening, or if thoughts can follow someone in a state of anesthesia but I need you to come out of this okay? I know this is so silly of me and it's not a major surgery but I don't know why my heart is sinking and tears keep finding their way in my eyes. I never thought this day would come and yet it has. Life is finite and someday I'll be left without you and I can't face that possibility, not today, not ever. 

To be here, all alone, with my father who has no room for emotion, only reason, to be choking down my tears and to be trying to not think of the risks is just not something that comes to me naturally. 

Today is a day I learn a lot. I've been learning to rely on myself for a while now but today I accept it in totality. I carry you with me Maa, in my heart, and that's all the love and strength I need. That's all the love I ever needed. 

Now just come back to me quickly so we can play a round of sequence and hate on this world together :)

Newness.

I used to come here, when nothing else made sense.
I would come here when everything began to make too much sense.

I have a problem, I breathe in every movie, every song, every novel and make it about me. I can't function without the arts and I inhale them to the point that the boundaries get really blurred. A TV show doesn't just stay that - it takes on a life of its own, inside of me. I am therefore constantly living so many lives, I am so many people, all in one. I don't know who exactly I am because I find parts of me in everything I read, watch or listen to. They inspire me and I feel like I inspired them in some warped way. I know not every story is about me but I sure know how to find me in every single one. Every story that means anything to me, becomes me.

I stopped coming here because it gets too much. It gets too much to live and breathe and be inside my head all at once. It gets too much to write about you, or him or him. But it gets too much to not. It never makes sense like it does in this fleeting moment, and before I know it, in the blink of an eye, it's gone.

I can pick up the phone and try to explain it to you but you wouldn't get it. Because I don't get it. How could I? How could you? How could anyone ever understand the tiny self-destruct button that I have inside of me and that only I have access to, and that only I know the triggers to. And yet, with this knowledge, I trigger it because that's what keeps me alive.

I'm a complex person, really complex and yet sometimes my needs are simple. I guess it's the simplicity of these needs that I'm trying to outrun. I can't be just ordinary, I want the different, the spectacular. But maybe the ordinary is the spectacular.

It's funny because sometimes I know I'm over-complicating it all. At others, I'm not so sure. I'm just stuck in a limbo with no escape because the limbo is my own head. I think pain is so very important to my existence that I don't know how to live without it. It's a part of me.

So I keep creating more. There's been so much pain that a life without it seems incomplete. I know how ridiculous this seems but pain is more familiar than happiness. And so I go on finding new ways to ensure there's always room for more.

So good luck to you if you're reading this. You're stuck with this me - and I'm a true masochist.