A tale of two mothers ft. working or home-maker?!

Like every regular day, twitter got embroiled in a soup once again – this time over the opinion about the superiority of home makers over working mothers by a certain supposedly well read doctor – and it got me wondering about my own experience with mothers. Plural.

To be born into a household that was on the cusp of radicalized millennial changes in the small town of Rourkela back in 90s, thanks to two extremely well educated parents who had not only been state toppers but also made sure to study in blue blood institutions in engineering and medicine respectively, my upbringing could be at best progressive (Caution: In certain things). Where everyone in my school was asked, “What is the occupation of your father?”, I was among the rare few who could excitedly chip in – My mum is an Obstetrician and Gynaecologist! (With extreme difficulty in pronouncing obstetrics, so going from obstet..trix..tics.. to O&G eventually). People stared in awe, and I would chuckle on the outside but be completely clueless about the implications of the same since I had a lot of grievances because of the same since my mother was doing post graduation and had to live away from us for her residency program in my growing up years.

All the girls in my primary school used to come bearing beautiful plaits, powdered faces and crisp uniforms ironed to the thread. Yet, no one would comb my hair leave alone putting it into a plait. My skirts would be horribly oversized due to the dud estimation of my dad who either believed his daughter was smaller than she was rapidly growing into being or larger if the previous size didn’t fit perfectly. I wouldn’t know what face powder was, but carry my smudged chubby cheeks around with nonchalance. My tiffin had chips everyday while I used to crave other boxes for the condiments in it. Despite being a hooligan in my neighbourhood, I was scared to shit in the school with the girls towering over me with double the height and would get bullied everyday. They found me weird, but I couldn’t help tell them I found them weirder. What do you mean your mom stays at home and is available for you every time? You get to hug your mom? She helps you with your homework? She makes hot food for you? I pined.

But where I did not have my own mother, I had god’s favourite angel in the form of my aunt – My beloved Maa. She took charge of me from the day I was in my diapers and crawling around the house. Her hands weaved magic in food even though she knew zilch about arithmetic and English. She couldn’t help me with my homework but she taught me all the shlokas and made me meditate everyday for 20 minutes to tame the tempest in me. She couldn’t see a single flaw in me and I could literally imagine a halo on head everywhere she walked. She would never force me to eat vegetables, and I could chomp on it to glory as my grandfather and father protested in the back. I might not have my mother to hug but I could snuggle up to my Maa quietly when she was asleep and fall asleep to her rhythmic rise and fall of her breath. She was a god fearing woman and with her I learnt all the scriptures and the ways to do pooja perfectly. I got my religion from her which eventually transformed to spirituality in adulthood, yet my belief in her prayers remained more than my belief in god.

When my mom finished her post-graduation and senior residency to come back, there was a chasm that couldn’t be filled. To put it plainly, I did not know her. I did not know or bond with my own mother. She became the person who I would see for the first few hours of the day, only to disappear and then return in the night – by when we would be done with our food and preparing to sleep or well asleep. My world revolved around the constants I recognized to not make effort for the variables again. My mother gave up as well. We welcomed my younger sibling, who again went through the same chasm of having an extremely busy mother with a roaring practice – and she inevitably became my kid. I had to wipe her poop, change her diapers, teach her how to walk, ride and eat (though I stole her last bite of chocolate and food).

Time passed, I went through the raging teens and reached the crucial board years – 10th boards. My father had scolded me again because I had performed poorly in my mock and didn’t do as well as the neighbour’s kid. I locked myself in the room wondering what was the best possible route to run away to the Himalayas – when my extremely tired mother after work came in with a bunch of new notebooks in her hand, extremely fancy highlighters, pen and three review books she had purchased for Board preparations. She smiled and kept all of it on my table. I had a rush of endorphins as my weakest spot had been hit – new Stationery! She sat down on the bed next to my table and charted out a study plan. Since my mum returned home at 10:30pm from hospital we would finish dinner by 11 and then sit down to study from 11pm to 2am with one hour each for Physics, Chemistry and Biology. Morning hours were for all the other subjects I liked and could manage on my own with a target set for 100 arithmetic problems for Mathematics every day. Thus began my preparatory month for Boards. Mum would come drained from work but come with a flask of her handmade coffee for me, sit down with the newspaper or a book or a magazine on the bed in my room sometimes reading, half sleeping while I studied away to glory. At sharp 1 she would leave to sleep while I would either sleep or continue solving problems blasting the radio on earphones till wee mornings. When everyone would wake up and see me burning the midnight oil they would be shocked while I would chuckle at their concern. Slowly I was getting familiar with my mother, I could notice the lines on her face from stress, the softness with which she would explain topics to me without getting cranky like my dad, she never hit me once but would always have a kind word for every obstacle I got stuck in. Slowly, I grew familiar with my own mother. On the day of board exams my Maa fed me curd with sugar while my Mamma gave a big bar of dairy milk (A tradition that would long continue from 10th to 12th to multiple entrances, MBBS professional examinations and MS). The day I got my results and secured 94% I started crying and my mom who was sitting beside me started laughing- “Why are you crying?”

“Because I did so poorly. I should have been first no?”

She laughed and patted me, “I think you did very well. Be happy for your success”, and then with every happy call she made telling friends and relatives my percentage I got more assured of her belief in me.

Time passed. We went through my boards, the decisiveness of entrances where I didn’t know what to become and was just winging it weighing my options of joining NIT or medicine but was clueless about the branches in engineering leave alone becoming an engineer. My path had been carefully laid out to become a doctor since childhood with there being none on the paternal side, but once I crossed the gate of medical college an entire wave of realization came dawning over me. I flunked in my first test and called my mom crying – “Mamma, I am so dumb. How can I become a doctor?”

My mom laughed that day as well borrowing a leaf from her experience – every topper in school feels dumb in medical college. You are not alone. It’s just onward and upward from here.

Being compared to my mom in every lecture and barraged with questions from my professors made me realize the legacy I was trying to live up to. Yet when I went home everyday (being a day scholar) I saw the humility with which my mom led her life and fell more in awe of her. From dealing with my failures to seeing me secure double honors, to seeing my issues in friendships to giving me the green light to relationships – my mom gave the flight to my wings till she couldn’t restrict me within her protected environment anymore. I rebelled and did my MS in Karnataka and continued with fellowship in Bangalore. Where a carpet of flowers awaited me to takeover my mother’s practice with the reputation and hard work over the years, I tolerate corporate politics, the struggle of breaking into a closeted field as a first generation doctor in head and neck Oncosurgery in a different world. Every week I work for 96 hours or more, I am on call most of the time and I skip meals left, right and center – and every time I realize the sacrifices and lifestyle my mother led when I used to judge her for not spending time with me. In my personal and professional challenges having such a well educated mother has given me a broader perspective on every doubt I have and let me explore things in a rational way. She is among the few I do not have to explain my lifestyle to, because she knows. While people get offended thinking I do not give them time because I have progressed in life, my mother understands the pitfalls of the career trajectory’s upward curve.

I have my mother’s resilience and strong will, while I carry my Maa’s softness and nurturing nature. One gave me brains and the other gave me a safe home to come back to in my growing years. One made the world’s best chicken biryani while the other wouldn’t come 50 feet close to anything non-vegetarian but make the best comfort food in vegetarian cuisine. When I got my heart broken, both came and tended me to life each time. When I have told them countless times to not worry about me, they have secretly worried and prayed for me. When countless potential mothers-in-law in arranged matrimony have found flaws in me, making unreasonable demands, my mothers have stood rock solid behind me telling I am no less because someone found me less for their son and family. They still look at me as their beloved little quiet one who will get lost in the corner of the house reading a book, transporting to a faraway land. They still hit their head with frustration and laughter because I would give my slippers to some beggar and come back home barefoot or money to some person on the streets because I found her needy. They still know of my pain even if I don’t tell putting on a brave, smiling face and will overcompensate with home cooked food or bakes. With a soft heart comes great suffering. They desired love and life for me, and knew the price I had to pay for the independence I enjoy. Watching them smile at the flights I take, makes me believe in the generations of women I have healed in my family by being the way I have been.

So when you debate whether it is better to have a working mother or one at home, I had to tell the tale of my two mothers, and to be very frank – I wouldn’t choose one from both. They are just mothers at the end of the day.

To the unlimited selfless love of mothers,

Working or otherwise,

To my mamma and Maa,

Love,

P.

Bengaluru rains, filter coffee and one kind Paati

Two good things happened yesterday. One – finally after months of waiting and weeks of scorching heat it finally rained in Bangalore; and second – after years of letting time take its course and getting caught up in life I finally reconnected with my Paati after a long time.

Readers who have followed my blogs since a long time know of my brief stint in Chennai. I stayed for albeit six months until COVID cut my time short. In that brief period I went from the dinghy room in a PG in T Nagar to a semi habitable room in the swanky by lanes of OMR. I cannot explain the relief I had with finally getting rid of the Oliver Twist menu of my PG with watery dal, Pongal which resembled a big blob of glue, controlled portions of edibles and unlimited amount of the food which can at best be described as horse poop – I lost a decade worth of weight in a go. Beyond that, the inhuman living conditions with unventilated hallway, a 4×4 room with just one window and being locked inside like cattle by 9pm on the top of studying 16 hours per day for NEET entrances was the last straw in my emotional state. Within two days I sat in front of the window on my bed sobbing uncontrollably thinking why was I in this godforsaken city 1000s of miles away from my home with no one I could turn to. The weather was hot and humid, and after a point sweat could compete with the flow rate of tears.

Right then a soft breeze flew through the window and the very empty balcony right opposite to my window  which was empty no more but now replaced with a almost toothless Paati with the kindest smile in the world. I hurriedly wiped my tears. She waved, I waved back. She asked me if I was new here – I said yes, I had recently moved to Chennai for my coaching classes in T Nagar. She was surprised by how far I had come from just to study and told me that she had lived there in T Nagar almost her entire life and now she lived there alone with her children and grandchildren settled in the US.

When I told her that I was a doctor her face gleamed. Suddenly she quipped, “Why don’t you come over ma? I will make you some coffee”. My affection and nutrition starved brain put all thoughts of parents saying don’t talk to strangers, don’t take food from strangers and most importantly, do not go to strangers’ houses! I made my way giddily down the quaint staircase, opened the front gate and jolly well went around and then realized my folly – I never asked for the house number or name !

Then I used logic and all coordinates of geometry to arrive at the conclusion that this particular house could be Paati’s. As I was gallivanting into the compound, ignoring the “Beware of dogs!” sign on the front gate, somebody waved to me from the next gate – Paati’s household help who told me she was waiting for me upstairs. I sheepishly grinned and made my way up. It was a rickety staircase leading up to the first floor with traditional south Indian architecture. The moment I reached the top Paati welcomed me with huge smile.

“Hello ma, so nice of you to come visit me. Come, come sit down”, she waved at the sofa. I sat down on it. She told she’ll be back in a bit and went to the kitchen. The TV was on with some Tamil song on it. My vocabulary by then, note a week of stay, was limited to ‘Yepdi irkenge? Nallarka” and I planned to use that to the fullest extent to charm people along with my moderate exposure to Tamil movies and songs especially the one by A.R Rahman – yet this song went above my head.

Paati returned with a brass tumbler of filter coffee which I eagerly took a sip of – my senses exploded. All my tiredness, frustration, the pain and struggle which had led to my hasty decision of coming to Chennai – melted in the warmth of the another human being who had taken in a not so little girl lost in the city with no one to turn to, no familiar language with and no familiarity with in seconds.

“It’s so flavourful, Paati. I have never tasted coffee like this before”. She chuckled at my glee – “It’s filter coffee ma, I do not have anything else. I ground the beans and make it myself everyday”. I nodded along appreciatively. As I sipped a little more I noticed the garlanded photo of a thaata infront of me on the showcase. She followed my sight.

“My husband was a doctor too”, she said with a fondness that would betray that almost a year had gone by to his death. She told how he used to be a general practitioner who loved to treat patients at meagre amounts and was quite known in T Nagar. This house was built by his blood and sweat and every part of it decorated by her. They had had a simple wedding but a stronger marriage where he used to be quite busy with his work. It had been their 50th anniversary when he had decided to take her to the temple she had been begging him to take her to after finally finding time out of his busy schedule – when they came back, he collapsed on the sofa and passed away from a massive heart attack. Now despite their pleas, she did not want to leave the house and go to her kids settled in the US. I smiled and let her talk about him, you could see the sparkle in her eyes every time she mentioned him. The air in the house spoke of him, each of his memory so delicately preserved. She would look at his photograph longingly in between and talk lovingly of him. In the age of Tinder and Bumble, situationship and other godforsaken terminologies that gen Z has devised there was this woman who had found solace in her husband’s memories. I hugged her.

“You’re so sweet, Paati. I will visit you everyday. From now on you are my Paati”, I told off. She chuckled and patted my head.

Thus began weeks of evening coffee sessions at Paati’s place. Every time I would feel down with my preparations, worn down by the MCQs, Grand tests and life I would make my way to Paati’s place where a piping hot filter coffee would wait for me. Every visit would have a bit of thaata’s stories in it. One day when Paati looked a bit down and I urged to do her checkup she took out thaata’s stethoscope lovingly. She told me how she loved Savitri amma and Shivaji Ganeshan; and I told her how much I loved ‘Ok Kanmani’ and sang ‘Malargal Kettaen’ for her. This unconventional friendship raised several eyebrows at my home and hers. My aunt would listen to my story with horror and reprimand me of how I could be so trusting of strangers and her sisters who came to check in on her thought i was some con girl fleecing her. We sent them a selfie of us for verification and chuckled over it on another cup of coffee.

When I cleared my entrances, she was overjoyed, “Oh please apply to some college in Chennai ma. I know you love this city”

“Sure, I would Paati”, I quipped. Yet destiny had other plans and I would not only leave T Nagar and shift to OMR to join corporate but then even COVID would cut that short to transport me back to Rourkela and finally Karnataka where I would end up doing post graduation. Yet I promised to visit her from time to time.

The first new year’s and in between I kept in touch with her over call – every time I heard her delighted voice I would remember her smile and feel her warmth and blessings wash over me. Then the pace of residency took over, then life happened and somehow in the midst of all Paati was pushed to the back of my mind with that ever constant fear that considering her age, would I able to take it if I called and it went unanswered. I let it go.

Yesterday morning as I went through my twitter timeline I came across this particular tweet which said how we should make time to talk to the elderly even if they are strangers who look out for that connection in their lives and become happy with this small act of kindness since their days are numbered – and I remembered my Paati whose act of kindness and connection made one not so little girl navigate the big city independent life once and in an act of bravado I texted her –

“Good morning Paati

Been a long time since we spoke

Hope you’re doing well and remember me

P 🙂 “

I sent the text and waited. No reply. A dread filled me, but I pushed it back. Hours went by, I went to work, got lost in OT and OPDs and forgot about it. I came home and started helping my mother in the kitchen since my parents have been visiting for a couple of days and suddenly my phone pinged –

“Hi P, what a pleasant surprise

I never expected from you

How are you?

Completed PG?

May God bless you always !”

I choked. It was raining in Bangalore after months of wait and my Paati was hale and hearty, replying to me. I immediately called her. That familiar happy, delighted voice came through – “Hi P, How are you? What a pleasant surprise! It is so nice to hear your voice! Where are you ma these days? I am 92 now!” My heart was overfilled. That voice was so calming to hear after years and I could picture her smile as if it was yesterday. I enquired about her health, she couldn’t move around much anymore but was still managing. Her sisters used to come check on her. Her grandson was married to the Chinese girl he was dating the last time we spoke and she was still making her filter coffee. She urged me to come visit her whenever I was in Chennai and I mentally booked a date to go to Chennai just to meet her.

After I put down the call, I wondered, life has been so kind to me with it’s varied experiences. I have lived in so many cities by now and found so many varied experiences in them. Some kind and some not so – yet there’s always one person I would always remember the city for. Be it one of my dearest friends in Delhi who brought me hot soup when I was sick despite having known me a couple of days in coaching. Be it someone who helped me settle into the city of Bangalore and the crippling initial days of fellowship with his calming presence or be it my Paati with her hot cup of filter coffee in Chennai.

When people take a look at me they see the long exciting life and achievements I have lived, but I can tell you that for every step that I have taken in life it has always been possible because of that one act of kindness by someone who didn’t realise they are so significant in my journey. Through all the unkindness and troughs I have lived that one simple act of kindness or love has washed over the pain of the rest of the days.

As I navigate one of the most confusing times of life right now personally and professionally, reminiscing about this particular incident brought me significant joy. Through those dark days, Paati served as my light – someone who came from nowhere and turned my world around to give me the strength to push on and reach where I am.

We never know whose lives we’ll touch or who’ll do it for us will we?

Love,

P.

#womeninsurgery and other things ft. Happy Women’s day!

“It’s a beautiful day to save lives”, a line from the show Grey’s anatomy which took a million girls by storm and thrust them into a surgical career to follow into the footsteps of Meredith Grey – someone I would learn off much later, connect to and sometimes be appalled at because of the hot mess she is. I had no clue, not a wee bit that looking at women in surgery and being a woman in surgery required such nerves of steel.

It’s a beautiful day today to pen down a post on what my almost inconsequential baby steps into the field of surgery has meant to me. From watching my mother run back and forth from home to hospital at any time of the day gulping an entire roti in bites of four – to me repeating the same pattern and barely managing to see my beautiful 2bhk that I maintain with sky high rent while working 90hr weeks and an NBM more than my patients.

The world has changed most definitely – there are more women in surgery – you have no idea how heartwarming it is to see when someone who said they are confused whether they should take Pediatrics or Pathology (because that’s what expected of ideal female doctors to get into and build family in a nurturing role that allows them to balance home with) instead of taking surgery, finally taking the surgical branch. There are more women in Super speciality surgical branches  even though a female pursuing an Mch degree is considered as ‘too ambitious’, ‘unsuitable for family life’, ‘won’t manage home’ and deemed unfit in the marriage market because the ones who make the demands are like fiefs sitting in a bazaar bartering women by the degrees and wanting the moolah alongside the demands of “Will you step back when it’s time to plan a family?” I had met a gastrosurgeon once who told how he led a busy life with 16-18 hours surgery and was unable to contribute to home yet he expects the surgeon wife in a similarly demanding field to be okay with him coming and going as he pleased and taking a step back when needed. He proudly declared how his friends had earlier told that a surgeon wife would be unsuitable.  It was almost funny, yet ironic. I have always watched how my father despite not being from the medical field has taken an almost indulgent share in my mother’s flourishing obstetric career braving her late night labour calls and OTs by dropping her back and forth from hospital sometimes sleeping in the parking lot. Never making demands of what a ‘conventional wife’ must do. Thinking of new ways to see her grow in her career and I have realized for every brave woman in surgery there also a braver partner who supports her through it. The ones who remind them that they got their back through it all. May we all be blessed with them.

Being a woman in surgery is knowing all this and also battling the learning curve alongside. While your biological clocks keep ticking you are their struggling in the OT under the lights. Your bodies through period flow and cramps standing through 12 hour OTs performing to its best –  because in surgery neither there are excuses nor sorry. You only get one chance and you have to grab it. For women these chances are also quite rare to come by.

I did my residency in one of the prestigious colleges in Karnataka – yet there was a whispered adage in the department – your life goes smooth in this department if you are a guy. The guys clinked glasses with the professors in private and in the classes gave mind numbingly stupid answers only to get away with it and be performing a procedure alone in OT the next day. The beauty of it was your self doubt would keep  increasing exponentially while they muddled in their ignorant bliss to glory. With surgical learning curve being so steep, you were left at the very negative odds of it. There are times you wonder if you should have taken a more female friendly branch – Dermatology or perhaps OBG. Yet somehow my uncle’s face during his last days of battle with cancer kept haunting my brain and I wondered what is this field which despite having a family of doctors we could never decipher or beat. Thus began my journey into it.

Four years down the  lane do I regret being in a branch that literally sucks my soul and makes me doubt myself everyday as I begin from the scratch – learning, unlearning and learning again? Yes, most definitely yes. There are times I feel I could have taken a medical branch and just been at it. Sometimes even the most ridiculously sweet patients, stories and gooey mush my heart is  in with the countless number of compliments, blessings that my patients give me falls short when a male surgeon misbehaves with me or tells me how girls are not fit for this – when the male locker room talk in operative procedures makes me feel like running away from the crassness of it all. When you do not get the same respect as a male surgeon by the nursing staff who treat them with more gravitas. Where your talent and skills are kept to the side and you can be just reduced to someone hit on or ogled at. When sheer exhaustion takes over with the balance of personal and professional. When yet another family friend – a doctor couple – tells my parents that they made a mistake letting me get into Head and neck surgery because guys do not see me as wife material. When yet another duty, yet another long shift and yet another exhausting day at work doesn’t leave me with the headspace to talk to my loved ones and suspect if everyone is actually true? That as a girl I might have forayed into something that’s professionally exciting yet personally draining. Maybe it’s time to take a step back?

But again I hold the scalpel and get the shivers like I did the first time – the happy ones – and as I slice open a neck I realize I am doing something that none of my forefathers, family or friends have dreamt of doing. I get to see the things that no one in my vicinity has done and tell a silent prayer to that little girl who dreamt big dreams and is getting to live it. I do my OPDs and rounds and ward rounds and know that I bring an empathy that most men can’t and that’s what sets me apart every time a patient smiles and remembers my face even after days.  I get handed a oddly sketched drawing by a patient’s child who wanted to give me a chocolate or get a text from patient I discharged home happily a week back,  “thank you happy women’s day for all that you do so exceptionally” or get hugged randomly by a patient or an ajji through a difficult diagnosis and know that some way I have impacted and made someone’s life better. When I am in my night shifts or in between OTs and have someone to ask me if I ate or slept through my shifts and bear my mood swings through it all and I wonder – being a woman in surgery is not a big deal once you have the right support system for it? Having parents who nitpicked yet let me grow academically/ professionally to the fullest which many, many, many girls step back with the lack of fills my heart with plain gratitude. No one will ever understand the sacrifices it takes to be family or a friend to a female surgeon – yet people do, and I am grateful for it. I am grateful for all the mess I am and every person who takes the pain and pleasure in unraveling it. Being in an unconventional path might have taken its toll, but in the end I have been left only with the realest ones.

As women we have held ourselves back for far too long by confining ourselves to the purview of what can be done or cannot to a point we don’t even know what we want anymore. We do not take credit, we do not make our presence known, neither our sacrifices or the work or love we put into the tiniest of things in our day to day lives. Here is to speaking up more, letting our presence known and most importantly letting ourselves be okay with acknowledging it.

So, here’s to all the brave women and braver #womeninsurgery – may we know them, may we be them and may we raise them. To having the magic of scalpel in our hands.

Happy Women’s Day ! 🙂

Love,

P.

PS:

The sketched chocolate my patient’s child gave me. ❤️

PPS:

In my happy space.

End of the year ruminations ft. My way or highway?

With the earth taking a revolution around the sun, the optimists scream new year, new me; the realists scream it’s just a change of calendar; the pessimists might just say fuck it and do what they are doing anyway. I had been wondering for a few weeks, ever since my last post of how I don’t want to make resolutions – which category do I fit into. Maybe I am the veritable cat on the wall – I have always found it difficult to grab a polarized opinion. Being on the fence helps me know that I can always take the comfort of either side as the tide changes without committing to the consequences of each. So maybe, my first resolution for 2024 is to start making resolutions. To be less on the fence and more in tune with what I want. Setting boundaries – or in my case discovering boundaries and setting them.

There was this beautiful quote in Dear Zindagi, Shahrukh looks and Kiara and says, “Agar hum apni zindagi ka steering wheel apne haath mein nahi lenge na … toh koi doosra driver seat par baith jayega”, and I feel this is so important in every context. Boundaries look like fences to us which is why I have always used them rarely, it is only off late I have realised that boundaries are a way to gatekeep my own desires and needs from anyone who is not me – be it my friends, siblings, extended family, colleagues, lovers or even my parents. There is a certain guilt or shame that comes to me when I don’t pour into them. A certain dissatisfaction when I am not going all the way out to do something they want. That’s something I can work on in 2024.

2023 was the year I made a lot of changes. Getting out of residency and its set pattern of ways to finally live in a city, work more independently and live independently opened up a thought process I lacked before. When we are kids there are so many things we learn to live with – my mum got Nescafe for coffee and Tata tea for tea. Now that I am nearing the end of my twenties and living in her own flat and having the liberty to do things on her own, every day I am learning newer ways to do life. I find I like Bru and Cothas coffee. When I want to make a cup of adrak chai, I like to use Brooke bond.

Residency and its toxicity had put my brain in survival mode for a long time – my nervous system was jumpy and I had developed coping strategies that people would not normally choose in a healthy atmosphere. Finding a good Fellowship program and mentor that literally said, ” Happy holidays, enjoy, no worries” when I asked to extend my holiday from 2 to 4 because I was clearly guilt tripping asking for one at the first time made me realise that life actually changes with the boundaries and the consideration to your own self you put in them.

Living in a hostel having the liberty to just open the door and having someone to talk to makes you find a comfort zone of the same routines, the same parties and the same conversations. Living alone and the loneliness that came with it helped me discover things I like to do on my own again. I started writing again (albeit, rarely), no one guilt shamed me for just taking a book and spending my time reading it in a cafe, I could pick up my bag again and wander in museums and streets taking in the culture of things I have never seen before, I discovered I could again cut out the noise and listen to songs and found newer genres of music and newer songs I liked. In a world that asked me to settle I tried dating someone for the first time wholeheartedly who brought a newer perspective to everything I thought I deserved and ways I could be treated – having someone as a rock solid support system to give you the liberty to pursue other things in life was calming in ways I had never felt before. Understanding that even in such relationships not taking it for granted and investing time and effort to keep regular check ins without making it just a part of your routine and vent out was the second lesson. Trying to move on from something that significant quickly by using quick fix mechanisms and not acknowledging I am hurt was third. Breathe, pace out, new lovers will come, yet let me acknowledge that what I had was significant and worth crying over. You don’t lose someone you see your future with everyday, and even in that loss if you are alone – it’s okay. I discovered different ways to do things and the way I liked to do it. I found different opinions on things but my own voice in it. Also, no one can decide your timeline except yourself.

There is a certain beauty in knowing the year is ending and a new one starts – because even if a part of me is realistic to know nothing will change, a part of me is also hopeful that with a new year comes the new possibilities of things and newer ways of doing it. Even if the settings are the same and life is following set patterns and cycles of things – I will get the chance to do the same things in a different way and get a different outcome.

Adios 2023, you were bittersweet. 2024, I am ready for your lessons but I have a few tricks of my own now. I believe you will be a gamechanger – mostly because you start on a Monday. *Facepalms*

Cheers.

SUNDAY BLOG FT. THE SOCIAL GAME

Just the day before, I came across a new set of NMC regulations that curb how and how much “celeb” doctors can engage on social media with their target audience, which got me thinking about how social media has impacted us enough to take over the legal system as well. We need rules and regulations now to dictate our social media behaviour. Something so innocuous as a technology made to connect people has taken such a draconian shape that we need to disconnect from the same. Our lives are governed by algorithms and our needs replaced by wants. Where people used to have knowledge before, they have opinions now. Meaningless ranting and information overload has taken over our timelines and we do not know what to consume and what to let go anymore. This leads to me to think – that soon there might be something known as ‘Information Overload syndrome’ or ‘Social media exhaustion’.

As we scroll through our timelines going through countless tweets, articles, posts, photos, memes… do we really understand the kind of media bytes we are feeding our brain? The kind of cannon events we go through per second which earlier probably we went through over weeks or months? The kind of eyeball grab which sends our nervous system into an upheaval – an emotional rollercoaster of sorts.

Not just that, by giving our headspace to such people we have not only perpetrated an entire band of social chimpanzees dancing it out trying to grab the most eyeballs and get money in return. As each and every person becomes a social media influencer,” do we really find it acceptable to take half baked opinions from people who are not experts in the field. It’s akin to getting Botox done by an untrained person who has taken a two-week rapid course in Aesthetics with no primary medical degree — disastrous. Remember when we were kids and looked up to APJ Abdul Kalam or Nelson Mandela? Now imagine instead of them speaking about their work with their vast expanse of knowledge and understanding of their own field, they spoke about 5 ways to apply concealer to hide your dark spots – would you go for it? With changing algorithms to perpetrate the influencing, influencers, and the influenced, people like Musk are slowly monetizing what used to be supposedly ‘free speech’ in all its literal and metaphoric terms. Putting speech into money brackets, with premium users being allowed more access to words and more reach, are we progressing to a world where money will decide the mass thought process?!

What was an innocuous childhood play with dolls has now been cleverly marketed so and so that we have an entire platoon of girls from all ages dressing up in pink to go watch Barbie which has a substandard plot with a clever feminist angle of marketing. A random female whose racial/ body shaming slur over a Pakistani girl who married a guy in her neighbourhood has been made ‘viral’ and being asked to come on talk shows?! Five years back the account which begged for follow to each account on Instagram is now a well known travel influencer ‘influencing’ people to buy into the travel consumerism which has been funded by their own likes and eyeballs. Where does this end?

We have created an unnecessary culture of consumerism feeding consumerism. The big conglomerates to keep this wheel going are doing their best to add perks and voice to these chosen social media chimpanzees. Such is the trend, I wouldn’t be surprised if in the next few years, “What do you want to become when you grow up?” will yield – “I wanna become a Social media influencer and get the gold play button” as goals.

My teacher in primary school used to say – the tree with the maximum number of fruits, bends.

I feel the meaning and depth of this are lost to our generation. Where the maximum number of likes, retweets, and shares takes precedence, people are willing to decimate others just to prove a point. Incessant rambling and ranting. With increasing space for people to express they have forgotten the art to just listen and understand before they retort. Why do we have the feeling to be right at all times? Don’t we learn from differences?! Knowing that people have something different to say and add value to a standpoint is what adds flavor to a debate. Have we forgotten the art of debating? Is it just an elocution now? Or worse – just a podium speech with the audience having a ball of word limit stuffed into their mouth?

Just some thoughts to mull over a long weekend.

P.

An Ode to Harry Potter

It was the summer of 2002 when my uncle gifted me a set of books with a side note of, “This is the most popular book in the children’s section right now”, and my life was never the same again. A boy with a scar and two best friends coursing through the wizarding world took over a large chunk of my mindspace, which they would occupy even 16 years later. Yes, you guessed it correctly – Harry Potter!

It’s strange why I thought of Harry Potter when I read the words famous fiction book by a foreign author. I mean, I have read thousands of books in my 29 years of lifetime. I have been moved 100s of times by the words in them, so why Harry Potter? The biggest cliche of our times if you ask around any 90s kid which book have they read and loved in their childhood. Also, pretty demeaning to an avid reader like me when asked to name a favorite book at 29. Well, I could have talked about the spirited revolting spirit of a girl trapped in a regime trying to crush her personal choices in Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, or the female protagonist who rises above everything to create a name for her own in Jeffrey Archer’s Prodigal Daughter; but I hesitate.

A book is measured by the world it creates and leaves it readers in, and I’m still there – I’m there in the corridors of Hogwarts navigating through moving staircases and disappearing doors. Harry, Ron and Hermione are still talking me along their adventures into the forbidden forest and forbidden corridors. I’m there when Harry has his first taste of heartbreak with Cho and I’m there where he tastes the everlasting kiss of love and family with Ginny. I’m there where Sirius falls through the veil leaving a promise of happy family to Harry hanging in thin air and I’m there when Dumbledore falls through the sharp, cold air leaving Harry vulnerable to the dark bereft of a mentor figure. I’m there through every battle and every spell; and I’m there when Voldemort fell. I’m there and here, still waiting for my letter – a ticket to Hogwarts and what I cannot have ever. The boy who lived, lives inside me; forever.

“After all this time?”

Always. ❤️

Mine

There are two sides
Two sides to me
They bicker
They screech
They nail each other
Till they can nail
What makes them different
What makes two
When the soul is one
Why the heart wanders
When the mind stays
In some twisted page of a rat race
Why every day feels like another day
That could have been lived
In another way
Why the sky is crimson
Why the leaves maroon
Why the whys I stopped asking
To fit in
Don’t find their voice anymore
Why I have to live in a way
Thats less of me
Less of what I feel
Less of everything I dreamed
Why
Why
Why
Yet nothing can show
How the wheel can be stopped from turning
The sands of time
And watching everything disappear that I used to call mine.

To an Indian parent,

My heart kinda aches
From not being able to tell
I love you
I care for you
I miss you

Hands that clutch too hard
Make you want to escape them soon
I guess that’s how it works
Between me and you

Yet your wrinkled hands are calling me
So are your dreams
Of being cared for in old age
By your progeny

I can feel the years that weighed you down
The wrinkles on your cheek
Dear mother, dear father
My lungs scream out from not calling to you in need

This forced adulthood
This urge to being the eldest daughter
The responsible one
The one my lil one can look upto
Is weighing on me

When all I want
Is go back to the corner of our home
Hide under your hawk eye
To all thats evil towards me.

Yet I cannot do this
Or that
Or anything which makes me look weak
Or undeserving
Of this freedom I have been coveting for far too long

To not being the frog in the wall
To not being the caged Bird that sings
To write my fate
With my own free will

So I can just pray and pray
For you both
And hope your love to stay
Till I conquer the world
Achieve all that I had wished for
Get my fill of it
And be able to come back to you
And not regret it a single bit

For I love you
I care for you
And I miss you
Even if those are the hardest three words to tell your Indian parents when you feel.

Again?

There are feelings

Solitary

Empty

I feel mostly

Yet feelings have no meaning in them.

They are mixed –

Like every other attachment I’ve felt in the past

Careless

Idiotic

Like a summer sunset you would miss out on for the accompanying heat.

But the feelings feel different this time

It’s a strange mix of yearning and guilt

Being the perpetrator and not the victim

Being the loved not the lover

Being the one who didn’t stay

The one who didn’t say.

And now that I feel this

I feel it’s good to have overlooked, over loved, over cared in the past

Because this guilt,

This burgeoning ball of guilt

Makes me feel I have fallen

With no arms to catch me,

Because I had cut them myself.

A summer day

I lost myself on a summer day
Where the wind blew
But the mind stayed
My life flashed before my eyes
Burgeoning dreams and a million sighs
The hands that I had let go of
The ones that left mine
And I came to a revelation
After a couple of desperate tries
I tried so hard to let someone in
Through the walls of fortresses I had built
But in the end all I know
Is only the art of letting go !

© P.G.