Enough?

Of late I’ve been sitting with myself a lot
It’s not much of a practice than a sort of homecoming
It’s been a long time since I belonged to myself.

First it was to the fervour of youth
The cries of I am enough
The audacity of changing the world someday
(When all I should have was to change my ways)
Sparkling eyes and fire dreams
And oh, but was it enough!?

Second came the heartbreaks
The ones that I didn’t see coming
The ones I gave back
The screaming retorts of “You are not enough”
Hold this hand!
Marry that guy!
Solitude is loneliness!
Yet the fear of ‘them’ not being enough
Was my constant war cry

Third came love
Patient, kind, warm
The kind that comes once in a while
To take you by surprise
He screamed you’re enough
More than enough
But I am not enough, he cried
I too cried.

Fourth is this silence
It’s like a cold winter midnight
Bang in the middle of June
I can’t hear anything
I don’t play anything
Except listening to my heart beat
A hundred times over
And over
And over
Telling me that things have changed
The softness has been replaced
You have to move on (to newer things? To better things? What is better?)
And reconcile.
Sit down and feel
This emptiness
This tragedy
Of giving more than you receive
And hoping more than hope offers
And yet be grateful to have found something
In the pain of losing it
And tell yourself to begin again
But now with the glimpse of  what love taught you in it’s wake –
I am enough.

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.

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. ❤️

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.

IS COVID A HOAX?! FT. #MyCOVIDDutyDiaries

I admit it – when I started writing this with such a title, I knew this was gonna be a clickbait – but then I can’t help facepalm when I get to see the picture of anti-maskers protesting in Marine Drive, Mumbai on my twitter feed the first thing after completing a week of COVID duties. Maharashtra, a state where the case load is 1.43 million with 37,758 deaths already – having a bunch of twats holding placards asking India to wake up, when they literally shouldn’t be sleeping at the horrific situation they are in. What irony!

Image courtesy : mid-day.com

I was also a different person a week or so back – of course I understood the disease, I understood the problem, but the seriousness of the situation didn’t make it into my head properly. How can it! Being a doctor’s daughter I have literally seen and seeing my mom putting patients before self first. She has been working throughout the pandemic relentlessly without a damn care for her health when she is the one person who should be taking care thanks to her co-morbidities; but then who cares?! Indian patients never do. They will give you a mithai ka dabba when the delivery is successful or break your head if there’s an unfortunate turn of events. We’re sacrificing our lives for people who wouldn’t hesitate to harm us. (Ref to Dr. Anoop, a young budding orthopedic surgeon who committed suicide after a patient he treated selflessly died and he had to undergo a social media trial.)

My own non medico friends didn’t hesitate on making sarcastic comments when they saw me my pictures on outings on social media. How do I explain how our brain works – when every single day we work in a hospital with high viral load and risk of exposure. When the very patient I examine on a Saturday comes COVID positive on Tuesday, days before I am supposed to start duties in a ward full of COVID patients.

I always thought in COVID duty the biggest battle will be my ability to breathe given my history, but it wasn’t. Then came the task of bearing the brunt of a PPE with multiple tapes to seal any chance of contamination – Belgaum saved me there with it’s ever-cool weather normalizing the temperature in there. Even bladder control wasn’t much of an issue even after 10 hours of duty. I guess the biggest fears I had were psychological and I got over once I felt at home in the place with supportive co PGs I got to work with. Even my interns were sweet enough. Just the duties were exhausting and the PPE made it even more dehydrating, and coming back to my room no matter at point of night I had to follow a daily ritual of bathing, decontaminating myself and my clothes that had been in the high risk area. A constant headache accompanied me 24×7 because of lack of hydration. Every night I had to take 5 tablets for prophylaxis having to work for 7-10 hours in a high risk area when the minimum threshold for getting infected from a COVID positive person without protection is 15 minutes. Some days I got to say to my patients their reports are improving and it was the high point of my day.

But what really, really disturbed me in there – was the way I lost my patients! The biggest battle was me trying to salvage the patient’s oxygen saturation!

I started my duty with two deaths all in a span of minutes. Anyone who has been in COVID wards can vouch for this fact now – COVID deaths are scary as fuck. When the saturation starts dropping – it has a steady and steep fall. The steady progression of the patient from oxygen mask to NRM to HFNO to CPAP can result in a steep fall to need ventilation; and ventilation is the last and final resort which is dicey when it comes to patient survival with post venti saturation coming down by 10-20 points. After careful observation I have to conclude that the patients most at risk of crashing are 45+, obese patients with co-morbidities like diabetes and hypertension. I have worked 24x7x7 days in an Intensive Care Unit during my MBBS but losing patients wasn’t so mortifying then – as you literally see patients who have been maintaining fine until one night crash in the next. The mere fragility of a human body got to me.

When I saw a patient attender kiss her husband’s forehead goodbye, it broke a part of me. I ended up crying when I came back to my room at night. We deal with patients, agreed – but these patients are people outside the hospital, with family and kids. Just like we have a family. COVID has broken up so many families. So many patient attenders came up to me and requested me to update about their loved one’s survival status. It takes a great deal of patience to have to deal with a patient attender not only as a doctor but also a human being who knows that their frustration stems from losing a loved one and financial incompatibility. On night duty I am crippled by anxiety and make multiple rounds to check if the patients have taken off their mask – which they usually do – as it’s extremely irritating to have an oxygen mask stuck on your face; especially a CPAP mask which has the lowest tolerance among patients. Patients literally beg me with folded hands to take off the CPAP mask and I just stare at the monitor with their precarious saturation helplessly trying to gather words to counsel them. Wasn’t it simpler when they could just social distance and wear masks?

Now that my duty is done – I do not feel the same towards this disease anymore. It’s different to view something as a textbook case or a newspaper headline and extremely different when you have to treat it in real time.

So, my dear anti-maskers, I really hope you take a trip into the COVID wards in a PPE suit that barely suffocates you the way the disease is actually suffocating my patients in the ward – see for yourself the despair on the face of my attendants scared for the life of their loved one, the multiple ways a patient tries to convince that he was a fit army man till date and never been to hospital so their must have been a mistake in the report – but even he knows what the disease is when he now reaches out for his mask as his lungs grasp for air. I hope you see my ever-smiling favorite Ajja in the ICU who I had weaned off high flow oxygen to normal oxygen but has deteriorating again with ascent in oxygen requirements. I hope when you see all this and come out to doff, painfully taking off the tapes off your face feels exactly like the resounding slap I want to give you right now for taking a disease, that made countless people all over the world lose their loved ones, lightly.

Cheers,

Dr. P

Dear 16 year old me,

Dear 16 year old me who wanted to grow up desperately,

There’s nothing new when you grow up. I rephrase – the settings change, your dreams come true, you are sitting in a single room with a window overlooking the enormous green university campus that you can call your own with plateaus topped by windmills in the distance and having chai is a long drive at midnight on the highway with a bunch of friends you only hoped you’ll have but that’s it – nothing has changed.

Remember standard 4? Vartika Chabbra? Remember how you recieved your science paper with 97 on it and on reaching home found an answer paper stashed into your bag with your name scribbled wrongly on a paper which had only been graded 12? Remember how your mother made frantic calls to the teacher and said how you clued in it was Vartika who forged the name, as for the first your name being unpronounceable and your answers unnecessarily lengthy was a boon as she misspelt your name and didn’t bother to change her name to yours after page 4? Remember how she threatened you the next day for calling her out.

I would say Vartikas are only primary school miscreants who want to prank you, but it’s not. You keep meeting them throughout your life. Even as a Junior Resident who tried to stay low, do her work before time and yet someone tried to butcher her for his power play.

The truth is sweetheart, you grow up. Eventually. You have the freedom you yearn for, eventually. You have all the hangouts and male adulation you dream of yet life, life is a bitch; it doesn’t pan out the way you want it to. You grow up and realise that fantasy and reality are two worlds placed so far apart you spend all your early twenties trying to search for it.

My love, you learn to keep yourself happy. Something that you, I know did but kind of lost it while trying to grow up. Your books, hold on to it. Your music, sings to your soul. Your company, cherish it. You start dancing again. Because as you grow up you see everyone fighting a battle that only they can win. You learnt to fight all of yours. You learnt to be your own savior, and to stay happy through it – you cling to whatever rope you can find. It’s usually is like this. Writing to vent it out. Don’t forget your talents, they were god gifted to you for a reason. They keep you alive through all the mess.

Anyway, that’s enough of the morose. Remember all the dreams we saw? I am living them now. I believed in the rubber band theory – if life takes you behind, it’s only doing that to jet set you higher. Not to burst your bubble but life wasn’t rosy after school, but you find your groove a decade later. The tiny hallowed library of Carmel? My college library has three floors and thousands and thousands of books I can’t even dare to finish now. The college and faculty consists of stalwarts you only dream of reaching close to; they create for you milestones that you never knew existed to want to achieve. You finally get to learn to play basketball on a court you used to yearn at while growing up. Bhai used to call you lemon for always crying at the slightest teasing yet you have the tolerance level of a stork and an enviable pain threshold now.

The truth is when you stop letting things get to you, they eventually do. Though most of all, you realise who are truly your own. The parents you are fighting to get away from – you’ll be jumping a decade later when they make sudden plans to visit you in your PG college. All that Papa is saying now? You will find it more and more practical over the years and regret at some points for not adhering to it. I wish I could tell you I realized it soon, but I didn’t. You will realize that the list of friends undergoes a lot of addition, subtraction over the years – and you can’t mourn someone leaving but just be grateful that at a point when things were going downhill you had a friend handing over a cup of tea to make your day better. You will be grateful that there are friends to bug you over and over again to know if you’re okay – because life gets more and more busier as we grow up and no one can make time for another human which is why it becomes a miracle to have even few people true to you. You had such fantasies about love and having a lover; but it gets broken over the decade in multiple heartbreaks and mistakes. You realize that love should be found within before trying to find it another person.

Life is a patient teacher though. You go through similar episodes at different points of life, over and over, until you learn to react to it properly. You find your triggers and your loopholes, someday you even learn to stop blaming others and start with yourself at making your life better. It gets better. It really does. No matter how bleak it seems momentarily.

So that’s that. As my current motto neither do I live in the past for too long nor do I entertain sweet daydreams of a future. Living in the present is something you don’t know yet, as I know you have drawn one year worth of routine with each day planned to accommodate the portion you want to cover. Your brain filled with theorems and thoughts of more reference books you can quote in your answers to score more in terminals. A holier than thou attitude that irks people and perfectly oiled hair plaited and tucked to keep in with the persona a school prefect demands – but a decade later you will be writing this in shorts and T shirt with quirky slogan your 16 year old brain abhors – getting mentally and deadline wise ready to go for COVID duties (we are in the midst of a pandemic now with a new world order your books don’t teach you. Boo!) as a frickin post graduate student in a medical college (yes, we got our career timeline right) and still making time to chill with friends while battling deadlines.

Love,

Your older and still getting wiser self.

The Sunday Blog ft #thefamiliarconcept

Routine keeps you going. Any routine that blocks your day, keeps you mentally and physically occupied to prevent you from going off track is a welcome change. My father used to say I look the most beautiful when my exams are around, that’s because I am single minded focused on getting good grades then with a damn care for the world. When I was young the old adage, “An idle mind is a devil’s workshop” never made sense to me – but these days I have finally grasped the meaning of it. When I am caught up in my work and do not have time for anything and anyone else I do not get this nostalgia in waves. I do not miss my home. I do not miss my little sister. I do not miss my Maa’s lap. Else everything goes haywire.

Yesterday was Ganesh Puja and they didn’t celebrate it because I wasn’t there at home. I was in KLE and due to COVID the usual celebrations had been toned down to min pujas – which by luck I got to see three of; yet I missed my home’s Ganesh Puja. I missed staying up all night decorating the room with my siblings, waking up early and taking my bath, going to get dooba-patra from my neighbour’s house, arranging the fruits, raasi-laddu on the plate, keeping my books infront of the god, becoming the mini nana for the day and doing the puja. Getting to break the fast after pushpanjali with my Maa’s haata randha Puri Aloodum. I missed the smell wafting from the kitchen of the typical Odia-style Aloo dum which people sell here as an abomination terming it bhajji. The style of Pooris only made at my home. I missed the movie ritual post that where we took up any family movie and by any it would always be a KJo mega family movie (psst… Kabhi khushi kabhi gham) and devoured it to bits. One day we were set free from the obligations of studying. One day we were kids all over.

They say as you grow up, you become more set in your ways – yet it’s strange that as we grow up we are made to break away from who we are with each passing day.

My Maa told me I should focus only on being a good human being, yet the more I grow up people ask me to be more shrewd. My Maa asked me to be more kind, but as I grow up people use this kindness to exploit it and sell you to the vultures. My Maa asked me to be more soft but people mistake this as submissiveness and dominate me to the point I have to turn into a aggressive version of myself I do not recognize.

Who am I, and who I will be after I grow up are two starkly different beings I doubt I know of.

It is only because of this that we keep on seeking people that are more and more familiar to what we know. Somebody who makes you laugh like your brother does, somebody with a smile as honest as yours, somebody who will make you an egg sandwich going out of the way just like your Maa does to pamper you on the days you don’t feel like moving out of the bed, somebody whose embrace feels like home – love, care, kindness, humility, honesty, familiarity – I crave all of that in batches of people that life keeps throwing at me with each consecutive stage of life. The same values, the same ideals – which my Maa sat down and taught me over the years.

It is so weird to come to residency and find that most of the girls here are not committed (okay, in a ‘maybe’, only KLE people would get that); such a stark contrast from my UG days when I used to see girls engaged in a battle of whose boyfriend did the most for her. That’s maturity I guess, when you have finally come to differentiate between need and want. When you finally realise it’s not about seeking the unknown, the adrenaline rush or the arm candy anymore – it is only about finding constancy, permanence and familiarity at the end of the day. People are not making plans to just go out and roam anymore – they are cribbing about getting to go to home. Not a boyfriend anymore, but a life partner. Because more than receiving red cut roses a single time, it’s better to be planting them with someone and watching them grow into a hundred roses over the years you spend with them.

I was deeply against the social event of wedding, but I have begun to understand the concept of marriage these days. The sole reason my father kept me away from men all over the years, demonizing them yet now insisting on marriage at times – they want to leave you with familiarity. They want to leave you with someone that takes care of you the way they do. Your festivals aren’t just modaks and decorations – it’s the happy family that went into arranging and executing it – our parents want to leave us with that. Someone who is there for every puja, every occasion, every morning and every meal; bringing a familiarity to the table. One that keeps us safe from any battle in the world. One that gives us strength to face any battle in the world.

I hope you find your familiar and I find mine. Leaving you to spend your Sunday with this thought.

Cheers,

P.

The Sunday Blog – #mymusings

Most of what I write goes into drafts these days – it’s hard for me to publish things when I am overthinking them through. Is it writer’s block or loss of the freedom from the pen, I will never know.

Moving here has felt like a dream – Belgaum is a paradise for creative people, especially writers like me. The clouds hover in the sky artistically – if you visit the windmills situated at the city outskirts you will know exactly what I am talking about when with a short drive on the beautiful highway, then the road snaking up the hills you find yourself amidst the clouds that hover low enough kissing the turbines with fervor. It rains here so much, I have never seen a place like this – the umbrella has become an asset of equal importance to me like my phone. You can not leave your hostel room without it for it might start raining anywhere, at any time. The breeze hits you perfectly, exactly the ones you crave in romantic settings – but romance for me is far-off. When it rains too much you feel like Bella in Forks, minus the Edward to cheer you up.

I don’t talk to people back at home too much. There is a strange sense of missing that envelops me if I do – they won’t get it – I don’t talk to them not because I don’t miss them but because I do.

I try avoiding talking about residency, mostly because there’s not a lot happening due to the higher authorities restricting us to keep the COVID exposure low – but also because I am taking time to absorb and adjust. ‘Taking it slow’ is a phrase I use too much these days, but learning the meaning of it gradually. It can be applied to all arenas isn’t it? Take it slow to understand the pressure of academics so it doesn’t overwhelm and break you. Take it slow with all the new friends you are now surrounded with so that they don’t turn back in future and back-stab you. Take it slow with the guy you met, because he might hurt you in the same bloody motherfucking way every one else did before me. Deep breath. Take it slow.

I have seen with increasing age humans have become less and less dependable. They are controlled by their whims and fancies. Their own moods and their own situations. I understand them, I feel for them, but I will not entertain them anymore. My father always egged me – “communicate, Sanu, communicate”. I resisted him so much then, but now I realise how his teachings have seeped into me more than his words could consciously then. I hate a man who can’t communicate now. I am short tempered with someone who’s flaky. I have realized how I am more my father’s daughter with each passing day when I up my barriers before someone takes advantage of me since I lowered them. 26 years are a long time to develop guards and instincts from previous hurtful experiences. It will take a person of real grit to lower them again. Though before judging someone I need to incorporate such lessons inside me as well. I am so grateful to have found a bunch of friends here who keep checking on me. Life really does get better if you have people to share it with. For you can go only faster if you are alone, but farther together.

I understand now what my hosteler batch-mates in UG felt about me as a dayscholar – it’s hard to connect and feel close to someone who you see only for a few hours in the day when you have a bunch of stories happening in the night. Though I am still trying to understand why someone would two time me for that; since I thought I would be absolved from that area in dating since I live in the hostel – but funnily enough we have a curfew of 10 pm.

Dating is hard at this age – people come with a lot of baggage that I have no space to keep. They come with their moods, whims and insecurities and I have mine. I guess that’s what they say about love – it’s a miracle. Because it will be a complete miracle for me to feel love for someone again. Until then, I am happy with this life of my own creation. I wake up each day and I am grateful. Grateful for all the varied experiences every single day that keep overwhelming me. Grateful to have friends who make me chai when I feel low, or go on a scream fest with when we try to find spots to have midnight fresh air but end up getting scared by ghostly singing from some untraceable space. Grateful for a huge campus equipped with all facilities I ever dreamt of. Grateful for stalwarts as my faculty and people who guide and not just chide as my seniors – I can’t tell you what a blessing it is to have seniors who are sweet and supportive – it amplifies your learning in residency! I am grateful for Belgaum having spectacular food (but not the extra kgs it’s adding *Le cries*) and a waterfall or nature’s paradise in every direction. I am even grateful for my swollen sprained finger from playing basketball for I am finally getting to learn to play it after yearning after basketball courts I had no clue to navigate since ages; but most importantly I am grateful for myself – still standing strong after everything I have faced in the past 26 years. Every time I am on the verge of breaking down I realise why I shouldn’t – because I don’t. I am resilient. That’s my greatest asset, apart from my smile and other things – which the boys say 😉

That’s it. A bunch of sentences to leave you with on a Sunday morning. Find what makes you happy, and be grateful for it. It has taken me a long time to come back to writing again. Hope this doesn’t sound like gibberish. If it does, I am sure I will improve in the next post.

Love,

P.