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.

मौसम

He said he can’t tolerate
Shades of me
As varied as the weather of the city we lived in then
He couldn’t tolerate
The way I had an opinion
Loud enough to break the glass his thinking was entrapped in.

He said I wouldn’t be
What they said was “domestic”
I had ways too unbridled
Too free
Too uncharted
For him to a put a finger to

That my unique was a hindrance
My different was a difference
Both could never meet
And he was happy to let go
And shove another on my face

One who knew how to play the cards well
Knowing to push and pull
Knowing not to be everything to him
Knowing how guys like him detest girls like me

Girls who want to be something
Before becoming someone’s
And for a long time I thought
The fault was in me.

He said he couldn’t tolerate
How I was as moody as the city we lived in
But now I am in a city
With a weather moodier than me
And people seem just as eager to love it.

A letter to my 3 day old sister

Dear baby,
I wonder what your world will be!
You’ll outlive me by a whole 26 years
I wonder what all you’ll see!

I have seen a tiny, tiny virus
Outsmart mighty, mighty empires
And our little wicked schemes
Taking down a rat’s race that thought itself bigger than nature’s scheme.

I have seen forests consumed by hell-fires
But nothing more consuming than desire
Of harrowed men trapped,
In a never ending stream of wanting.

I have seen faith,
I have seen love,
I have seen all you can,
And what to do when you cannot.

I have the felt the fresh breeze off mountain ranges
I have dipped my soul in holy Ganges
When I have washed off my sins,
I have added his name afresh.

The one that still makes me feel a million things,
Yet let me tell you
Most boys will break your hearts
Even if  butterflies and unicorns – are what you feel in the beginning.

But you’ll always stand,
Taller than ever,
Your heart will love harder than ever,
And at the end of it all, you’ll fall in true love – the one with yourself.

I have seen friends
I have seen friendship
Sometimes both seem different
I have wondered why it is.

I have had family though,
Mine and ours,
Standing by when noone did.
Cause blood respects blood but water takes the shape of every vessel it’s kept in.

Respect everyone,
Expect from none,
And maybe when you live another year after year,
You’ll thank your sister who lived 26 less, albeit happily.

Define : Love

Love is pure,
Love is kind,
Love doesn’t need you to tone down –
Your waist
Or your mind.

Love is Grace
Love is fine –
Like raindrops on dry soil
Scent wafting inside out
Firing up your senses every time.

Love is patience
Love is pain
The patience to endure through pain
Of time
Of life.

Love is needing
(Not wanting)
Love is divine
You know when you see her
Every time.

Love is knowing there are days
And there will be nights
When mistakes will be made –
Love is accepting
What we have is bigger than mistakes of the human kind.

Love is passion
Love is crazy
It is firing up the skin
While calming down the soul
Two sinners made right.

Love is letting me be the wind to your silent sails
The dream to your fluttering lids
The laugh to your morose days
Love is letting me,
And me letting you
To be any way.

Letting go

A lot of time has passed now,
To make me feel okay
About everything that went wrong
And everything that went our way.

Some days I feel it’s my fault
Some days it’s yours
Some days when the fight won’t resolve
Destiny takes up the blame for what should’ve been just ours.

You see,
I don’t hate you
And now I can’t love you
The wound you gave me was just too deep.
For any healing that might have taken place
That one careless word you said –
Is enough to make me rethink
And re-evaluate what traipsed between us in deeds.

Even fate has put me far away,
To ever take that road back to you.
I wonder if I should accept it as the logical end
And move on from something that I had very well thought through.

They don’t understand why I am hung up,
They don’t understand because they haven’t tried to understand you the way I did,
But knowing how you took one second to unravel it all in your ego
I wonder if I ever understood you at all to play by it?!

So be it,
I let go of you
And I’m not naive anymore
To believe in setting love free and to wait if it’s true to come back to you.
If I let you go, I mean it’s gone
Or will there be some karmic pull of true love to make me run right back to you?
Nevermind,
Anyway,
Another man another day,
For tonight I let go of you.

CAN YOU AND I STAY POSITIVE IN THIS LOCKDOWN? Ft. Coping Strategies

It’s so hard to stay positive when we are trapped in a pandemic situation and on the top of it depressing news are getting added up – it only makes me think of the times which were simpler – like drawing a smiley face on my bread loaf in Apollo when I finally got to eat food after working at a strech till 5pm. The truth is even those days were hard, but we were too caught up in our lives to debate why it’s hard – now we are stuck, in our homes without work – some unfortunate ones away from home with a lot of work and recession looming overhead.
It’s frustrating and frankly depressing. What can we do? I created a list for myself to turn to whenever I’m depressed and want to check myself. I hope it helps you too 🙂
1. I find that sometimes the best way to get out of the cycle of negativity is to count your blessings amidst it. You can keep a journal – count the things you are thankful for. I keep one, and it’s a great thing to look back when you are caught up in the dark with no sight if light. Just spend 15 minutes with it every day and record the things you are thankful for! You might realise you are having more fun in this lockdown that you realise 🙂




2. Makeover. This the absolute best time to get yourself a makeover. And I don’t mean the outer one – an inner, spiritual makeover can gift you a better future where you have the right coping  techniques to deal with tough situations in a better way. I started therapy for this; and I am being tremendously helped by it. Ofcourse I am still not done yet, progress is slow – but the slower things are the deeper they impact. I can’t wait to come out as a better person and be a better friend, daughter, sister, partner to people post this lockdown 🙂



3. Pamper yourself. Skincare. Haircare. Yes, now I am talking about the outer makeover too. Now that you don’t have to show up for work expose yourself to pollution and grime – it’s the best time rejuvenate what you’ve lost – oil your hair everyday : No one is going to call a champu, because no one can see you sitting at home! 🤷🏻‍♀️ Geddit? Moisturize, scrub, detan, massage yourself with inexpertise (salon wali ka massage bohut yaad aata hai 🥺). Just unlock that lockdown glow.




4. Workout, workout, workout. I can’t stress on this. A simple workout has the ability to make yourself feel better by decreasing stress hormones and increasing the serotonin, the happy chemical. Today morning I felt so fucked up after reading about the vizag tragedy I spent minutes scrolling my twitter feed, reading, debating, getting stuck in a negative loop – but one dance fitness class with my favorite trainer Naveen on Cult. Fit later – I was back on track.




5. Practice clean eating. It’s hard I know, when your body wants to make that 10th plate of maggi when you’re so lazy to cook for yourself three times a day when the maid doesn’t come – but c’mon yaar! That new diet you’d been waiting to try but couldn’t because of bad hostel/ PG food/ cook adding too much oil to stuff – now you can happily indulge in it. Clean eating with lots of fruits and vegetables and minimal oil has been shown to boost happiness. So add those reds, greens and orange to your diet, will you?




6. Try spending time with your family. If you are away from them video call and talk. If you are fortunately like me stuck with them in this lockdown, you can spend a lot of them with personally. Help them with their chores. Try to make their lives and home brighter as our parents are getting old and need our support now more than ever. Some of us who are going away for higher studies, this might be the only time we get to spend them – so use it wisely. Talk to them even if you risk running into awkward conversations that make you want to break the lockdown and runaway like – marriage! *Squeals and hides*



7. I remember when I was a kid we used to have very long summer vacations. Summer in Odisha can get pretty hot and you could be pretty sure whatever date they had given for the holidays to end – it would keep on extending – just like this lockdown. I loved it then, I wonder why this was bothering me now – mostly I realised because then we used to appreciate our time alone – now we need a lot of distractions to make us feel better about ourselves. This lockdown is the perfect excuse to indulge guilt-free in your hobbies. If you are a photographer then improve your photography skills. If you are a writer, write each day. If you love to read books, read one if you have or download a PDF and read everyday. I feel this lockdown is God’s challenge to everyone who said they needed time to be able to follow their passion. Aapke paas duniya bhar ka time hai ab, fir aapka excuse kya hai to have a profession that compromised on your passion?




8. Last but not the least, chill the fuck out of this lockdown. Kya pata itna free time dobaara kal ho na ho!


Cheers,Parnini.

To my grandfather with love

Dear Jeje,

There’s not a day I don’t miss you.

I haven’t eaten a orange candy since days,
Noone gets it for me while secretly buying paan from the local shop now.
The pan box and the art of paan hiding is lost to me,
There’s no one I have to worry to choke on betel nuts now.

Papa made me cut his hair that day,
While I combed through it,
I could only think of the texture of your hair and the number of greys in them when you said –
“French, Russian, Chinese – which hairstyle will you give me today, Sanu”, and enjoy while I made you look like a clown.

I play songs and mamma sings to them,
I watch movies and mamma watches with me,
But I don’t dare to watch Anand, Padosan and Sahib Bibi ghulam again,
You won’t laugh crazily when “Ek chatur naar” plays.

Some ask me how being a girl I am interested in cricket
They don’t know the number of fours and sixes we have cheered
The number of time I risked the dining table top falling over,
As I danced on it when Sachin beat his six.

When someone tries to tease me I think of your goofy smiled jokes and pinches,
I am still irritated easily,
But I tone it down than I did with you,
I could do anything to you and you would still love me – they won’t.

I remember you sitting on the porch
And call out to me for tenth lemonade as you chat happily with your best friend or welcome me whenever I came back from school,
I don’t see him now,
I don’t even see the porch now.

I remember the midnight I was pressing your feet tired from studying
You woke up from sleep and said my face shines brighter than the moon
It’s still better than the dozen compliments I recieve
From the half-hearted men that half love me everyday.

Emotions aren’t honest once you digitalize them,
Maybe writing this would mean I am showing off
My poetry skills or humane touch
But we don’t have to be sad and still miss someone everyday.

I might not be your favorite grandchild,
But you were my favourite grandparent.
I can make a dozen friends
But none of them can fill the void of a grandfather like you.