Feeling Better

I haven’t written anything in a long time. I haven’t been able to, I’ve been too busy. Busy wallowing in equal parts of self pity and self loathing. Depressed, dejected, feeling dumb and dull, I’ve lost the ability to articulate my opinions. Have a conversation. Write. Think.

I’ve spent the last couple of months eating, sleeping and sleep walking. I’ve “done” quite a bit, but none of it has registered over the persistent throbbing dull, sad feeling. The only things that come to mind are unpleasant breakdowns I’ve had, failures and dead ends I’ve hit in the past few months.

I’m being dragged through college by family and friends for a degree and the promise of something better after (just) one and half years more. I’m due to give my third repeat exam and at the rate my CGPA is dropping I wonder if I will be able to convince my college to let me out with a degree, much less convince some other college to let me in without a capitation fee.

I’ve been waiting for something to happen. Every day, every hour, every minute of my existence I pray for something to happen. Something which will come, sweep me out of this funk I’m in. But nothing happens unless you make it happen and the only things that I feel I can make happen are, to put it bluntly, not pleasant.

So instead I am going to write about what all has already happened to me, what I’m grateful for, and what some of my coping mechanisms are. It’s a little gratitude post, it’s going to tell me that all is not lost, that I still have a life worth fighting for and the means to fight that battle.

One of the most important things that has happened to me is blogging. It’s been a year since I started blogging, and words cannot express how much it means to me. Nonetheless I will make a short feeble attempt at explaining the role it’s begun to play in my life. Blogging gives me a sense of accomplishment, something that I badly need in the face of my failing academic career. I’ve been accused of TMI on my blog, but I don’t really care, being brutally honest on my blog has helped me deal with personal issues and insecurities with a sense of humour, it has helped me come to terms with a myself that I wanted to hide. It’s helped me understand that these insecurities are shared by others and that if I say it out aloud, I will have received and given empathy. Blogging is an outlet for a great deal of frustration, whenever I find myself in what would earlier have been a stressful or anger inducing situation, I now tell myself to take a step back, observe the situation with a sense detachment and humour so that I can blog about it later. And when I fail to achieve that state of detached humour, writing invariably calms me down and helps me sort out the very strong opinions and emotions I feel.

I owe blogging to my friends and sisters, hereinafter referred to as friends. I owe a lot to my friends. They read my blog, they listen to me and they love me. I doubt that anybody will find so perfect a combination of love, craziness, intelligence, individuality and spirit than what’s housed in my hostel. Often when I listen to other people talk about their friends, I find myself pitying them for not having mine. From my school days (when I would walk around alone in the lunch break, eating food continuously, trying to look busy, so that no one would notice I had no one to hang out with) to today (where I have in my room a wall painted bright red by my friends, so that as they explained to me, when I’m depressed and have locked myself into my room, I can look at the wall, and remember that I have friends, that I am a person people want to be friends with) I have come a long way. And it’s because of them. I’ve found my happily ever after.

Then there are the parents, they listen, they counsel, they support, they put up. I have faith in them. They are individualists and I know that whenever they have to make a decision regarding me, they think of what I would want, instead of what they want for me. They understand that I’m not them, that their values aren’t necessarily mine and that I will do things differently from them when the time comes.

So, I’ve written. The tears which prompted me to write this post have dried up. I’m feeling a lot better. From tomorrow, I will begin taking baby steps towards even more betterhood.

Instead of sleeping for hours and hours in my room, I will sleep in various rooms across the corridor, while the owners of the room do whatever it is that they’re doing. When you’re depressed and not in a position to talk to others, laugh with them, this is an easy way to gently ease back into a social life. I will resume jogging, I have no self-control when it comes to stimulants of any variety, food, music, alcohol. Jogging is a “safe” stimulant, but I end up abusing jogs as well. Once I’m in the routine, my body begins to yearn for the jogging high, I spend the entire day waiting for when I can go jogging, unable to do anything but look at the clock, when something threaten the jog, like rain or a dinner plan with friends, I get panicky and worked up. When I’m jogging, I find myself unable to stop until I’m exhausted. I will not let that happen. I will listen to anyone else who needs to talk. Because to know that you’re not alone, is the most important thing. I will ask for help when I need it.

(for those of you who are wondering, I started writing this post on the 9th of January. That day all that I could write before I gave up was the first line, also I have given and passed my repeat since then)

Lurid Orange Underpants

I climbed a tree in front of the Parsi Dairy. It was fun. I went for a midnight carriage ride on Marine Drive. It was also fun. We helped a stranded five year old wade out to sea. Brave little brat, came up to two complete strangers and asked to be taken to the rocks popping out of the sea. We obliged, we gave a lecture to her sisters who had left her on the shore while they enjoyed the view from the rocks. We got called Aunty. It was fun. Except for the “Aunty” part.

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks sleep walking through Bombay. I’m sorry, you deserved better, maybe next time. This Sunday, Divi and I went to see “Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf” at the Prithvi Theatre. I put my head on her shoulder, shut my eyes and listened to the dialogue as it was mercilessly mangled by the actors on stage. It wasn’t all a bust though, while my eyes were open, Nick dropped trou and the name of my future band was born.

Get the guest. We played it last friday, or rather it was played on us, Divi Hakuna and Me. We tried playing humiliate the host, but didn’t get too far. All in all, the weekend gave me a lot to think about. I wouldn’t have thought much about the play without Friday and wouldn’t have given two hoots about Friday if it hadn’t been for the play. Do you enjoy being nasty? Do you notice it when you’re being an unpleasant prick? How do you shut up, get up and get out before someone gets hurt? When I wake up from this daze I’m in, I shall think about it.

“It was because you taught me to do things right, that I’m being forced to do them the wrong way” I’m translating and paraphrasing Rocket Singh, but you get the gist of what he and I are trying to say. The movie ultimately ends up implying that you can do things the right way and do them the right way. It becomes a tad preachy and it’s not as smooth as Chak de India, but Ranbir Kapoor’s colourful turbans and cute butt more than make up for any other flaws.

I leave you now, to look for a drummer , a bassist, (apparently if I can be the vocalist, Divi can be the Guitarist, we’re just THAT good) and a hug.

'tis the season to be sorry... or not.

It’s that time of year again, when my eyes go all puffy (due to an excess of sleep). Where my back gets a cramp as I sit obsessively at my laptop for hours together (watching movies). When I stop moving out of my room, talking to anyone, interacting with anyone (because everyone refuses to).
Oh yes it’s exam time and while everyone else is busy studying I can feel my brain shut down, cell by cell. I can hear the whirr of my usually hyperactive head turning into a wheezing hacking noise as it slowly grinds to a dead halt. Brain for sale. Slightly used. Very damaged.
On the other hand, I’m finally free! Free from moots, vivas, projects, tests, teachers who irritate, classes which kill, classmates who I’d like to kill (To classmates reading this, I like and respect you outside the classroom. A lot. Just not in class.)
I hate vivas, I hate having to go and face teachers and justify what is an obviously crappy project to them. I hate having to look at their disappointed faces, as they try to ask intelligent questions on an idiotic piece of work. I squirm and feel guilty when they’re nice and let you off easy. I squirm and feel guilty when they give me the “underachiever - pull yourself together” tough love talk.
I like deadlines, they bring order to my otherwise chaotic world. I might not always make a deadline, but I will never ever make it when there’s no deadline, or even worse when a deadline keeps getting pushed around and is in effect no deadline at all.
I like exams, they get over in one clean and silent swoop, unlike presentations, tests and other forms of continuous assessment torture which go on and on with no end in sight and keep getting moved around, involve one on one interactions, mess, noise, confusion and cheating.
Exam time is bliss, sleep, movies, alone time, fixed deadlines, what more could I ask for? Silence.....

Mad Pride

Dear Everyone,

I have ADHD, which means I don’t have the patience to tell you what it means, so please go and google it, if you care. I can’t stand loud noises, unpleasant chattering, mess and confusion, my brain can’t process it, everything comes too fast and it hurts. This is why I hate class, and refuse to go to class. This is also why I run. I can’t write, when I started my blog, I was on Ritalin, that helped me focus and I managed to type out a few sentences here and there, by the time I had finished typing out the first line of one post, I would have had an idea about another post, and would start trying to write that. I have a folder on my desktop labelled Ideas, it has 20 documents consisting of one line each, they’re brilliant ideas, I wish I could tell you about them, maybe some other day when I am not so high. I can get High on air, pure air, I don’t need caffeine, though I love caffeine (must have pepsi!) I don’t need chocolate, Just breathing in and out can make me high. So can movies, so can music, so can a charged atmosphere. This means that to stop myself from getting high I need to avoid these situations, which means I spend a lot of time dead to the world trying to stay calm. That sucks! I am no longer on Ritalin, it worked great for a while, then it made me a zombie, that by the way is why I flunked Admin Law, also I hate class, I hate class and that’s why I flunked history (didn’t know about ADHD back then). I love history by the way, I love the way it was taught to us, and I think everyone owes it to themselves to study history. Go read “India after Gandhi” or make a family tree of the pre tudors. We (Meghana and I) made a family tree of the pre tudors, we spent 12 hours straight researching genealogy, making inane connections, deciphering the murky politics of the war of the roses, but we did it. Ask us to sit for 12 seconds, and work on labour Law, that we can’t do. Not that it matters.........

Love,
Ramu/Ramsub/Soumya.

P.S. I can’t talk on the phone either, so please, if I suck at it, forgive me. If I’m rude, it’s because I don’t know. If I don’t care, it’s because if I started caring I wouldn’t stop until I died of exhaustion. If I stare at you weirdly, don’t worry. If I charge at you, get out of the way. A big thank you to my friends and my Family, they have been so awesome about this.

P.P.S. Amma, don’t worry, I am fine! It’s just that I am tired after cheering at the sports fest, and I will be good and attend classes.

The Girl Likes to Run

One of the nicest compliments I have ever received is from Hakuna, she says she can’t sleep at night unless she’s lulled to sleep by the gentle patter of my footsteps as I pace up and down the corridor of our hostel. I don’t know whether the rest of the girls on the corridor feel the same but I do know that I love running up and down our hostel corridor, thudding, dodging clothes stands, charging at people, ipod blasting in my ears so that I’m oblivious to the rest of the world. Eccentric? I guess, but hey! That’s me!

I love the feeling of wind in my hair, the sky above me, the ground beneath my feet when I go jogging. I’ll put up with the dust up my nose, the couples I have to jump over (true story!), the potholes I have to dodge as I take my rounds around the football field, in order to feel the way a good jog can make you feel. Heart pumping, feeling alive, wide awake and wonderfully exhausted all at the same time. Not so very eccentric I guess.

I like to run away to different places, be on the move, see new places, see old places in a new way, wander aimlessly around the city I live in, fall asleep on a train, fly around the countryside in a bus, go for a silent drive on a long road that goes nowhere.

I run away from and with a great deal of things, other people, my feelings, work, headaches, depression, stupidity, a sense of fun, adventure, independence. I just want to run, keep running and never stop. It clears my head, stops my brain from over thinking, my mind from going crazy. It lets me deal, it lets me be.

If she wants to run, let her.

Here's looking at you, Young Adult?

In 12th standard, our English teacher asked us to write a short paragraph on our fondest memory from childhood. I immediately raised and waived my hand, drew the entire classes attention and loudly proclaimed that since my childhood was not over, there was still a chance that my fondest memory from childhood was yet to occur and therefore I would not be writing this paragraph (how can I write about something that maybe has yet to occur?). The class laughed.

I said the above either to demonstrate my immense laziness by getting out of the simplest of writing assignments or to show off my amazing flexibility by putting my foot in my mouth. Or maybe it was because I just didn’t feel like an adult.

That was then, 3 years later, approaching 21 I still don’t feel any more of an adult. I keep referring to myself as a kid, and even today in class the word kid slips out of mouth when I refer to well “kids” my age. The class no longer laughs, it groans and moans and I hastily correct myself and replace kid with “Young Adult” (I still can’t say adult, I’m sorry, I’ll compromise, I won’t call you a Kid, but I will definitely not call you an Adult either).

When I look at myself, I see a kid. Not ready to take on responsibility, unwilling to take responsibility (there’s a difference). Financially dependent, emotionally dependent still trying to figure out which rules to break and whether she dares to at all. Turn me out on the streets, and, I am lost. I am sorry, but I am no Adult, in fact I am no adult because all I am capable of right now is being sorry.

That’s the depressing part, the insecure, whiny and dependent kid in me. However there’s the other part, as a kid I have all the time in the world, to find myself, to change myself, do something and find a life worth living. I don’t feel like I need to have it all figured out, carry it all out and die at 40 a successful old Woman. Life stretches out in front of me the kid.

The Kids, sorry, the Young Adults that I see around me seem to have it reversed, they think they’re independent, make all their decisions (who are you to tell me?) and want it all figured out, college Career, Money, the Good Life and Death before they get Old.

I behave like a kid, with my life ahead, to do anything at any age (career change at 80 anyone?), refusing to grow up and take responsibility. They think they’re old, want to be old, try to be mature but are so scared of becoming old that they want to die before they hit 50.

So on this side of the ring we have “the kid” (who’s most probably too scared to become an adult and so makes excuses), and on the other we have “the adult” (who might just be deluded). Who’s going to win? Win what? Happiness, Success, Life. I don’t know.

The class laughed, “grow up” they said “what are you waiting for? Your hair to turn grey? ” Good Advice, and I and all those “young adults” who laughed and gave me this advice will need to do it eventually. Perhaps I said what I said because it struck me as very odd to think of a class full of bratty and immature 17 year olds writing about their fondest memory of childhood. In my mind you need to be a white haired or even better, no haired 90 (500, if science progresses) year old before you’ve grown old enough to refer to a “childhood”, and gained any right to inflict stories about it, fond, miserable or otherwise on others.

Kick in the Ass

There are two things I find impossible to do – write and have conversations on the phone. So while I can debate, make my point, fight, talk and keep on talking, I find it nigh impossible to sit down and write or sit down and have a phone conversation.

My attempts to talk on the phone are so bad that they go beyond “so bad they’re hilarious” to so bad that even gitmo won’t subject its detainees to them on humanitarian grounds. After 10 minutes of hmmmming and hawing, and basically saying zilch and 10 seconds after zoning out when the person at the other end tries to speak, I cut the call and pretend that the signal died ( Hullooo, Hello, Heyyyyyy…… beep).

I can’t write, I think this point is best illustrated by ……………………

After years of introspection (I never obsess) and discussing (what me whine?) it with various people, I realized that I have no patience and that I need instant gratification.

No patience to sit down and write, no patience to sit down and listen to what the person on the other end of the line is trying to say. Instant gratification in that I need to see my appreciative audiences face as they realize the ultimate truth of what I’m saying and are suddenly forced to question a lifetime of false beliefs (or at the very least a chance to see my victims squirm).

When I try to write or talk on the phone these two very critical elements are missing, and without them I’m lost, eloquent arguments practiced on various people refuse to put themselves down as words on the screen, refuse to travel over phone lines or whatever waves.

This blog is my new years resolution (the first in 20 years) it’s the kick in the ass that’s been coming my way for a long time now. In this blog I’m going to learn to write and learn to listen.