“My God, I just remembered that we die.” – Clarice Lispector
Last month I read (and adored) Kaveh Akbar’s novel, Martyr! My friend and I had decided to buddy-read it. It took us longer than we had intended because jobs, travel and illness – all impeded our progress (this dash is not AI, I promise). Nevertheless, we kept peppering our Whatsapp chat with observations and voice notes, thoroughly engaged in Akbar’s fiction.
Martyr! (exclamation intentional) is the story of Cyrus Shams, a near-30, queer, Iranian poet living in Indiana, USA, recovering from addiction, and desperate to devote himself to a life that has meaning. A globalised denizen with a fleeting connection to his Iranian side, Cyrus is very much at a crossroads in his life. Still processing the senselessness of his mother’s passing in the shooting of the Iran Air Flight 655 (which I was horrified to learn was a real event), he is obsessed with death, dying, and the ideas that propel people to sacrificing themselves.
I spent the last two weeks reading Arundhati Roy’s memoir ‘Mother Mary Comes To Me’. It is a fabulous book written at the confluence of memory, identity, and literature. She captures the push-and-pull of growing up under a mercurial parent with microscopic clarity. She was raised by a firecracker of a personality in her mother (named Mary) who was an outspoken, combative, feminist divorcée in a time when it wasn’t ideal to be any of those things. I was drawn to Arundhati’s story, particularly the ages at which her milestone events occurred. Left home at 16. Married at 17. Divorced at 21. Remarried at 23. National Award at 27. Booker Prize at 36.
I have always found it fascinating to map the age at which someone’s big moment(s) happened. For a while, it was simply an idiosyncratic fad. Now, this habit is yielding an unexpected consequence – it is behaving as a clarion call from the great beyond.
I had the opportunity to revisit Japan after nearly 2 years. My friend, Karan, and I had planned this vacation to coincide with the cherry blossom (sakura) season. Armed with past familiarity, we decided on a blend of new experiences and the comfort of previous haunts. Because we were going back as experienced tourists, we had learnt our lessons with regards to carrying luggage, walking long distances, having to rely on gestures and hands to communicate, and taking a mix of local trains, metros, and Shinkansens (bullet trains) to navigate the cities. I won’t bore you with a day-by-day breakdown, a conventional travelogue, if you will, but I do want to share fleeting thoughts I documented in my journal.
Another year is about to end. I too, am about to finish another year around the sun. And with each year, I seem to keep collecting regrets and what-ifs.
When I was younger, I had more life ahead of me than behind me. I remember staying awake the whole night as a kid, buzzing with excitement for the first swim class of the year at school. Now, there is always some music or some show playing in the background to drown out half of my thoughts.
When Dadum died earlier this year, I remember remarking that my luck had finally run out. I had considered myself incredibly lucky that I got to grow with my grandparents actively present in my life. When kids and adults would mention family members passing, I would send God a quick prayer to keep everyone safe and healthy at home. That clearly worked for a while. Dadum got to see many milestones in my life, except for that PhD. That may or may never happen.
Having these fears didn’t make me cherish all my moments more. It wasn’t as poetic. When Dadum recited poems or shlokas from memory, I would get bored, but I would still listen attentively for as long as I could and he wanted me to. Many days I would naturally gravitate towards Didum, or my aunt and mum because sometimes, finding it easier to talk to them because I related to them more. This birthday would be the first one without him. Last year, around this exact time, we had almost lost him, but he miraculously came back to us for a couple of more months. It was almost as if he wanted to stay back for just another birthday.
I should have called him more often.
It’s funny saying that. I haven’t turned into a new leaf after his passing. Many days, I still don’t feel like talking. I could be calling everyone and living in the moment more often. Yet, here I am, fully aware that I should be studying for the finals coming up but choosing to ignore it in this moment. I suspect most people live outside of their moments, but to those who manage to squeeze in as much as they can into their time, I envy you and admire you.
Dadum isn’t my only what-if. I go through so many periods and events of my life daily, re-hashing everything I did or could have done. It never helps. Of course, you are sitting there reading this and thinking, just stop thinking so much! Yeah yeah, I should, and there are days when I do. And then there are days that I don’t, or I can’t. I adjust with the questions on those days. They will come, and some will go, only to be replaced with new ones. People will come, make their ripples. Some of which will die out, and some defy the laws of physics and never let the water just stay still.
“It was pleasant to wake up in Florence, to open the eyes upon a bright bare room, with a floor of red tiles which look clean though they are not; with a painted ceiling whereon pink griffins and blue amorini sport in a forest of yellow violins and bassoons. It was pleasant, too, to fling wide the windows, pinching the fingers in unfamiliar fastenings, to lean out into sunshine with beautiful hills and trees and marble churches opposite, and, close below, the Arno, gurgling against the embankment of the road.”
Thus wake up Lucy Honeychurch and Charlotte Bartlett, the characters from E.M Forster’s ‘A room with a view’, in an Italian pension but not without causing a scene at the dinner table that leads them to this serene view. The story, more focused on Lucy, makes the reader see how this excursion to Italy was to forever alter her outlook on life. A couple of weeks away from England, and Lucy returns to find the mores of her social circles stifling. Florence, and by extension Italy now flutters across her mind like a representation of everything that signified independence and romance. Though the story takes a different, a more conventional angle of a romance eventually, this initial section of the novel, ‘Lucy as a tourist’, made me think of the rooms with a view that I had inhabited during my travels.
2023 was not my favourite year. I welcomed the New Year through the hallucinatory haze of a viral fever, recovering far slower than I had hoped to, missing out on friends and their life events. Barring a brief spell in February which, if I could, I would preserve in the formaldehyde of sunshine and spring, it seemed as though I could not find my footing and time kept slipping by. At many points in time that are privy to only a handful around me, I felt lost and confused, even hurt. But there is art, always, to tide you through. On days when things did not make sense, it was comforting to open a book, knock on the annals of time, and commiserate with writers and characters. These are some of the books that I read this year that healed my fragile heart, and reminded me of my place in the grand scheme of things. I will refrain from mentioning books that I re-read though I would argue there is more comfort in the certainty of an old story, like listening to anecdotes of oneself as a child.
Weeks ago, an Instagram ad sprung from the depths of the algorithm’s abyss splashed an invitation across my mobile screen, one for a writing competition. No theme, no holds barred, it urged its writers to be creative. It was a welcome change from all the underwear ads I had been receiving. The competition had a registration fee. I checked if it was authentic, if my money was going to vacuum into nothingness. It seemed genuine.
I was going through a dry spell creatively. I had applied myself to the competition but I was struggling to apply myself. I had been documenting my life in my journal but nothing emerged warranting the transformation of an inward reflection into an outward essay. I spent a few days reading my old pieces that I had written for this blog. All I could find were faults. Some of them had comments encouraging my writing. I was not convinced. I settled on three pieces, edited to fit the competition guidelines. There was a possibility to rank in 13 places (Top 3 and 10 Bonus awards). I ranked nowhere.
In the midst of packing for my vacation, I wondered which books I should carry. I couldn’t be thoughtless and grab whatever was nearby. Picking vacation reads requires alchemy. It must complement your mental state, your expectations from the vacation, and if you’re not already there, should put you in the mood to unwind. I was feeling very stuck in life; the December air seemed to thicken the sense of stagnation and melancholy around. I woke up sensing the onset of winter and wishing for it to end before it even began. The sun no longer shone through my window with a blinding sharpness. I ached for summer, for warmth. Cloaked under quilts, I reached for my bedside books, opened a page in Patti Smith’s memoir, M Train, and read…
“…a looming continuum of calamitous skies that subtly permeate my entire being. Without noticing, I slip into a light yet lingering malaise. Not a depression, more like a fascination for melancholia, which I turn in my hand as if it were a small planet, streaked in shadow, impossibly blue”
I knew exactly what I wanted to read on my vacation.
I purchased a bicycle recently, in an effort to boost my wellness. It was to be delivered in the afternoon – by approximately 4 PM, as I had been informed. I was excited for it to arrive. “Child-like excitement,” as a friend put it. The cycle came at 11:15 PM, deflating all my enthusiasm. I had planned to take a couple of rounds on it, but it was too late. Until my mother noticed the bell-head of the cycle was missing.
I immediately sprung up and cycled towards the delivery man who had turned about to leave…
I had never hoped to come to the US to improve my life. My career yes, but not my life. I loved how the DDA flats used to look so clean after rains, how the corner Uncle’s garage/convenience store was one of the biggest selling points about our apartment complex. I loved how I would come home to a cold lassi or mango shake in the fridge my mum made before she left in the morning. I would then sit and watch Bengali tv serials that had been on for three years at that point, with Didum. I looked forward to the FabIndia sales at Himachal Bhawan and one of my big adult moments was when I got the chance to buy clothes from there with me own salary. Yet, coming to the US seemed necessary at that point. Even as nostalgia tints my glasses in a rosy hue, it would be unfair to leave out those many moments in the couple of years before I left, when I realized that career growth in India isn’t that simple. Going for a Masters in the US seemed the best idea then.
It is still too early to say whether it indeed was or not. The only thing that I can talk about is my life outside my career. What do I do when I shut down my computer? What do I look forward to and who will I spend my time with? Three years ago, I would have been going to my music classes or go on a walk with my aunt to veggies. Keeping up the Ahana from then was easier because everything that made her was right there with her. It took little effort to do what I liked because people around me would do the same things too. The Ahana now, is busy looking up all the songs on youtube that she grew up listening to. She must try that much harder to find new songs on her own because All India Radio won’t do it for her. I actively tune out my boyfriend’s music from me head because it would take away the memory of the music I liked. I hungrily watch Indian news channels on youtube to stay Indian, but I cannot escape the fact that everyday Indian news seems more otherworldly.
The only thing my mum never had trouble with me was that I was never a picky eater. I used to be made fun of that if I was given insects to eat, I would even eat that without complaint. Now, I don’t sleep well if I don’t eat daal bhaat torkari. Everyday, I choose to remember what I used to do in fear of losing what has made me, me. I go extra hard into being Bengali and Indian because who will do it for me if I don’t? Who would have imagined that I would willingly sit through a whole show of Indian classical dance and shed a few tears because I was so moved?
I may already be that US wala relative who tries a little too hard when they visit India. Be kind to them next time. Their idiosyncrasies might just be protective mechanisms like mine. My life in India will always be suspended in the year I left it while it has move on for everybody else. And that terrifies me.
Candid Wallflowers 