Thank you, 2015

This time last year I was home alone, and pretty upset about it. I’m home alone tonight as well, but not upset. I’ve never voluntarily spent New Year’s Eve alone, which is quite possibly my most favourite time of the year. But this year, somehow, nothing materialized. I could have spent it with some friends, but I wanted to either party hard or not do anything. All or nothing. So I did nothing. I was working till 9pm anyway, so I came back home, ordered the most amazing food I’ve come to love after moving here, and am now watching TV. Some people in office asked me to their parties with pity invitations, but I didn’t need any. I am perfectly happy being home, sleeping in my bed (not surrounded by drunk people) after watching Bigg Boss and reading Liane Moriarty’s amazing novel. Is this called growing up or becoming boring? I don’t know. I don’t care tonight.

But one advantage of the absence of any scene is that I get the time to do a 2015 roundup. I might have changed blogs, but I’m still the same person with the same rituals. And 2015 deserves all the attention it can get. It was a landmark year in so many ways.

You know the logic of the book The Secret? How when you want something and keep thinking about it and sending out good vibes in the universe or whatever, you ultimately get it? I think I do that with sadness. I just assume that I’m going to be upset. I just assume that shit will go down. I just assume that I’m Murphy’s Pet. I should be the brand ambassador for self-fulfilling prophecies. When 2015 began, I told everyone that it was my quarter-life crisis year, with no evidence to support that. I just said it. And it happened.

It started with not being able to quit my job in January, and did not seem to end. I was unhappy all the time. At home, at work, in my countless trips to Delhi, in the middle of the freaking desert in Jaisalmer, even in Amsterdam – my first Europe trip – I was constantly upset or worried or super unhappy with my life. I was ungrateful, I was a horrible daughter and I was a nightmare to be around. I hated everything, and I hated myself. I had good reasons to be upset, but I wasn’t doing anything to fix them.

Sometimes I tried. I coloured my hair red. I gave up on the idea of quitting. I started Instagram-ing. I saved up all my money for an unformed grand plan. I met friends. I became better at staying in touch with friends. I wrote. I read. But I was still unequivocally unhappy. It had to change because it was killing me.

So I quit.

I don’t know how I got the courage to do that, because I loved the idea of having that job. There are still times, now especially since I’m back in Delhi, when I cannot believe that I don’t work there anymore. But I don’t. Somehow, in June, I gathered all my courage and quit. And this is one cliché I loved becoming, because it was the best decision I’ve made in a long, long time.

Right from the moment I sent my resignation letter, even before my notice period ended, I saw myself change. I got on that crazy diet plan which totally worked, I signed up for the belly dancing workshop, and I booked tickets to Bombay and Goa even before my last working day. One I stopped working, it was insane. I was super free and super busy at the same time. I remember friends warning me that I’ll get bored, that I’ll regret my decision, that I will go crazy, and none of that happened. I was prepared for it, though. I was ready to regret everything and be more miserable, but something had changed, and I wasn’t.

The sabbatical was a blur of zumba, vacations, cooking, weddings and a lot of dancing. I was thinner, prettier, livelier. People were amazed when they saw me. You’re glowing, I was told. I started wearing red lipstick more often. I started taking trips, I slept a lot more, I drove a lot more. I fell in love with many songs and celebrated whenever they came on the FM while I was driving. Being in Jaipur still sucked super hard, but I started becoming okay with being there.

I was happy.

And then, Delhi happened.

I got this job without much hassle. I didn’t have to go through the uncertainty of giving too many interviews, nervously waiting for an answer, writing too many copy tests. The ease with which I landed this job made me suspicious. Before I joined, I was ready for them to take it away from me at any point. They didn’t. I came back. I don’t even know how to explain my relationship with Delhi. I don’t think I understand it very well myself.

When I tell the story of how I left Delhi in 2014, I conveniently leave out the part where I should say that some part of me wanted to leave. My life was too messy here, too complicated, too dangerous. Now that I’m back, some of that comes back to haunt me. But I am very proud of myself for finally getting myself out of the most toxic relationship I’ve ever been in. I may not be 100% out, but I’m very close, and I have no intentions of going back, so there's that.

Coming back has its own set of challenges, of course. I hadn’t forgotten the travails of living alone, but I did romanticize a lot of it. But now, when I come back home to no food and a leaking gas cylinder, I don’t always burst into tears. Sometimes, I still do.

Despite terribly wanting to, I was certain I wasn’t going to come back to Delhi or get another job. At least not in 2015. But I did. So here I am, at the end of the year, trying to find my place in a new job and a new-old city.

I have no idea what 2016 is going to bring. I know my parents want me to get married. I know my biodata is out in the marriage market. Will I get married? Will I settle down in this job? Will I go back to my old ways and turn into the horrible, miserable person I was six months ago? I hope not. I have no answers, which is why, despite having what can evidently be called a great year, I don't know what to expect from the next one.

But if there’s one thing to be learnt from 2015, it’s that sometimes it’s okay to turn your life upside down to save yourself a little bit. I really, really hope that I don’t get lost in 2016. But if I do, maybe, perhaps, probably, there’s a chance that I’ll find myself again.

Happy new year, you guys! The blog saved me in more ways than I can count.

The Sabbatical ends

Between overwhelming farewells and overflowing to-do lists, I forgot that I was leaving. Moving out. Leaving the nest. Again. Unless something goes horribly off-track, I doubt I’m coming back to live here. I’ll come and stay during vacations, but I don’t think I’ll get the chance to live with my parents again. And despite the fact that so much has happened in the last 18 months, the fact remains that right now, seven hours away from taking the train that will take me back to the city I was missing like a phantom limb, I don’t want to go. Suddenly, I don’t know why I ever wanted to live alone. How the hell will I manage everything? My mother’s been teaching me how to cook, and so much can go wrong that I’m worried I might burn my new place down.

But my bags are packed, and my new workplace awaits. From Home 2.0 it’s going to be Delhi 2.0, which I was worried was never going to happen. It’s happening. It’s here. Will this truce continue?

This time next week I would be nearing the end of my first day at the new workplace. Considering I haven’t even started packing, that seems inconceivable right now.

In the 48 hours of the last weekend, I went to Delhi, apartment hunted, came back to Jaipur, said goodbye to my brother twice, attended my parents’ anniversary lunch, danced at a school friend’s sangeet and saw my best friend smile after three years at her roka. The last two events made me very nostalgic, and my mother very grumpy because everyone seems to be getting married except for her daughter. It is kind of true, though. People on Facebook are joking about how I’m the official maid of honour this wedding season. They’re watching too many American movies.

If I’d had this kind of happening social life in the last 18 months, I probably wouldn’t have cribbed so much. But nothing ever works out according to a mere mortal’s plan, so we’ll let that be. While apartment hunting in Delhi, I got so depressed looking at all the 1BHK apartments. My new house seems nice, but of course it’s not Jaipur, it’s not my home town, with the negligible traffic and big houses and a mother taking care of everything. I’m very worried about this whole living-alone-for-the-second-time business, to be honest. On the plus side, my new society has many cute dogs and at least one very cute dog owner.

I’ve started to see friends and have farewell meals with them. Yesterday, while having lunch with a friend made from the old blog, I ran into an ex. I will not miss this in Delhi – running into questionable high school love interests. 

I have five days left in Jaipur. I gotta learn how to stop time.

Diwali

I’ve been making many lists in the last few days, most of them related to moving. Lists soothe me, so I make them. It doesn’t mean that I actively worry about ticking things off them. So far, the only list I’ve managed to tick things off of is the one involving places in Jaipur I want to eat at before leaving. And for every crossed out café or restaurant, I add three more.

Tomorrow I might do lunch with a friend and her new husband, and then day after tomorrow I start house hunting will all the focus I can manage at this curious time.

Happy Diwali, you guys! May you stay happy, healthy and hilarious.

Because it's always been Delhi

The house is always crazy loud this time of the year, because our relatives come home for Diwali with their sons, who’re my brother’s age, and the three of them can’t be calm or quiet. This year, I’m extra sentimental. Because I’m leaving. It happened. The thing I’d been praying for for 18 months finally happened and I couldn’t take the time to write about it here.

Last month, two days before leaving for a trip to the hills with a friend, I applied for a job. It was a Delhi job, but for some reason I repressed that information and didn’t dwell on it. I applied because I’d been ignoring vacancies and saying that I was having too much fun in my sabbatical to end it so soon. I applied because I wanted to know my value in the job market. I applied without first understanding if I wanted it. All I knew was that I was wanted them to want me. So two days before I left, I applied, told barely three people about it, interviewed on the phone, and pulled an all-nighter to take their copy test. I sent it the morning I left for Delhi to take a bus to Manali and then forgot about it.

Until six hours later, when, unexpectedly, while I was still in Delhi, I got the call. They liked my writing. They wanted me to start ASAP. They wanted to negotiate salary and talk contracts. I couldn’t breathe. What was happening? Was I going back to Delhi? Was I going to take the job? It was then that I realized that there was never any other option. I’d always wanted this - not the job as much as the city. By chanting Delhi like a mantra and refusing to let go over the last year-and-a-half, I’d somehow made it happen.

That day, still in Delhi, I talked to my parents about returning. About moving out again. There were so many things to consider. My health, my doctors, my diet, my life. To give them credit, my parents were surprisingly chill about it. They never said no, not for a minute. They were just discussing logistics. How much money? When do I join? By the time I took that bus for Manali, seven hours after the call, I’d negotiated the salary and told them I needed 24 hours to get back to them with a joining date. The next day in beautiful but boring Kasol, with everyone high around us all the time, I made the call. Yes, I’d love to work with them. Yes, I want the job. Yes, I’ll join in the last week of November. I hung up and came back to the table where my friend was drinking beer, and we hugged for one whole minute. That night, she made me try red wine. To celebrate, she said, because you’re fucking coming back. Was that what was happening? I wasn’t leaving home, I was just coming back.

The next night in cold Manali, stoned and stupid with laughter, I called up my (kinda) boyfriend. I was worried about his reaction for many reasons, but he was only happy I was coming back. I messaged a couple of friends that I was moving back, I told them about the job. I got excited phone calls in return, where I tried very hard to conceal the fact that I was high for the first time in my life.

I was happy, my friend was happy, but I banned us from talking about the job until I got the contract in my email four days later. She focussed on my boyfriend instead. What was happening? What were we doing? Will we get our heads out of our asses now that we weren’t going to be long distance anymore? We discussed everything endlessly, and came up with theories that were bizarre but fun. We kept trying to look for reasons to talk to the two Dutch men who were staying across the hall from us. When they asked us about the hot springs, we were giggling so hard we couldn’t answer properly.

We took long walks and sat by the river and ate trout and prawns in every café that we went to. We kept trying to click pictures of each other that would be worthy of putting up on Facebook. We talked about her legit boyfriend and our jobs and bosses and friends and everything. We hadn’t spent this much time with each other since we lived together in Delhi and I was so relieved that we didn’t get on each other’s nerves despite spending a whole week together.

I returned from Manali just in time to participate in my zumba group’s flash mob and go clubbing with them on Halloween as Supergirl, my last-ditch effort at a costume. That night, as we posed for pictures and danced till 2am (I’m surprised my parents didn’t kick me out when I came home), I realized that I had a class eighth type crush on one of the boys in my class. I don’t even care if nothing happens, I just get crazy happy every time he so much as looks at me. I started hanging out with this group often and then told them that I was leaving.

I also started the process of telling all my friends, who are all very happy with the development but also very surprised that the sabbatical is ending unexpectedly soon. I also had a few difficult conversations about this job with a couple of people, who can keep their opinions to themselves.

Now, I’m supposed to be packing and house hunting, because I move in less than two weeks, but I can’t seem to get anything done. I have moved quite a bit in the last few years. First from Jaipur to Delhi, then thrice within Delhi and then finally back to Jaipur. Now, after 18 months of talking about going back without ever actually believing that I would, I’m moving back to Delhi, to the reality of living alone which is far from the fantasy I’ve been reliving in my mind for so long.

Everyone’s asking me how I’m feeling. I’m very happy but I’m also very scared. What if, along with losing my freedom when I came back to Jaipur, I also lost the ability to live alone? I might be on a truce with myself, but I'm still superstitious.

Young and reckless

I think it’s a testament to how chill my life has been for the last two-and-a-half months that when something just slightly inconvenient happened today, I had to go to sleep to keep myself from tearing my hair out. Even then, after I woke up I binged on the most amazing namkeen ever created. Then felt horrible about my existence for about two seconds. I was a little surprised at just how upset I was that a phone call got rescheduled.

Or it could have been the fact that I was running on just five hours of sleep. There was a time when I didn’t need anything more than four hours. I could work, party, dance, fight - with time to spare - and I used to laugh at those listicles suggesting that in my mid or late twenties I’d need six hours at the least. Turns out listicles aren’t all bullshit.

I recently won Rs 4200 in a contest. A weight-loss challenge at my zumba class. I’ve never won anything in my life, not even a toffee. So this was huge, and not just because it had to do with weight.

My trip to the hills is fast approaching, but I need to tie up a few loose ends before leaving, including but not limited to finding a skirt that will not look awful while I dance to Nagada Sang Dhol on the 22nd. I don’t understand why we have to do ALL of Deepika’s steps. They’re awesome and awful.

I spent the last few days trying to figure out what my dream job could be. I thought my last job was my dream job, and it really delivered. Until it stopped. Now, I feel directionless in terms of what my calling is. Does it matter? Should I be worried? All these questions were giving me a headache, so I stopped thinking about them. I was so worried that my life would end when I quit, and it didn’t. That’s given me this bizarre sense of courage to throw caution to the winds. For real this time. So I stopped thinking about all these super important questions and dedicated two days to making my resume. I’d forgotten what it’s like to bury myself in a project that didn’t involve marathoning TV shows.

Because I can’t seem to stay away from drama, I’ve spent the last several days and nights caught in the middle of a terrible fight between two friends. Or a friend and a something else. It sounds terribly dramatic, and if my brother (who’s here) is to be believed, it’s terribly exciting to witness, but I’m kinda done with picking up drunken phone calls at 3am and then being guilt tripped for the last five years. WE HAD AN UNSPOKEN AGREEMENT, I want to yell, like Ross and his we-were-on-a-break line. But I’ve come to understand one thing. After you break someone’s heart, you aren't allowed to win with logic.

Speaking of my brother, he and I had this strange confidential conversation the day he came home. I always thought we were close but turns out I was wrong. He was in trouble, which wasn’t as bad as he thought it was but it was a lot more horrifying than anything I could have imagined for him. We slept at 3 that night, after he told me about his girlfriends and I told him about my exes to make him understand how love at 21 doesn’t always end well for everyone and how that's okay. He’s the same age as I was when I started this friends with benefits arrangement that blew up in my face a month ago. Even so, throughout the conversation with my brother, all I could think was, ‘What are you even talking about? You’re so young!’

I got a job offer. I’m going to say no, in all probability, but just the fact that I got an offer without even applying somewhere made me feel like things might turn out okay.

I want to take another trip. Not a long one, maybe just a weekend away. First I thought I’d do it this long weekend, but my brother’s coming home tomorrow, so I postponed it. Does anyone have any suggestions for a weekend getaway close to Delhi/Jaipur?

I’m glad he’s going to be home, though. Because it takes the focus off me. I’m not very good with being the only child around.

Yesterday my Yoga instructor twisted my body into inhuman shapes during what he called ‘therapy yoga’ and then told me that I have a very flexible body for someone with my weight. That made me very happy.

***

This evening, a friend picked me up from home and we were just driving around the market trying to decide what to eat.

Me: Do we want to go to Burger Farm? But that’s too many calories.

She: Maybe the spinach toast at CCD?

Me: Maybe. Who are you calling?

She: My mom. To tell her I’ll be late. You think of where we can go, just don’t say it out loud or mumma will hear you.

Me: You know that other 25-year-old girls hide boyfriends, sex, drugs and alcohol from their mothers, right? What are we hiding? Food. 

She: I can't decide if that's pathetic or funny.

***

The search for a mind-blowing book continues.

I woke up this morning drowning in existential angst – the kind I haven’t felt in a couple of months. Last night, in an attempt to distract myself, I poked the bear and got an earful in return. I had to hear (or read) things I didn’t want to, hurtful things that were dramatic but also a little true. And then I cried while watching Enough Said. When you’re sobbing through a romcom, you know shit is hitting the fan.

So this morning when I woke up, I was in a bad mood. But then I watched The Princess Diaries 2 on TV, which I don’t even like that much, but it’s Mia Thermopolis in some form, so it was fine. Then I watched The Hundred-Foot Journey, which a friend has raved about in the past. I loved it. It made me want to learn how to cook and live in a small French village (I know that I’ll hate that kind of life, but still). And then I watched Julie and Julia, which I’ve already seen some five times. I fell asleep in the middle of it and woke up hungry.

There are two kinds of movies that make me want the protagonist’s job – dance movies and chef movies. I love dancing and I hate cooking. But since I had no way of dancing today, I decided to cook. I told my mother I’ll make paneer tonight. She tried not to look too thrilled and jinx this turn of events. So I made paneer, the really basic kind. Just marinate it and shallow fry, no curry, nothing. But it was still cooking, it was still me spending 10 minutes in the kitchen, which is a progress from zero.

I’m watching this really average movie called This Is 40 right now, but overall it wasn’t a bad Sunday.

I spent all of today figuring out my Myers–Briggs personality type (ENFP, if you’re interested), finishing a very uncomplicated YA novel, putting off making an uncomfortable phone call and thinking about the birthday boy (which I really shouldn’t have wasted so much time on). But it’s not like I had anything else to do – my days are just that easy breezy now. I was supposed to work on my resume but I didn’t, because even a little work seems like too much work these days. I’m surprised at how chilled out I am about this sabbatical. The last time I didn’t have a job, right after my internship, I was losing my mind. Now, even though I’m very aware of my joblessness, I’m not freaking out. Yet.

I still miss Delhi too much, though. Far more than I used to when I was still working.

Things I thought about when I was supposed to be meditating in yoga class today

Am I going bald?

My right arm really hurts.

Have I burned all the calories I consumed in last night’s gigantic meal?

It’s so hot.

How dare this woman tell her 5-year-old to exercise or “you’ll become motu”?

How can I think about doing Vipasana if I can’t even meditate for 2 minutes?

Oh my God, it’s his birthday tomorrow. How am I supposed to act?

Can we please turn the fans on again?

My shows are back today! I just hope the Wi-Fi is working properly.

Thank God I don’t have to go to the doctor today.

Meri desi look, meri desi look, meri – ugh, why is this song stuck in my head!

Maybe I should do 20 more Surya Namaskars to make up for eating the noodles.

Can I open my eyes now?

Although of course you end up becoming yourself*

Thirty-eight days since I’ve been jobless.

Contrary to what I’d thought, I’m not dying. I’m alive and thriving. In the last 38 days, I’ve thrown a bachelorette party, I’ve taken a vacation, I’ve started doing yoga, and I’ve broken someone’s heart. None of these things sound like they are about me, which is why I decided that I needed a new identity. A new blog, a new name, a new everything. Isn’t that what I’ve been trying to do – wiping the slate clean? And since that’s never going to happen in real life – refer post title – the least I can do is wipe my online slate clean. The previous blog had so much baggage that if it were a person it’d need two sessions of therapy daily.

I don’t know how much of a fresh start this is going to be. I could just as well fall back into old patterns and kill whatever is left of my spirit. But something tells me there’s a better chance of me making it through this time. And the narcissist that I am, even though I don’t feel like writing a lot these days, I want to document the whole process.

I’m re-reading The Sky Is Everywhere these days, and it’s making my heart sing. I’m also watching Californication for the first time, and it gives me so much hope for anyone who can’t seem to stop screwing up.

*Title credit goes directly to a friend and indirectly to David Lipsky.