Bread crumbs

This morning, a couple of crumbs from my bread fell into my Milo and milk. I really wanted to complain about this to somebody. In all probability, Aai. I don’t like bread in my milk. My Maharashtrian genes may demand that I dip everything edible in tea, but the more I stared at the white spots, the more it annoyed me that no one’s concerned about them altering my mood fractionally this early in the morning. This entire episode of indignation must have taken a whole of 12 seconds. It had to be conveyed to Aai nonetheless.

Of course I couldn’t. Grumbling about specks of bread floating in your milk is not something adults do. Not especially when you need to call your mum from some hundreds of kilometres away. It’s supposed to be brushed away nonchalantly. Why am I even writing about this?

I paused. I haven’t seen Aai for 23 days now. I don’t particularly miss her or cry to sleep or miss anything about home (quite a surprise because at 4 I’d cry at night in my grandparent’s place to go back to Aai who was in the next wing, and the need to be around her never really diminished) but I sat down to count after three weeks of being out of home. Which means I’ve not hugged a parent in 23 days. It’s okay, I don’t need or miss hugs.

I was speaking to a friend who asked if I felt brave about moving out. Brave? Really? Brave is what Vedang does. Or what Shriya is, every day. Brave is Ashwin because he stays alone in a place that is nothing like home, the way I see it. Brave is Vivek and how he walked through last year. Brave is what you call real people with real challenges. Staying alone is not brave, it’s an experience that I’ve decided to take. There’s no daunting challenge, emotional discomfort, threat to security. It’s just not what I had at home, but it’s definitely not filed under brave.

I wish people stopped making a big deal about change. Change has to happen, whether you like it or not. Taking it in stride is a glorified way of saying that you’re living another day. Spotting a cockroach in the fridge, having to buy your own groceries, dealing with a particularly painful period, getting locked out of the house, paying the cook on time – the first times are okay but nothing worth writing in a journal simply because you’re only lucky that you had a family to share these things with and perhaps even whine about the minute nothings they sum up to.

So dear crumbs of bread, forgotten and stirred and swallowed with the Milo and milk, you’ll be thanked for the thought process, but that is about it.

The dream of Yamuna.

In last night’s dream, I was walking with a man along the banks of Yamuna. It was almost evening, a cool breeze and no one in sight. He was older, and quiet. There wasn’t much to say. I could feel the tears on my face but I couldn’t touch them with my fingers. The breeze made ripples and we were walking towards Mathura – of course I haven’t been there.

He then led me by the hand to a fallen tree and we sat on the trunk. After a while, the tears flowed heavier. There was something about just that spot that he had brought me to. We knew it. “This is where he died,” the man whispered. Yes, the spot had no signs of violence – just the peace that I felt when I met this person we’re both referring to. There was no need for anything else. The sun was setting, the air was cooling further. The tree over the river joined us in the sorrowful moment. Something was lost, something found closure.

Somehow I knew he was talking about Krishna. Krishna who had left Mathura to walk to Gokul, to meet me.

The strangest dream I have had by a light year.

-365

Made it.

Not surprised. Not delighted. Not anything.

Still around. Still friends. Still wondering.

But I’m glad we’ve made it this far without (so much) bitterness, losing out on friends and all that. With or without, it’s been a year I understood I can be independent, can – in fact – do without affection, and can move on. You did too, and I’m proud of you. I’m proud of us. Our ‘thing’ that we shouldn’t have tried to define but we did, and now we know is a very deep bond that not many know of any no one completely understands.

The what-ifs and should-haves have been many. The why-did-yous too. We’ve found solace in the grey areas and in knowing ourselves with each other’s perspectives.

For letting me grow in a direction I did not anticipate a year ago, thank you.

You’re wonderful.

Today I learnt

She was supposed to
wed someone who she
changed her mind about
because she could sense a
distance before the knot was
tied and a distance before she
was his and instead she wed this
man who has seen it all, lost some
and was taking another chance at a
life everyone else gives up on but he
didn’t because he could see
that she would be there for
him and she too saw that
being for him made her
happy and so they got
married and they are
happy yet they will
always be looked
down upon by
them because
the world
hates
love.

Last night.

Everyone around me says they can do without the internet and I agree. I can do without it too.

Of course it isn’t a compulsive brain-damaging urge to want to stay online and browse all the time. It’s just that I have made so many friends through Twitter (little note – it’s part of the internet!) and they are across so many time zones and regardless of time zones, they are leading so many lives that I want to be part of each of them and I’m afraid of the day when even one of them doesn’t think of me if they are in crisis because I want to be there since that’s what friends do even if you have met once or never. I want to be there to share their joy, news, highlights, frustrations, rants, their pillow talk friend, their shoulder to cry on, their first SOS contact I want to be on their speed dial because what if they’re into something that they can’t tell their mom or what if they just want to hear a human voice? It’s not compulsive, it’s my emotional drive to not let anyone be alone, even if that means I get late to class in the morning and have to text an apology as the teacher takes a break to sip water and even if it means I have to skip gym before work and instead head to after work when my body is dragged through the day and has a thousand conversations with every soul I have interacted with running through my mind wondering what is the next most comforting thing to say because if you ever need reassurances I must be around to give it to you, to soften the blows and to set things straight. I don’t think of it as an obligation because I choose the people I interact with even if they are many and one day I don’t know who I love the most and who I would want to settle down with and I was pretty sure I didn’t take her name the last time someone asked me who my best friend was but hey, circumstances change and I can assure you that she really does think I’m the best friend in the world and for me, in my heart that is enough, even if she doesn’t remember what she told me the next day. I’m here for everyone and I like it, till the names blurred last night and I wanted to know who I am in love with and if I am in love at all and I had no answer because of so many names in the same list, each a promising candidate of my affections and a brilliant soul.

So I put my internet off, and I slept.