Reflections of a restless eccentric

When this drastic event happened in my life, I experienced a bunch of emotions. Gradually, I learned to embrace the grief, inhabit the cold realm of despair, and to breathe through the hot waves of pain. But I was unprepared for the loneliness I experienced. Before, I had a bunch of people I was close to. After, I felt like I was the last human being on earth. This made me feel really depressed. What was the point of life if you had to go through your darkest moments alone? Could anyone really be there for you? Or was life a solitary journey from birth to death? Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying I didn't have people who tried to support me. I did, and I still do. But very little of their support actually reached me. I felt like there was an insurmountable barrier between them and me, and no words or actions could transcend that. For instance, I would tell a friend what I had been going through, and that person would say something. I'm sure they would mean well. Bu...

A month has made way to a month and a half, and many people have urged me to try and get back to 'normal'. By this, different people mean different things. For some, it means getting back to work fully. For others, it means going out to social gatherings. For many, it means going back to the exact same life I used to lead, and pretending that everything is the same. I, too, logically, have agreed with them, to various extents on these various definitions of normalcy. There is no point in wallowing in the depths of my grief. Crying over what is my sordid reality for the billionth time. I'd rather be doing something useful, something productive, something that cheers me up. And so I have tried, to the best of my ability, to reach this utopian state called normalcy. Walk with me, Reader, on this road of words, as I take you through my journey. It was my birthday a few days ago. My first instinct was to curl up into a ball and not open my eyes. I didn't want a celebration, ...

As I have mentioned in several posts before, my mother has had a long and arduous journey of trauma and grief. Many times, in the middle of a happy occasion, she would start crying. She would rarely want to celebrate, or go on trips. The only thing she found peace in was work. She left early at my wedding, something I couldn't comprehend. I have always attributed all of this to her being a workaholic. Only now, when death stands close to someone I love, I understand how loss breaks you on the inside. Yesterday, on a phone call, I confessed to her that life seemed colorless to me. I couldn't enjoy anything, starting from things as basic as sleep and food. After a night's sleep, I woke up feeling unrested and tormented. Even my favorite food felt tasteless and bland. She told me This is how I've felt for so many years. All those years of unprocessed grief, it adds up. When my brother died at 25, I was still very young, and had just gotten married. I felt compelled to move...

My time in the hospital has been one of the darkest periods of my life. I spent 2 weeks in the corridors of the ICU, and these two weeks that have aged me by a lifetime. One day, my in laws, husband and mother stepped away to have a cup of tea, while I sat there in case we were called. I was sitting on that ratty chair, trying to relax, when suddenly the overhead speaker system came alive. It announced a code blue in the very ICU I was sitting outside of. I froze. Doctors and nurses came running, and the crash cart followed. Finally, the paddles were wheeled in, and by this time I was shivering. There was absolute silence in the corridor, and I knew what every person sitting there was thinking. Which patient is it? My hands were frozen, and I couldn't do anything except think this one thought repeatedly "Let it not be my dad". An hour later, I found that it wasn't him, but that someone else in the ICU had gone into arrest and couldn't be resuscitated. My happiness...

 Right from my school days, I'd always felt worried when I looked at my friends' parents. The worry stemmed from this : My mom and dad were 38 and 45 respectively when I was born. By the time I was in school, my Dad was in his 50s, and my Mom in her late 40s. I couldn't help but notice that my most if not all my friends had parents in their 30s or 40s. I asked myself, What are the consequences of this?  Initially, I saw the more obvious ones: My Dad would retire before even I finished my tenth, a fact he obsessed over and worried far more than I did. Gradually, I started realizing another thing. My parents were no longer in the prime of their lives. Sometimes, this meant lesser energy. Other times, it meant preferring afternoon naps over restaurant lunches. It meant many things. I never resented them for any of this though.  Because I understood where they came from. I understood why they took a decade after their marriage to have a child. They were both from families of ...

 Another year of my life rolls by today, and I return to this yearly ritual, a little afraid. Afraid that I will look deep into my soul, and be unable to find anything to be grateful for. What then? I do not know. I will try though. November clouds my vision with tears, but it also makes me look at the rest of the year in awe. I will channel that awe in writing this. I am grateful for all the time I spent this year with my parents. Grateful for all the Mom cooked food I got to eat. Grateful that I lived close enough to visit whenever I felt like it, at whatever time or day. Grateful for all that I achieved, and for all the happiness that brought to my parents. In October, when I shared that I had been awarded a prestigious fellowship, my Dad was overjoyed. He gave me a gift to remember the day by. On 7th November, when I told him that I had won a prize in a singing competition at my apartment, he told me that he wanted to listen to the song I had sung. On 8th, he asked me what was ...

 After listening to me for a while, my therapist told me: It sounds like you're struggling to accept what happened. The sooner you accept, the easier it will get.  And she was right. Even though it's exactly a month now, I continue to struggle with what happened, and how suddenly it happened. Every morning I wake up, and there are a moments before I remember, and those moments are peaceful.  After that, memory hits me and I feel waves of disbelief, followed by pain and sorrow. The memory of the months before, weeks before, the days before, assail me. After wrestling with trying to forget these days (which is impossible), I have decided to go the opposite way and write about them. So here goes. 2020 has been a generally difficult year, and my parents have been no exception. I saw my dad sink more and more into isolation, and his silences haunted me. Because of all the restrictions and lockdowns, even though I was in the same city, I could not meet them. I tried to call, bu...

 In a recent email to a friend, I wrote that I now have a better handle on things. And I wasn't lying. This arduous journey through my dad's hospitalization and illness started almost a month ago, and by now I have learned how to live with the grief, the sorrow and the exhaustion. I have learned to manage my academic deadlines along with the countless responsibilities and logistics that come with the hospital, my house and my parents' house. So today, I had a neat list full of things to accomplish, including an assignment that was due today. I was feeling rather cheerful, because my Dad had been moved from the ICU to the ward, and my mother and I were dreaming of the day he would be discharged. One week. No, maybe two weeks. By the end of the year, for sure. This was how our conversations went. As I wrote in a previous post, I've felt annoyed when people asked me to hope or to not worry. I have always been a 'what's the worst that could happen?' person, and ...

As I said before, I felt completely alone during this tragic period. What worsened it was talking to people and listening to the absurd things they said to me. During my normal times, I think I am a fairly patient and understanding person. I realize that every person is different in terms of dealing with emotions. Some of them always know the right things to say, and some of them never do even though they have the best of intentions. Therefore, when people of the latter category say something trite to me during a difficult phase, I don't take it seriously. I try and appreciate the intention behind what they said. But this time, I couldn't be that nice person. In what have been my darkest days so far, I struggled and reached out to a few people who were close to me. And when I heard what they had to say, I felt even more alone, sad or angry. I shrunk into a shell and stopped talking to people, because I felt it was pointless. But I realize that before this, I might have said so...

For three weeks now, I have found no words to express what I'm going through. I've sat in stony silence with a gamut of my emotions- shock, denial, grief, rage and despair. Several times I thought of writing, but couldn't do it. Why paint a picture of this horror for others to read? Is it not enough that my family and I are suffering through this perpetual agony? But I lay my soul bare and bleed out these words here for the same reasons that I have always turned to writing. Words are my communion with this world, and my best coping mechanism. During this devastating period, I felt utterly alone. I have family and friends, people who try their best to support and help me, but intense grief is extremely isolating. Well meant platitudes grate on my wounded ear. Even when people call or visit, it reminds me of the fact that their lives are normal, and that mine is shattered beyond repair. It was as though I was walled up in a sound proofed house of transparent glass, and though...

Sometime last month, I was going home from my lab late at night. I'd usually make a minute of small talk with whoever was at the security desk while I signed in or out everyday, and this happened that night as well. It was well past midnight, so the guard asked me how I'd go home at this hour. (With the current state of affairs in India, this seems like a reasonable question to ask a woman. Reasonable, but sad.) I reassured him that I stayed close by and that I'd be fine.  His next question took me by surprise. Do you have kids? I replied in the negative. His forehead crinkled, and his expression became gloomy. That's so sad. This is such a big sacrifice you're making to be here. Women always have it tough. He tutted in dismay. When I heard his response, my stream of thoughts went like this: Why is he sad that I don't have a kid? I am perfectly happy not having one. In fact, considering how much I have on my plate currently, I am extremely thankful that I don...

 With the advent of covid, life as we knew it has seen many changes. One of those is working from home for extended periods of time. As a result of this, many of us never really context switch fully between work and home. A part of our mind is stuck on some work related topic even if we're at home. On one such day, around 1pm, both my husband and I stepped away from work to grab a quick lunch. As is our way, we called out to each other asking if the other person could serve the food, and after a minute of back and forth, I reluctantly decided that it was my turn. I headed into the kitchen and looked around absently. I saw some plates, roti and curry, and dished out portions onto both our plates.  Now for the curd. I rummaged around in the fridge, and my eyes fell onto a bowl of curd with grated carrots and onions. Raita (curd with raw vegetables), I thought, puzzled. I don't remember asking the cook to make this today. Maybe my husband did. Or maybe she decided to surprise us....

 Yes, this is going to be one more rant post. After having been woken up from my slumber for the fifth time, I am in a grumpy and grouchy mood alright.  The lights, fans and geysers in my room are smart. They're so smart that they decide when to turn on and off. And if you're imagining some tech-savvy house where there are sensors that detect presence/movement, stop right there. That's not what I'm talking about. This is a bug, not a feature. In my room, the lights turn on in the middle of the night, arbitrarily. When we're sound asleep. I detest getting out of bed for anything, and turning off lights is no exception. My spirit animal must be a sloth bear, because I'd rather sleep with the lights on than get out of bed to turn them off. My husband is way more bothered by the lights than I am, so he's usually the one to get out of bed to turn them off too. No complaints there. But today, he's not at home you see. And so, the Narada of electrical Gods has ...

In his famous and disruptive work David and Goliath , Malcolm Gladwell attempts to upturn several notions on disadvantages. One of the interesting ideas he introduces the reader to is the difference between being 'a big fish in a small pond' and being 'a small fish in a big pond'. He argues that for most people, the former may be a more fulfilling choice. He provides an example of a student choosing grad schools to further this theory. He makes the point that this student who might be well above average might end up in the bottom of her class if she chooses one of the world's best schools, and that this might be severely demotivating and hamper her long term prospects. In contrast, if she chooses a not-so-famous college, she might end up in the top of her class, and that might bolster her confidence and enable her to succeed long term. Therefore, he argues that there is little meaning in choosing something because of the prestige/name. In this article, I attempt to ...

Recently, my mother told me ever so casually that a close relative was suspected of having cancer and that she was waiting for her biopsy results. Knowing my mother, I knew she was devastated by this news, but she carried on with the charade of being unaffected. I too responded in kind, and asked only technical questions, as if we were discussing a hypothetical person and it didn't mean anything to either of us. What are the implications of this prognosis? What are the treatment options available? How long would recovery be? Are secondaries common in this form of cancer?  We continued this way for about an hour, never touching upon how we 'felt' on hearing this, skirting around it like a minefield. But when I put the phone down, I had no doubts about what either of our reactions were. We were deeply worried and upset, and she was more close to devastated. I could not sleep, and lay in bed endlessly pondering over this piece of foreboding news. Today, I think if I should rea...

My parents are diametric opposites in several aspects. And I, having inherited traits from both of them, by nature and nurture, at times find two contradicting points of view in my head both of which I can understand and relate to. I switch between the two frequently, and reassure myself that it gives me a balanced perspective on life. (There are times when this drives me crazy, but I'll leave that story for another day.) In this article, I'll share with you their individual perspectives on finances, and how that has shaped my own financial thinking. My father is a man of numbers. When I was in first grade, he called me over to the computer that he'd newly bought, and opened up Excel. He took a piece of paper, and wrote down a formula while I stared at it cluelessly. If there is one thing you should remember for your entire life, it is this. This is the power of compounding. He proceeded to enter the formula in Excel and demonstrated to me how an initial paltry sum could g...

 I've had so many electrical issues in the past year that I've decided to give it its own series. These stories will be told from a strange mix of viewpoints--debugging and ranting. Take from it whatever you like. :) On Monday evening, I unlocked the door to my home with a feeling of trepidation. We'd gone away for the weekend, and I was going to be home alone this week. Added to that, given the history of snafus we've had, I didn't know what I'd be greeted by when I came home. My mind had conjured up all kinds of disasters, and I was bracing myself for the worst. But as I opened the door and stepped in, nothing seemed to be amiss. I wandered around all three rooms cautiously, looking for things gone awry. The light and fan in the bedroom were both on, and God knows how long they had been on. (For those uninitiated to my electrical woes- No, we had not left them on by mistake. This is an extremely sporadic and irreproducible bug in my house. Or maybe it's a ...