Moms are Boss. And Other Life Lessons

As a 20 something, having a life changing event entitles you to share your wisdom with your other, sometimes clueless counterparts. Fools learn from their own experiences, the wise, cool cats learn from other people's blog posts.

Last week, my mother had a health scare which stopped us, shocked us and made us revaluate. This is what I learnt

1. Say Thank You- I was going with Early to Bed, Early to Rise, but this one was more contextual. We're really, really blessed in ways that our selfish, narcissistic lives sometimes overlook. It's easy to be flippant and overlook basic outlines of our lives- like limbs, families and hearts- but every now and then, we should stop where we are, crank up the volume and go bat-shit crazy to I feel good. Try doing this outside the shower, it looks less dodgy.

2. You have a lot of friends- The worst way to find out how popular you are, is to have a crisis.

Here's what your anthropological findings may look like- you have a friend who will show up everyday with odd care packages and absolutely nothing to say. She will giggle inappropriately and incessantly, her ears will turn red and you will have to take time out to ease her awkwardness. This will be the oddest yet most effective way you will be comforted. There is the other friend who despite getting killed at work, will show up, only to make fun of your clothes, and say inappropriate things loudly. Case in point: "I'm so thankful this hospital looks like a hotel, it truly makes me feel better. Imagine if it looked like a real hospital."
An old University room mate will send you an email from half way across the world. The girl you grew up with, will insist on you sending her screen shots of every diagnosis and report. This is so she can describe what exactly happened and assure you, that had you been in New York, care would have been much the same.

The much loved Friend's fiancee and Friend will entertain your parents while you try to catch up on sleep at home. Your boss will offer you the potent care package of cupcakes, vodka and her cat (what else are care packages made of?). Your room mate will assume the role of a parent, all the way from London and incessantly send military texts like "status"/ "food??". This text will be sent three times a day, until a satisfactory answer is received. And then there is your childhood friend, who will leave her case (due at court), abandon her boss and shadow you until the day ends. She will also  have left you wise emails, just in case you decide to troll the internet unsupervised.

Amidst this overwhelming love and support, one question will worry you every now and then-
If I am so popular, why am I not invited to more parties ?

3. Reserve judgment-  Most of us are completely unprepared for adult life situations. When faced with a crisis, we're bad versions of Whose line is it anyway?. At no point will you anticipate your next move. Grief, fear, anger will look different on every one. Some choose to deflect, some avoid, some wallow, some grow their hair out and some just really eat a lot of dessert. Just show up; being a rock is the most underrated grand gesture if there ever was one. Be a rock and don't judge. If a reaction doesn't look, like you thought it would, doesn't make it less real or deserving of care. Chances are your friend/family are only looking to lean on you. Be kind, who knows you might turn out to be the crazy person who denies themselves oral hygiene as an expression of grief? Oh, and always carry Altoids.

4.Find a joke in a hopeless place. Laugh- I suspect you're rolling your eyes at how generic this list turned out. That's alright, I'm trying to type while sticking my tongue out at you.
In the all consuming largeness of everything, you need to take a moment to laugh. For me, there was something ironically soothing to the microcosm of a stress pimple. You could juxtapose it to the larger situation, or you could write bad poetry. My submission:

An Ode to a Zit
You sit across my barren cheek,
Spitefully, making me resemble a freak.
You softly remind of the Good & Greater
Dear Spot, you're almost a freakin' crater.

This rhyme is a doozy and honestly dead
But I'm really thankful, you're not on my forehead.

5. Mummies are Boss- Of all the people, in all of the world, there's no one like your mom (I wanted to use 'my' instead of 'your' here, but I realize this makes it more relatable). She made you her profession, and I'm guessing you're slouched in front of a computer somewhere. Sit up straight, get off the phone, pull up your jeans and go spend time with her. Take her out, show her off, smother her in affection if you must.
Of course, trying to blog while balancing a computer on her stomach (as she rests) may not convey the sentiment very well.

(Photo Credit: Here. Also, how adorable?)

Baby It's Cold Outside

Relevant Lessons I learnt in Winter

Everything in life is a lesson.

Don't believe me? Ask someone who didn't have something go the way they wanted, they will lecture you about the lesson, and then you will just wish you'd believed me anyway.

Most people who know me will tell you, I don't deal well with the cold. This is true both at a metaphysical level (I'm all sunshine, etc) and the physical level (My body turns against me when it's cold. It refuses to get warm and insists I indulge it in a co-dependent relationship with socks and my blanket). This winter, I have learned many lessons. Valuable things which I might forget by March and thus need to chronicle.


1. Albert Camus was wrong. 

He was the guy who famously said, “In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”
I'm willing to bet a lot of money this came to him as he strode around his centrally heated home, in shorts (See, that's another valuable nugget about me- if I don't like you, I will make you a character who wears shorts and sleeveless tshirts.)

In the depth of winter, I have realized there lay within me, an ability to spend large chunks of time without moving. I can lie so still in my spot, it will fool coyotes.
My spot is : my bed with a blanket (which serves as a bed sheet), me in the middle and three comforters on top. Yes, I have a blanket sandwich and I am proud.

2. Winter is a terrible time to socialize. Which means someone should shift New Years Eve to a more bearable seasonal zone. The only ones who benefit from 31st December are the Aussies, and with the holey Ozone Layer above them, they deserve this break !

It's awkward meeting people in December. 

I will stare unblinkingly at your coat pocket, desperately trying to guess whether your hand is glove-less and cold or warm and snuggly. I will respond to a glove-less hand with a yogi Namaste. And if you look warm, I will hug you for extended periods of time until I have satisfactorily stolen your body heat.
This is the reason networking or job interviews in December are a bad idea !

3. Bakeries and coffee shops have something to do with why it's so cold.
Think about it.
No dessert ever tastes as good, as when your fingers are frozen and your mind is inching towards dementia/shut down. Voices in your head encourage you to believe that an overdose of sugar will fix everything.
It will my precious, it will, another bite of the Banoffee Pie will make it all ok.

I have written to Michael Moore, he could do an expose on this.

4. Offices/ Work must shut down. 

It's pretty simple, people are affected from S.A.D, which makes them SAD. Less work will make them HAPPY. Hence, proved.


5. Winter fashion is a hoax.
Every time you decide to go outside, you will want to over correct for Mother Nature.

Do you think you can stylishly layer, and casually wrap a snood/muffler in this satanic weather? Or will you wear sweater upon sweater, or *shudder* thermals?

No mirror will tell you the truth- A Yak looks more dignified, and no another coat will simply not fit over the other two you already have on !

Photo Credit: Here

6. Winter is a bad time to take decisions.

Seriously, think about it. 

There you are, in your spot. Your brain suitably addled and numb with sugar, festivities making you lonely and wondering if you will ever see the sun again. This might make you take desperate measures


Like calling Albert Camus and screaming into the phone " Showww me your invincible summer, you liar. Liarr, liaarrr shorttss on fireeee"
Or, calling anyone and saying " I will marry you, if you buy me dessert"
Or sending group texts, "We will all die anyway. Go ahead, LOL on that now!"


It's a bad time. I need you to slide back into your spot. Bury yourself in your blanket and wait for March.

2013- Here's Hoping.

There is a reason why Calendars Inc (Mayan Brothers & Romans) invented the end of a year. 

To mark time, yes. But more importantly, to mark a new beginning. A starting point and the biggest intersection of Hope, Promises and Good Intentions.

Sure the evolved will say, we can start over at any point, and perhaps we can, but there is undeniable magic when an entire species hopes together. Maybe we're gunning for different things- better houses, safety, more cars, food, better love, more love- but at the root of it all, we're only hoping to be happier than last year.
So here are a mismatched collection of wishes for you and me, in 2013.


- This year, I hope you find your voice. It's the only way to fight ambivalence. Pick a side, have an opinion. Articulate it via a candlelit march, a status update or plot revenge in a badly lit basement. Whatever you do, do it like only you can. Because if all of us spoke in our special languages, but spoke and didn't shrug silently, somehow we would make sense.

- Read. 

Find time in daily mayhem to curl up alone with a book, even if its, 'The Exploding case of Jughead's Hamburger.' Turn the pages, or swipe your Kindle screen. But read. It's the cheapest way to be shocked, delighted, take a vacation and live another life.
Yes, I will submit that this was a shameless plug to get more readers for this blog


- Get inspired. It's all very well to make funny, critical noises. But this year, I hope you're inspired. Find your inspiration in a book, on the street, in art, in the lack of art and aesthetic, but be inspired enough to proclaim loudly, "I will do xyz in the most extraordinary way possible."


- Make many, many new year resolutions. The more optimistic and unbelievable, the better. The act of defining what you want in life, of identifying the missing pieces and gaping goals is important. Maybe you will transform your life, maybe you will get back to old habits in February, but it's worth finding out which it will be, year after year.


- Be loyal. If there is one thing the world could use more of, is undying, unflinching, outrageous loyalty. Be loyal to a person, to your idea of what your life should be, to your pet, but be loyal --because what other way is there to love ?

And beyond all else-

 I hope we're grand this year. Worthy of a stage, with worthwhile things to do and say. Maybe 2013 will be the year we write that symphony, or find a cure for cancer, or make men and women see each other as equals. Maybe we will fight the good fight, Nicotine sales will drop, kindness to strangers and more importantly those we live with will become our masterpiece in progress. And maybe we will be exhausted from doing these things, failing, wallowing for a bit after failing and getting right back up. 

May the end of 2013 will see us exhausted and grinning. Exhausted after an honest years work, because we were too busy being grand to ever get bored.

                                       Photo Credit : Here

Your echo is a postscript.

It was another Tuesday.
Most life changing events somehow sneak up on a Tuesday. There is something exceptionally ordinary about this day, something that begs a little livening up.

She squatted on the floor, stringing the fairy lights together, set in her view-- if you can untangle the jumble of last years fairy lights, most Adult World problems were a breeze.

There was a certain rhythm to the whole thing.

Take the tangled knot, through the slightest space you find.
Push through as hard as you can.
In case of another knot, repeat the process.
Either the jumbled mess will fall into place, or you just cut the cord.

Pretty much, like the rest of life.

She kept an eye out for her phone, her flatmate would be calling anytime now to confirm coffee.
It had been a rough semester. Classes had gone on as classes always do, but somewhere in the midst of it all, she'd felt herself slipping, losing step with that daily march which keeps us under the happy illusion, that within routine, we are in control.


You could ascribe this to teenage angst, or to living in a new country.
Or you could believe like her, that a tectonic shift was coming, without knowing when or where.
All around her, people were doing something. Most of her peers seemed to have their lives and CVs together.

An In-case of emergency backup was prepared in the same way.
Figure out what you need, store it.
Make sure you're always alert.
Make sure you've covered all your bases.
It seemed that they were attacking life, like an evacuation situation. The fittest can and will survive, and the dreamers will be lost under rubble.


While her friends got their classes, references and Next Steps in order, she doodled outside the margins of her notebook. She wasn't without, of course. She had a jumbled set of passions combined with a desperate need to follow a different one, depending on the day of the week. And the voices in her head.

"See you at 5. Don't be late. Wear a scarf, it's chilly outside."

Functional, is how the text read. Functional, is how people should be. All that feelings do, is add confusion and make you hopeful.

That's the thing about Hope- it is insidious and creepy.
Like a houseguest you didn't want; who always shows up at the worst time. There you were, reading your book, curled up on the futon and the doorbell rings. You don't want to get up, but you have to.
And there's Mr. Hope. Wearing plaid trousers and that grin.

You say, make yourself at home, and return to your book.
You try to curl up and recreate that perfect nook you had found. But everything is all wrong. An ordinary sentence about Mer-People and their adventures is now layered.
Suddenly, you're rooting for the Mer-People to defeat the evil Sea Warrior. Suddenly, you're ready to believe that one day we will find a cure for Diabetes.
Once Hope moves in, it's really difficult to get him out. And sometimes Hope will get you high, that's when you become delusional and look for answers in a scratched Bob Marley CD.


She stood up, put her scarf on, as instructed. The Travel card nestled in her coat pocket, and her hand bag contained the rest of her world.

They met for coffee at their usual place. The walls had been painted green and there was a forced cheeriness and some kind of script in the way the sugar sachets were arranged on a plate.
Hello, young person looking for meaning. Sit here for a milky cup of coffee. Drown your conversation with some apple pie. You will look like part of a movie, if you do it right.


He began with an animated update on where his life was. How much it had changed in the last 24 hours, the enormous perspective he swore he know had, and how solutions were almost in sight.

She began with a sigh. A jumble of words and sentences which sounded inarticulate to her own well-read ears.

* I don't make sense. You won't understand me *
*Maybe if you spoke slower, I would *

*Maybe if you exercised every morning, you'd be able to concentrate better *

*Maybe you're a grouchy pig? *

As always, she flung her sugar satchet at him. He ducked, effortlessly.
They could have been sitting there for hours. You couldn't tell if you just looked her way. Of course, the number of coffee cups on the tiny table were a giveaway. If you were a fan of logic and math, that is.

She decided to walk back alone, by the bridge. It was such a poetic setting, that it had to have meaning, just waiting to be decoded.
Her favourite part was how their conversations over coffee, read like blog posts. Funny, hilarious, insightful blog posts. He knew who she was, on most days. On the others, he was excited to find out who she wanted to become. She knew his advice wasn't as functional as his texts. That a lot of lofty ideals were mixed in. Maybe that wasn't such a bad thing.

A friendship can be broken all the way down into just conversations.
There are the definitive ones, which outline who you're going to be with each other. The really important ones though, are the ones you won't remember. You could have been quoting Groucho or laughing like an idiot over a sexual pun, but there is warmth in the air. Warmth you created. This is the warmth which stops you from keeling over on rough days, much later.

The gravel on the bridge was getting stuck in the heel of her boots. She ran her shoe softly over it.
Wondering if these errant stones were witness on that Tuesday, last summer. He had been running recklessly on the bridge. There was something poetic in destruction always.

But the thing she missed acutely, sharply and everyday, was the touch of his hand on hers. So she picked up her pace and hurried back to her apartment -- to find and attack the jumble of fairy lights. She needed to stop going to that coffee house, every Tuesday. One of these days she would.

But for now, she untangled the mess of cords, one knot at a time, literally willing the light at the end of the tunnel.