Is it a good thing to be always told you haven’t changed?
that you are the same person you used to be when you were in school?
that talking to you makes them feel right where they wished to be at that time?
Does it mean you come across as you haven’t progressed much in life?
Does it mean you are constant when the world around changes?
“You look pretty! I like that dress”. “It’s on sale at Kohl’s, there is a lot of pretty stuff, we should go sometime.”
“Heyyy! so you are alive, I texted you this morning”. “…and I texted you back. Sorry, I didn’t see it until later.”
“Hey see you in the kitchen, bring the chessboard.” “Sure, see ya.”
“Ready to go?” “Sure, give me a second”
“You going to Jeff’s farewell party?” “Not really, I have some stuff in the evening” “Oh common, it will be fun” “Mm, OK, I will try” “alright will see you then” “OK, it is at 6?” “Yep” “OK, see you then”
Alice is standing, hunched at her table, quickly typing into her keyboard and checking the screen. Another girl walks to her cubicle, just as Alice hits Enter. They smile, Alice locks her computer, and they walk out (for lunch, probably) together. Other girl swings her arm over Alice’s shoulder; they are talking and giggling. They vanish around the corner.
Me: (silently sneaks into the kitchen, warms up food in the microwave).
Random colleague: “hey hows it going.” – not a question, no eye contact.
Me: “Great. You?”
Random colleague: “not too bad.”
Microwave beeps. Thank God.
I eat at my desk.
So I have been working at this place for over two years now and haven’t really made any friends. OK, it may sound pathetic if I put it that way but it is half as bad as you may think. Just that, apart from making a bunch of Facebook friends here, I don’t know anyone personally enough to say, “he/she is my friend”. I would rather introduce them as “This is my coworker” or “She works at my office”, depending on the situation.
I have not quite figured out why it is hard for me to break professional grounds and have small talk with people. Most of the time, I am aware that I have enough knowledge on random topics to be able to hold a constructive conversation with another person – or so I believe. But there is also a duplicate person inside my head with an entirely different personality, who sometimes tells me – you are going to make a fool of yourself – and stops me from doing things I enjoyed doing in the past. Like meeting new people, for instance.
For example, I know this colleague who loves Avengers. So do I! I can certainly have an easy chat about the series and discuss my theories and all that, can’t I? You know what the person in my head does – she quizzes me: What is the name of Tony Stark’s Robotic lab assistant? What is the name of Thanos’ servant and minion? What does Tony Stark use a Captain America shield for? A multitude of questions to which I don’t always have the right answers and asks me if know everything related to Avengers if I were to have a chat with him. In my defense, I tell her I need not know all the answers but at the end I give up and stay back at my desk. No, perhaps she is right, I might just look like a fool.
There are other times when we sit together at lunch and discuss random things. I am usually silent, listening to them, and I occasionally ask questions. I admire the ease with which they describe their ideas, thoughts, share their knowledge, and there are times when I have wanted to add additional information and contribute to the flow of the conversation. But in my head, she goess Are you sure of what you are about to say? Wouldn’t it be better if you just Google-ed it before saying? It is a possibility, I may have randomly read something somewhere but I could be wrong, maybe I read wrong, or maybe it is irrelevant what I have to say. So I stop.
On days when I am at my lowest, I wake up and look at my face in the mirror and see perfection. Just need to brush my teeth, fill a visible scar on my eyebrow with some makeup pencil, and wear a sweatshirt over the t-shirt and soiled jeans from a pile of dirty laundry – I am good to go. No one is going to notice you anyway. Right. Absolutely. The need for a shower, clean hair, nice perfume, Chapstick, moisturizer all seem unnecessary when I intend to stay in the shadows.
I remember this particular day when I had forgotten about a meeting and rushed to join everyone in the room. It was a small crowd and a short meeting, and once the official discussions were over, everyone proceeded to chat up. These are times when I wish if I could vanish into thin air. Times when I have no idea which side of the table I should look toward, and whose conversation I could follow and nod at. But that day, my colleagues were discussing the Oscars and naturally, I had watched most of them. I have a thing for movies and books by the way but it’s no big deal, everyone likes movies and books. Right. And they were discussing how good Manchester by the Sea is and how unfair it did not win the best movie award, and absolutely thrilled about La La Land not winning the award. No one had seen Kubo or Moonlight and a few others who saw Hacksaw Bridge for the love of Andrew Garfield liked it. They assumed Lion was most likely another Slumdog Millionaire so there was no chance it could have won the award and apologetically looked at me and said “No offense, Henna, but Dev Patel is a cliché, isn’t he?” in good humor. So, I offered my two cents and said Lion is a good movie and Dev Patel has done an exceptional job, and Moonlight is a coming-of-age movie about two African-American boys, their life over the span of several years, and addressed a wide range of social issues and explored sexuality. I hadn’t even realized I was talking and noticed some of my colleagues nodding in approval and we discussed other movies. Toward the end of the hour, a colleague said, “Wow, Henna is there any movie you haven’t watched?” and laughed. Actually, I have only seen a handful of movies…nothing noteworthy even, but that day, I had forgotten about the person in my head and spoke without thinking.
Back at my desk, I had already regressed. Did I say anything wrong? Was my English OK? Should I have phrased something better? I wish I had worn a better top and dress pants. Did anyone notice the facial hair above my lips? I should have waxed it. My hair, is it greasy today? I should have at least worn some perfume…
This is why I avoid people. Because, most of the time, I am not me. You might see me smiling, talk to me, pass me a compliment but in my head, I have a turmoil of thoughts. I am choosing my words carefully, I am having a mental battle, my heart is racing, and when you finally say, “Alright then, I will see you later!” exactly a minute after we met in the kitchen, I heave a sigh of relief as if I just got over an hour-long conversation with the boss. If someone smiles at me and says, “See me after lunch ok, I have something for you“, my mind automatically unsees the smile and filters just “see me after lunch” and “I have something for you” – what did I do? What did I do wrong yesterday? Did I miss a mail? No, I don’t usually miss emails, then what is it?
I am not sure why I am writing this down today but I have been fighting these battles in my head for so long, I don’t know if I should be concerned about it. I hate to use medical terms to justify the voices in my head, like how they say in books. They are most likely due to my lack of confidence or low self-esteem or a general lack of motivation to do things or take up responsibility. Nothing some strong pep talk cant fix – maybe with some professional, like a shrink perhaps? But it makes me wonder if I was like this always. Maybe yes. I cannot be sure.
People who know me would never associate me with being an introvert. I am quite talkative and loud. But these are only short-lived moments for me. I am quite the ambivert, perhaps or perhaps not… At a bright point in my adolescence, I was convinced liberal arts was my future and grabbed one too many degrees in communications and public relations, only to be stored away in an old dusty box, never to see daylight again. My husband liked me because he thought I would be a perfect match for his soft-spoken nature but I want to tell him sometimes I wish I didn’t have the ability to speak at all just so I could avoid people. A few weeks back a friend posted on Facebook what makes you happy and I wanted to tell him – to feel safe. I would be happy, happier if I could feel safe, if I didn’t have to feel intimidated or worried or anxious all the time, if I didn’t have to lose sleep over trivial matters or wake up thinking something is going to happen today but I don’t know what exactly. I would have been happier if I could wake up in the morning, and look at my face and see myself as flawed and take a shower and feel better and not ignore the need for it.
Anyway, so the point is, not having friends at work is actually not so bad. It does not mean I have a general dislike for people. It is just that I am more comfortable knowing I do not have to be prepared for imminent yet unpredictable conversations with nice people.
A songbird once flew around the forests, singing beautiful songs. Her flockmates followed her everywhere and they sang together. She was loved by all for she was the music of the quiet woods. She adored the starry night sky and sang her dreams to the moon, her secret keeper. She loved to listen to the streams and hummed with the winds. Wildflowers bloomed at her call and even the sun returned in the mornings for her, from his clandestine meetings at night. Some days, she followed the sun and flew by herself all day long and rested on the hills where she looked longingly at the horizon as the sun dropped out of sight. She was intrigued by the unknown and saved her best songs for the other side. And so she set her mind to fly a little longer every day to find where the sun shined at night. And one day, the little songbird flew with the sun and sang past dusk, but her little wings could not hold up for long, and as darkness filled the void twilight left, so did her weary wings fall to the ground beneath. She lay down on a grassy patch and saw no foliage above her blocking the night sky, and knew at once she had come a long way away from home…
She woke up to humans tending to her sore wings from her previous night’s unaccustomed journey. They touched her soft feathers and gently stroked her chin and back. Nervously she drank water from their palms and nibbled on foreign food on shiny tables. They placed her in a cage where she rested more until she could fly and sing again. For now, she croaked. Her home was nowhere in sight, she couldn’t hear her friends and mom was not there. She lightly preened her feathers and looked out through the bars and saw the sun bright and shining.
Her rescuers gave her food and water. Her wings were now stronger but they never let her fly. They flaunted her to their friends. They called her by the same sound cuckoo…! and she knew now to respond to it, which oddly amused them. But they never knew what she was singing about or where she came from. And they never opened the cage without holding her down firmly – their palms covering her wings, neck, and back all together in one tight grip and it soon became clear to the little bird that she may never see home again…
The little bird was lonely in the cage. She dreamt of the gentle streams and the night skies as she aged. She cried for her mother and wished to stay warm under her wings. She hoped that someday her friends would find her here. She sang no more and forgot to fly. She hated herself for flying away from home and later, she forgot what she hated and where home was. But every time the sun set, she was reminded of a forlorn dream to see again the beautiful other side where she once belonged…
Sometimes I think about writing a book or something. Not a story. Just all my thoughts put together into one piece of amazing literature. But as soon as I think of something fancy, I prolong it for so long, sleep off or slog my lazy ass on the couch and forget about the thought I had, which If worked on could have made that amazing piece of literature I was talking about earlier.
But I remember the days when I used to keep a diary and write on it every day religiously. Thoughts came easily then. Everything small was beautiful and I would elaborate on them in the evenings in my diary. I read those pages later, after years maybe, and always felt a little proud. I wrote down thoughts, easily and sometimes beautifully. I took the time to write a page every day. Like a prayer. Like it was necessary.
I still don’t know why I decided to burn all those diaries before moving to the US. Were they too heavy to bring with me? Did it bother me that maybe my parents would read them if I left them at home? Was it too personal to let anyone have access to the years I lived in the past? I burned them all one day thinking I would be starting a new life and a new set of diaries would be collected and I would write daily – about the new things, new people, new life in the United States.
But America wasn’t as pleasant as I had imagined. Loneliness. Loneliness gave way to differences, and differences gave way to abuses. Nothing was private, nothing was personal. Nothing was safe to write down.
I am scared to give a coat of words to the thoughts I had going.
Life is different now. Reality has sunk in and I don’t write anymore. Locked in the present, you toil your way forward each day until you get to the door leading to the future. There you will lie down and fall asleep, gathering bits of fading memories from the past, and wake up to the clicking sound of the door that unlocks and lets you move on to tomorrow. Yet, how many days have we longingly looked back into the darkness and wished if we could run back through all those doors and be in that particular room in the past where we were most happy and with the people we loved the most?
The baby cries. A concerned mother immediately rushes to nurse the newborn for the umpteenth time. Oh, poor you, have you been hungry for long? she cooed as the baby greedily suckled on the mother’s breast like she hadn’t had food for over a day. The mother rests her back against the chair, her eyelids heavy with sleep, her body aching for rest.
Her own mother concocts a delicious meal for her daughter who had been spending sleepless nights feeding the newborn, putting her to sleep and changing diapers. She made fresh rotis, an excellent vegetable stew, fried chicken kebabs, and a warm cup of whole milk as well. Mother knows best…, she mulled as she added the garnishing.
The husband walks in through the front door in the evening after spending twelve hours at work. His shirt is untidy and top unbuttoned. He looks disheveled. He drops his heavy bag in the corridor and calls out to see if dinner is ready, as he hung his umbrella in the closet. The wife responds, “In a minute!” – Did she say in a minute? “IN A MINUTE, did you say?!”, he bellowed. “What do you do here all day long?” Oh, the hunger! He pulls out the umbrella back from the rack and leaves the house. “When I toil day and night to meet ends, don’t I at least deserve dinner on time?”, she heard him say before he slammed the door in her face. She had just set the table but he had already left to eat porotta and beef fry at the fast food joint in the town center.
A swarthy, middle-aged man, lean and unclean, aimlessly walks around the town center. He reeks of sewage and is barefoot. His face has weeks of dirt on it, his hair brown and unwashed. His shirt barely covered his chest, revealing skin stretched over his rib cage. He was hungry. He hadn’t had a meal in weeks. He had picked broken bits of bread and licked off leftover rice and curry from the trash at the backside of a hotel for the past several days. It wasn’t enough. He was hungry. He saw the provisions store at the end of the road. The owner was not in sight. There was a sack of rice right at the entrance. Just this one more time… he thought. Never again after this, he promised himself. He was hungry and poor. He walked over to the store, looking over his shoulders to make sure he was not being watched. He lifted the sack of rice – God, that’s heavy, he thought – and turned back to run by the side road. He couldn’t pick up speed. He was too weak to carry the load.
Soon people saw him, “Hey! Hey! Where do you think you are going?”. They stopped him in his tracks and gathered around him. The hungry man admitted to the crime even before he was questioned, “Sorry Sir, I am hungry. Take this back but I am hungry”. “Liar!”, “Thief!”, “How many times have you done this?” – they shouted at him. One of the men slapped him on the face and shouted “Kallan!”. The poor man instead caught a whiff of curry smell (was it porotta? beef fry? from the hotel maybe?) that made his mouth salivate and dry at the same time. The hungry man folds his hand and stands in shame. Another man kicks him in the stomach. There is laughter in the background among onlookers. A youth, thrilled by the hullabaloo, takes a selfie with the hungry man in the frame, and captioned it, “Y’all we just caught a thief in broad daylight!”. Cool…he thought, at least 100 likes for this one. The men duly handed over the thief to the police when they arrived, after taking care of him. On the way to the police station, the hungry man fell unconscious in the jeep.
He never recovered and he never ate his last meal.
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Earlier this month, in my home state in Kerala, a poor and mentally challenged tribal named Madhu, was accused of stealing rice and groceries worth Rs 200 from a local grocery store and lynched to death by villagers. The image of a tied-up Madhu, helpless and tired, left me hurt and crying for hours that day.
I hope you are all well fed and happy in your homes. And may God help you feel the hunger of your fellow men too, and not just the ones you love.
I do not wish to die.
I love this life and the people in it. They are very dear to me.
I love the earth, the sun and the moon. And the stars that bright up the sky at night.
I love the sea, the saltiness of it, and the lakes – the pebbles that roll under my feet.
I love the blue sky and the seagulls by the beach and the butterflies in my backyard.
I love my books, the musty scent of it and the stories they unravel.
I like the alternate lives they offer when I have no one to share my own with.
I love the music in this world and the deep sadness they bring in me and the happiness I feel after.
I love the aroma of meat stewing in the kitchen that silently brings back memories of Sunday mornings.
This world is indeed dear to me and I do not wish to leave it.
But sometimes I choke in my bed and feel the air being sucked out. An unknown fear grips me and pulls me down to unfathomable depths of darkness.
I see no light at the end of the tunnel. There is no silver lining on anything. No kintsugi to mend the cracks in me.
I am simply broken beyond repair.
Suddenly the sky and sea, the flowers and the birds, and the books and those stories are for everyone else. Not me.
And I see only one easier solution. What If I simply stopped?
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This moment has passed.
Im longing to be with you, and by the cement benches, where we can sit down and listen keenly to our echoing silence.
What could be the secret to happiness? As I pondered over the many things that could probably make me happy – (to be home? to be with friends? not knowing any loss? good food? having enough money?) I wasn’t sure what I need in life to be really happy.
But then I got reminded of this man I had been seeing for almost ten years at a local gas station close to my house in my hometown.
As a child I would see him every week at work – every time papa pulled over to fill fuel in our car. From inside my car, I would lean forward in my seat, struggling against the seat belt, to see his face every time we were there. Dressed in his neat uniform with his name badge pinned right below the collar, he was always the most dynamic person at that station – smiling as he refilled fuel, asking about work, talking about local news and cleaning windows for an extra penny. And he always asked about me too.
Another thing about him that stood out noticeably was his mustache. This man here had the longest, neatly trimmed, curled-at-the-tips, handlebar mustache I had ever seen on anyone. It gave an unusual charm to his otherwise ordinary features – an appeal beyond words. And he would always smile at everyone – his lips partially hidden by the mustache he wore with pride. I loved the man.
Many years of school, college, and employment later, I was home on a long vacation one time. Worried about my job, my future and my relationships, I drove my car into the very familiar old petrol bunk, expecting to see no one I knew. Yet, there I saw this man again after so many years – still as chirpy and energetic as I remembered him. No worry or care, and a face so kind – and now sporting a slightly greying mustache. And as I sat there looking at him filling fuel, smiling at everyone and waiting eagerly for the next car (which was mine), I noticed something about him that I had not seen all those past years…
From inside my father’s car all I could see was his face. But that day, as a grown-up woman seated comfortably in my seat, I could see more than his face – my man had a distinct limp in his gait.
It suddenly became painful to watch him work. The swiftness of movement that would have so well complimented his grand mustache was in every way hampered by the limp. As a child, his beautiful mustache and boisterous mannerism always got me thinking that he would be the most perfect gas station employee I would ever get to see. And yet – as painful as it seemed to me, my man didn’t look challenged. Instead, he looked like he had the world in his arms. He is old now. Greying. He must have been much younger back then. Yet to me, he looked perfect then, perfect now.
The man surprised me with his tiny limp that will forever be shadowed by the might of his long, thick, curled-at-the-tips handlebar mustache.
I wondered about the reasons for his happiness… I would give just about everything to be as happy as he looked.
Or, maybe we don’t always have to have everything perfectly in place to be happy. Perfection comes from contentment. Isn’t that what happiness is all about – to have a perfect life?
🙂
#lessonslearnedinlife
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