Yesterday, I had my therapist’s appointment at 1, which was actually at 12. I got a message from her at 12:08, I was out of the door at 12:11; socks stuffed in one pocket and a banana in the other. On the way, I got stuck in a traffic jam. I, like every other impatient human, turned at nooks and corners in the hope to find a route across the traffic, to only round up further back into the same traffic. So I gave up and started reading T-shirts instead.
“Dream big, go back to sleep.”
“I am not a REAL model.”
“Serves you right!”
On my drive back, I stopped at the roadside to answer a call. It must have started raining because people, also on their bikes, gathered next to me. To save me 3 extra limb moves, I tried to put my rain jacket on without removing my helmet. These people witnessed a struggle of approximately 10 minutes when the jacket was stuck on my helmet-ed head, neither coming off nor on. I was alone by the time the jacket came off. Further ahead, at a signal, in a black Skoda Vento, I saw camouflaged on the back seat, a jet-black, furry, imported-looking, shiny Goat. A goat! curly horns and all. In a car, drove away. Leaving me wondering if I am in a Douglas Adams book or Larry Charles screenplay because the goat looked too classy for my low-budget Govinda movie of life.
For the rest of the context-building scenes, imagine me living in a pretty row house with a car, fur over every inch of the surface. On clothes, in the pockets of my pants, on bedsheets, in my nose, and food. Imagine cat memes, photos, and illustrations on my Instagram feed. Now, imagine, in the last 48 hours, I have been declared too immature to be married, blew my nose on my bandanna, stole tissue papers from bathrooms and homes, got a self-esteem setback from an astrologer, bought a ‘spicy Kerala chicken pickle’ thinking it is ‘spicy karela pickle’, got wondered at by a little girl to her father “Is that a girl or a boy?”, spent my Monday puking and sleeping all day. ‘I hate Mondays’ got a whole new angle. In the hours that I was awake, I cleaned my room, littered it again, and stitched 2 laptop sleeves in an Electrol-infused high. And thought incessantly of Aloo Bhujiya.