Life becomes so much sometimes. So big, so busy, so fast, so whelming-under and over, that I have trouble keeping up. So many big things go undocumented, unfelt almost unhappened, till you sit down and think about them between breaths. So protective I feel of these moments, careful not to waste them on stray thoughts of unimportance. Or on lesser joys. Quirky ringtones, unexpected food dishes, and good coffee I don’t think of more than once. Mummy’s hug, Goldie’s face on the balcony, and the rain on the balcony have more freedom to enter and leave my mind. But there are some moments that I meditate on, these moments of strong connection in mundane activities, of a break from routine, that don’t pinch. I made a list of them.
- When Bollywood got the context of मधुर and मदीर pyaar wrong: Ruchi, dadi, and I sang ‘lena hoga janam hume’ together, completing sentences, filling in words, mindlessly while peeling garlic.
- A little baby fell asleep on my stomach on a swing. The night was cold, her tiny body warm enough and this act of commitment strong enough for both of us.
- I made a fairy tale out of Cheryl Strayed’s ‘Wild’ for the mind I want to raise with tougher hope and more will than a Snow White could lend.
- When I hid from everyone and drank whiskey with kaka, a two people group against the world we made tighter that day.
- Lay under the starlit sky and opened my heart bare. Even if it was scary.
- Talked on the phone late into the night when I had work the next day. Worked the next day.
- I heard a one-year-old child babble non-words to her grandmother over a phone call. She isn’t so communicative with other people, her mother said. She must feel safe and unjudged, maybe even understood with her, I thought. A non-communication so strong, that a tight hug of parting would not compete.
- Swirled till I was dizzy. On Diwali.
- Made myself a playlist. A move Maslow would place hierarchically higher up in his pyramid.
- Had an omelet and bread for breakfast. 3 days in a row.
- I ate chutney that only dadi makes. That only she will insist you take back with you.
- There are some things I had not foreseen happening, and most things I do. This month I grew old enough to call someone ‘betu’. The word that is only granted to people with the resources and will for protection.
- Had a conversation with someone who found me through a RuskinBond hashtag. She told me about her home in Kashmir. And the sunshine around it.
- Danced.
- Someone asked me about my plans for the future and I smiled.
- Drank beer in a bar on a narrow lane in an old town. Talked about books. Hegemony. And breaking it.