Yesterday I went to meet my relatives. As the mandate dictates, I went right into the room full of children, we played till we were out of breath and ready to eat. When I came out, I saw a cousin 2 years younger than me sitting on the sofa, pregnant. I dropped a virtual flower vase in my head, dramatically. Last night I stalked all my friends on Facebook and counted how many my age are mothers. I started to hyperventilate and text R. The last message I had sent her read “I cannot decide what to wear and that is really ruining my mood” At the same age that girls? women? are deciding names and schools for babies they created. I still have to turn twice to locate the jet spray before I can find it. Left in office, right at home. Imagine me paying the school fee. And not my own.
I slept worrying ‘maybe I am living my life in a parallel universe’ kind of a way, ‘Maybe I am living my life in slow-mo’, ‘maybe papa is making an example out of me to later say “do you want to end up with cats like Prachi?” To deal with this, P and I went to the kitchen at 2 in the night and ate a cheap mango. Din-fast. I had skipped the stage of finding a partner and freaked out about having children instead. So, I surprised myself when I woke up in the morning having dreamt of people accusing me of writing too long, too much, too often. Later I got wet on the way to the office and wore my colleague’s blue teeshirt. I am now sleepy. Hungry. And in utter awe of these women for dealing with clothes picking, hunger, mango prices, bowel movements, rain, and babies all at once.
On the 4th day before my birthday, I was said good things about, publicly, by two people I look up to the most, who I expected it the least from. I, like a 3-year-old who was given a puppy for a sibling, shivered with pure glee. I could not contain it on a bed, in the room, in the hall. I went to my favorite café and sat there instead, reading Arundhati Roy’s gift to me. A stranger, also at the same table said Hi. We seemed familiar but we did not know each other.
I have studies liberal Arts I said, he said he has too. I stared blankly at him for the next 3 minutes in which I usually explain what liberal arts are. Then he told me he had studied social entrepreneurship, so he knew what design thinking is. So for the next 15 minutes, I fumbled without a script; what do people talk about in the moments after they speak of their education/profession, if not explain it?
In consolation, he introduced himself and told me that his name has no meaning, which can be awkward in schools that say “Introduce yourself. Your name and its meaning.” Instead of schools that ask for “name and what you want to be in the future” at 10. Doctor. Architect. Never ethnographer. I said. I told him that I loved the idea of having my name mean nothing. That today I would tell people my name meant ‘the cutest dog’ in Persian. So that night, his name meant, after some negotiation ‘the coolest dog in town’.
I drove back HOME with a big smile on my face, the kind I had driven there with, like the one I find myself carrying often recently. I have, much like Pheobie, ticked most of the things on my list of things to do before turning 25 off. I have learned to be in my own company, not alone or lonely but being. Smiling even. I have a home now, inside me, which can probably survive in any apartment. I grew entitled. Over love and people. I met a stranger in a café, laughed, and did not exchange numbers. And I said, finally, what I had practiced so many times in my mind. “It was nice to meet you. Hope to bump into you again someday.”