Conversations - Remembering and Forgetting

Hey, what's going on?

Don't ask dude ....

Too late. Already asked

I'm cleaning out my closet

(laughs)

That doesn't sound like you at all

I found these jeans I had completely forgotten about

(pauses)

And guess what?

They still fit you perfectly

Hehe they do

That’s hardly a surprise. I don’t think you’ve gained even an ounce since college

(pauses)

Sooooo ….

Do you want to catch a movie this afternoon?

I can’t

Why not?

I promised myself I wasn’t going to step out of the house until I was done cleaning

Come on …

No seriously. I’ve just been putting this off for too long. I have no space left in my closet

How long does it take to clean out a closet?

Oh man. You have no idea. You should come see the mess

Should I?

No!!!!! Absolutely not!!!!!!

(laughs)

Why? What are you hiding in those closets?

Too many skeletons 

(pauses)

And it’s time for them to go!

Do I know any of these skeletons?

I’m not saying ….

Seriously … when will you be done?

Maybe we can catch up in the evening

No dude. Today is pretty much out of the question.

Cleaning sucks. Especially when you have no idea what needs to stay and what needs to go

I could help you decide

Nope

That was rude! You could at least pretend that I could be of help

Haven’t you known me long enough to know that I don’t pretend?

You've known me long enough to give me a peek into your closet

Okay I know this pink top is definitely going. No brainer

I didn’t think pink was your colour

It was a gift. And now it’s spent enough time taking space

(pauses)

You know what the problem with me is?

That’s a long list. Where would you like me to start?

Asshole!

Okay so what is the problem with you?

The problem is that most of what I have has a memory attached to them. Half the stuff I don’t even wear anymore

And so you can’t get rid of most of the stuff?

I guess I can. It just makes me nervous to lose those memory associations

So what are you saying?

I’m not sure

(pauses)

I’m a little afraid to forget possibly ...

But maybe it’s time to move on

Maybe it is. But how do I know for sure?

You don’t know for sure. Nobody knows for sure. But we make a decision to discard and move on.

Also, you didn’t tell me what the problem with you is?

Maybe I’m not ready to discard and move on. Maybe I want to keep holding on to those memories

For the rest of your life?

That's a little extreme, don't you think? 

(pauses)

How about until the next time I decide to clean out my closet

I have a feeling we'll be having the same conversation then too

You don't know that

How about you categorise the memories and get rid of some associations today?

How about you let me figure out what I need to do?

You’re being weird now

I am, right? I guess I’m getting rid of the jeans

The ones you can still fit into?

Yup. Those jeans

But why? If you can still wear them ….

That’s not the important part. The important thing is to move on

I want to check out your closets once you’re done

You’ll be surprised. They’ll be a lot emptier than you would expect

Conversations - One Isn't a Lonely Number

Hey, I’ve been trying to reach you for a while

Really? The phone’s right next to me

Are you home?

No. I was supposed to meet this friend at a cafe close to home. But he had to cancel at the last moment

So where are you then?

At the cafe

Alone?

No. There are actually quite a few people here

You know that’s not what I’m asking

Yes I’m here by myself

Smartass

(pauses)

So why are you still there if this ‘friend’ didn’t show up?

Why shouldn’t I be?

Isn’t it weird?

Isn’t what weird?

(sighs)

To be alone … I mean ‘by yourself’ at a cafe. Don’t you feel like a loser?

And why are you being so difficult?

I’m not being difficult. I’m just trying to understand what the issue is.

Is it because I’m a woman?

Well … I wouldn’t go to a cafe by myself. It’s usually a place to hang out with someone over a coffee or something

Actually, I’m looking around me and there are 4 other single person tables

Four more weirdos

Have you considered that maybe you’re the weird one?

If I went to a cafe by myself, I’d be uncomfortably staring at my phone the entire time.

Is that what you’re doing?

Kinda hard to stare at my phone and speak to you at the same time.

But then you’re probably the guy who can’t watch a movie in the theatre by himself.

Absolutely not! Can you?

I do it all the time

You watch movies alone?

By myself, yes. I prefer it that way

How come I didn’t know this about you until now?

Maybe because you love to talk about yourself all the time?

That wasn’t very nice. Maybe true. But not nice

(laughs)

Shall I come over?

Why? To rescue me?

You sound like you could use some company

Actually I’m having a really good time, hanging out by myself. 

You should try it sometime

No way! So what were you doing before I called?

Waiting for you to call!

Really?

No idiot. Not really!

I was drinking my chai, having a slice of cake and thinking about stuff

What kind of stuff?

Stuff that I’d rather not share with you

Why not? Who would you rather share them with

They’re private thoughts. I’d rather not share them with anyone actually

What kind of private thoughts?

Private thoughts that I don’t want to share. Remember?

So how long are you going to be there?

Until I’m done thinking

Tell me where you are. I want to come think with you

Only on one condition

What?

We’ll do our thinking at separate tables

Death of a Stranger

I’m sure that some of you will not want to read this piece or after going through it, wish that I hadn’t written it. I debated about it in my mind but then I can’t pretend that life is fluffy and fun constantly, as much as I would like it to be for all of us. Sometimes it’s also dark and depressing and many of us have been in that place for some reason or the other. 

On June 8th, just a couple of days ago, Anthony Bourdain was found dead in his hotel room. More shocking than his passing was the news that he had killed himself. 

‘That can’t be right. Why would Anthony Bourdain, the man with such a fantastic life, envied by so many, commit suicide?’ was the first thought that came to my mind. 

As I’m very certain it came to most people’s minds that were in some way affected by his death. Especially since people who were close to him, including his mother, could never have imagined that this is how his life would end. The rest of us were just fans of his shows on television or his books. And it was his life that was the envy of every food enthusiast.

This morning I received a text message from a friend who had gifted me one of his books recently. Here’s what the message said verbatim:

2 days later - I am still wishing it’s not true. And I have not watched an entire episode of any of his shows. Just excerpts. He makes me doubt a lot of my unending bucket list. It hurts me at a level I did not expect a stranger could. 

I wrote back to her saying that I felt pretty much the same way (besides the bucket list part, since I don’t believe in having one). It’s not possible that Mr. Bourdain, the man with the seemingly perfect life, would take this step. Except that he did. 

So what about the rest of us, with such ordinary lives in comparison? Are we better off? I’m not so sure.

I’ve come across suicide a few times in the past year. Not people I directly knew but people who were close to people that I’m close to. Just one degree of separation, which isn’t very much at all. Recently a friend of mine confessed to me that he had attempted to take his life twice in the past few years. “Couldn’t even do that right,” he said with a smile. This is a man who I constantly share laughs with when we meet - we don’t see each other too often but when we do, it’s always a riot. I never had any idea of what was going on in that head of his and that his mind had been in such a dark place. 

Not to say that my mind hadn’t been in that dark place either, when I had convinced myself after my accident that I would never walk again. 

Why Anthony Bourdain took his own life, may always remain a mystery. I suspect that the media will continue to look for clues, to speak to people he was close to and write about possible reasons for him to have taken such a step. Eventually it will all be speculation because the only person who can tell us what was really going on in his mind when he used the belt of the hotel bathrobe to hang himself, isn’t around any longer. 

Another friend of mine posted something on this subject on social media that is food for thought. 

She talked about how agonizing Anthony Bourdain’s life must have been in the instant that he decided to end it. 

Would you and I ever think of his life being agonizing? The man who traveled the world just to eat at the most interesting places?

She questioned if someone who had lived with such boldness and autonomy deserved the right to say when their time in this life was over.

Our lives are not what they used to be in innumerable ways. With the stresses that we put upon ourselves, are we getting to a point where suicide will not be frowned upon? 

She ended her post saying that withering long past your ability to enjoy life, growing fragile, lonely, fearful, dependent and merely hanging on in purgatorial misery holds no mobility. 

Anthony Bourdain lived his life as he pleased and left on his own terms. Who are we to judge?

If we really want to, we can maybe justify Anthony Bourdain, Kate Spade and Robin Williams (all celebrities with supposedly enviable lives) killing themselves. However, I would like to believe that there is no darkness so strong, that it can withstand light passing through forever. I would like to believe that tears will always stop to make room for smiles. That there are always more reasons to live than there are to die. 

I would also like to believe that my next piece will be inspired by a happy event.

The Truth about Neil and Isha

This is a true story.

At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed.

Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred.

P.S. Nobody actually died in this story.

Yes, for those who have watched Fargo, I just finished going through Season 3 last night. Hence the hangover. Plus the names of the characters have really been changed in this true story that I’m about to tell you.

Isha and Neil met two years ago at a small dinner party that was thrown by a common friend. Well, actually Neil didn’t know this ‘common friend’ but had tagged along with Yash, who was invited to the dinner. The reason he had tagged along was that Neil was new in the city and was staying at Yash’s apartment, until he found a place of his own. This has no relevance to the story - just thought I’d throw it in for no apparent reason. 

At the dinner table, Isha and Neil sat next to each other, by which time they were reasonably well acquainted. Isha thought Neil had a certain innocence that she found endearing. Isha also found it interesting (and cute) that when Neil smiled, only the right side of his mouth moved from its original position. And she couldn’t help but admire his impeccable sense of dressing. 

Neil was instantly attracted to Isha. The moment he walked into the party, his eyes were oblivious to everyone but her. He liked her uninhibited laugh. Neil loved her really short hair and how it took nothing away from her femininity. He liked the fact that she drank whiskey and not some girlie cocktail. Isha looked like she had spent all of 10 minutes getting ready for the party and still looked fabulous. And Neil, who had been around a lot of women in his life, noticed her almost unpainted face, her classic sense of dressing and approved. 

As you may have guessed, it wasn’t long before Neil and Isha began dating. 

“Is she the one I’ve been searching for all this time?” he asked himself.

“He’s just so perfect,” she said to her friends. “I can’t believe how lucky I got.”

Barely a month into their relationship, Neil moved in with Isha. 

‘Too soon?’ he wondered.

‘It just feels so right,’ she thought.

Her light snoring was like white noise to him. Put him to sleep right away.

She loved that he made her a big breakfast every morning.

He thought her eating breakfast like a horse was adorable. 

“Most important meal of the day”, she said to him.

He also loved that she was happy to drop him to work and pick him up in the evening.

“Traffic in this city sucks. We should just Uber it,” he said.

“I don’t mind driving babe,” was her response. 

"You're adorable," he said blowing her a kiss.

"No, you are," she said with a crooked smile. 

They celebrated their first month anniversary of living together. He bought her an enormous bouquet of flowers. She bought him a dozen crimson roses. 

“They were the manliest flowers I could find. Why can’t men get flowers?” she asked.

“No reason,” he responded.

“Lets not go out,” they both decided.

They stayed in with bottles of chilled beer, pepperoni pizza, four kinds of ice-cream and jazz in the background.

“This is the best evening,” he said.

“The absolute best,” she agreed.

Five more months went by. They didn’t celebrate those monthly anniversaries any longer though.

“I don’t want us to be one of those ‘sickeningly in love’ couples,” she said.

“Pukingly in love,” he replied.

A few more months and it was their one year anniversary. However, neither of them had remembered. Waking up in the living room couch, he felt relieved when he realized that Isha wasn’t home. He didn’t want to deal with the awkwardness after the words that had been exchanged the previous night. His suitcases were already packed and all he wanted was to get out of the apartment before she returned with that annoying face and her barber shop haircut. And that irritating laugh of hers would probably ring in his head for the rest of his life. He couldn’t stand her snoring and had started sleeping on the couch. And who the heck eats that much every single morning? 

She had left the apartment early, not wanting to see him again. 

“I can’t stand that stupid smile of his!” she had said emphatically to Yash as they ordered breakfast. “It couldn’t be any more fake.”

"The asshole's innocent face had me completely fooled."

“Takes him longer to get dressed than me in the morning.”

“Why the hell can’t he take over the wheel once in a while? Do I look like his bloody chauffeur?”

And so their one year anniversary came and went. Life got better for both of them without the other being around. Everything that they had loved about each other became the very things that began getting on their nerves. 

“What did I ever see in him?” she thought.

“I must have lost my mind,” thought he.

And so dear reader, I come to the end of this story. And while you may think that the whole thing is made up, it is as real as you and I. You know what they say about familiarity. It really does breed contempt. 

A Little Bit of Childhood

I wrote this piece almost 6 years ago but for some reason never posted it. Cleaned it up and sharing it today with a lump in my throat.

I could have gone back to bed but I was certain that sleep would not come. Besides it wasn’t important. Sitting on the couch in the living room, being one with my thoughts was what I wanted at this time. I looked at my wallet on the table, carelessly strewn across from my laptop, the credit card used to reserve the flight to Patna still outside. A little piece of plastic with so much power. 

It was early, by several hours. The only time I could remember waking up before sunrise was to catch either a flight or a train. This time however, I wasn’t the one that was traveling. A father had passed away and a son was getting ready to board a flight to light his funeral pyre. 

Memories are such a magical way of reliving the past. We were getting a new driver for a second car that my father was buying. This one too, just like the previous, an Ambassador. He was a young man with a slight frame, sitting behind that enormous wheel, easily maneuvering the monstrosity of a car through crowded Calcutta streets. 

I remember his signature handlebar mustache covering most of his gaunt face. Looking at him, all one saw were the flamboyant whiskers above his lips and his smiling, twinkling eyes. And now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen eyes that twinkled as much as his did. He used to call me maalik loosely translated to ‘boss’ even though I was just a young boy. I never thought anything of it back then and I guess he did it was because I was the only male among us five siblings. I shamelessly called him by his first name without a tag of bhaiya for  ‘older brother’ or ji to show respect. 

He used to live in a little room that was below our apartment, most of the time by himself. His mornings consisted of exercising, washing the car and getting ready to take my dad to his factory at 7 am. Sometimes I would watch him doing what-seemed-like an endless number of push ups. Even though he had a slight frame, he was an incredibly strong man. My best friend and I would sit on his shoulders and he would take us for a walk. I feel horribly guilty about it now. Looking at him one could never imagine that he could be as strong as he was. You may find hard to believe what I’m about to write - if I hadn’t actually been there to see it for myself, I would laugh it off as myth. 

There was a rock that used to sit in Tilak (his name) ji’s room about the size of two bricks joined together. My closest friend at the time and I would try our hardest to move that rock from it’s spot using every bit of strength we had, with absolutely no luck. But then we were just a couple of kids and this wasn’t just any ordinary rock - it was much talked about and people would come from across the city to try and lift it, including some weight lifters. Nobody however, could get it to even budge the slightest bit. Each time the person would give up, Tilak, in his 5’3” lean frame would walk across to it, bend down and with one powerful grunt, lift it from the ground and slowly bring it up as far as his arms could go. His son, Rajesh, who now works for me, tells me that when his dad was moving back to the village, he carried that rock from the taxi to the train all by himself because no porter could handle it. I now believe that all this strength came from his mind, which was way stronger than his body. 

When, a few years ago, my mother was confined to her bed and he came to visit her, the mustache was primarily grey but the twinkle and the smile were just the same. Every morning he would wake up early, shower, shave, get into his perfectly starched kurta and dhoti and spend time with my mother, doing everything he could to make her more comfortable. We always glorify the dead but everything I say about this man is completely true. He was the nicest, gentlest, most sensitive person I have ever come across. His heart was filled with love for everyone but when it came to my mother, he literally worshipped the ground she walked on. 

That was the last time I saw Tilak ji. In retrospect, I wish I had spent more time with him - people like him are rare and just being in his presence would have been so much more enriching than my corporate career. We go through lives with such warped priorities and by the time we realize what’s really important, the opportunities in most cases, are long gone. 

I had a slight smile on my face, even though tears were streaming down my eyes. It was no small thing growing up, being blessed with the presence of such a human being. And as I sat on my living room couch, my mind taking me to places that I hadn’t been to in a long time, I realized that today an important bit of my childhood had left me. Had left me craving for more. 

My Varanasi Trip in Pictures

Last year in November, my friend Vinod and I decided to make a trip to Varanasi. I had been there once a few years earlier and something that I can't explain kept calling me back. It was the first time for Vinod and I knew that with him being a devout Hindu, I would be experiencing and learning about things that I wouldn't otherwise.

Being the oldest living city, Varanasi attracts hoards of tourists from across the world. Hindu's go to this Holy city to wash away their sins and offer their prayers at various important temples, Kashi Vishvanath being the holiest of all the Lord Shiva temples. Most foreign travelers include Varanasi in their itinerary because a trip to India would simply be incomplete without it. 

Whether it's religion or curiosity that draws you to Varanasi, almost everyone I've encountered agrees that it's a place like no other. Both times I was there, I took literally hundreds of photos. Here are just a few to give you a glimpse into my last stay.

What better way to start your day than with prayer. Mornings in Varanasi are really my favorite time, beginning with a beautiful sunrise, the waking up of the ghats, boats floating gently in the Ganga river and temple bells in the background. 

Mornings are also a great time to go for a boat ride. Feeding the birds is optional but so much fun.

Its time to eat! On all four days, breakfast consisted of kachoris and jalebis (see bottom), which is probably as unhealthy as one can get. Never went back to the same place and we saved the best for our last day, which was a 20 minute hike from our hotel. A brisk morning walk followed by consuming a million calories!

This photo with 5 humans and a dog clustered together makes me smile. Is personal space overrated? Does sharing space actually bring us more joy? I encounter a lot of loneliness amongst the more affluent. Have we forgotten how to share our time, our space, our joys and sorrows in the real world because we're so busy sharing our lives on social networks?

Hindu's believe that bathing in the Holy Ganga river will wash away their sins. These two are unabashedly having a great time. No sins to wash so let's just have some fun!

The choreographed Ganga aarti (evening prayers by the Ganges river) is spectacular and Vinod and I looked forward to it every evening that we were there. Varanasi gets a large number of foreign tourists, one of who from the UK confessed to me that it was this evening aarti that had brought her back for a second visit. 

Man or animal, there's a lot of introspection that happens in Varanasi

Your head finds so much that is wrong with Varanasi. Your heart, on the other hand, just chooses to look at everything that makes this oldest living city so incredibly special.

Varanasi can never be explained. It can only be experienced. You either love it or you hate it and I completely understand both emotions. The love that I have for it, sometimes even takes me by surprise.

Shortly before heading to Sarnath and then the airport,  I decided to walk around the ghats one last time. It was late afternoon, strangely quiet and I was trying to absorb the sights and sounds that are so unique to Varanasi. Even though I had been there for 4 days, I knew that there was still so much that I was leaving behind to discover in my next visit.