Inked

Getting a tattoo is just like going through a breakup. It is messy, painful, you lose blood and some sleep, but it is totally worth it!

Stage 1: The act

The minute the needle starts piercing through your skin, and you lose the first drop of blood, you begin to think if it is worth it at all.  And this is when the tattoo artist starts looking like a dopehead who will not hesitate to plunge his needle right through your heart if you make even a slight whimper.

Scissorhands will scissor your hand right off

Stage 2: Denial

The morning after I got inked, I woke up to a plasma-oozing kitty cat that was now permanently etched on my skin. Permanently. No looking back. I flipped so much and so hard, and my screams rattled the neighbourhood. And then the denial began – Maybe the ink won’t stay. Maybe it will run out.  Maybe my hand will be good as new the day after. Right? RIGHT? No.

Stage 3: Anger

In exactly 48 hours, your beautiful tattoo starts looking like this:

The kitty-gets-dipped-in-slime tattoo

Yes. Scabs form, it becomes itchy, the skin feels tight, and you would do anything to get that goddamn heavy feeling off your heart (and your wrist, in this case). I also wanted to kill Mr.J, my genius friend and tattoo-partner-in-crime for talking me into this!

It did not help that a trip home was scheduled around the same time. If my mother’s glares could kill, all of you would have been sitting across the fire singing Kumbaya for my peaceful passing.

Stage 4: Guilt

So the tattoo is there but it still does not belong to you. After the scabs fall off, a thin transparent layer of skin forms over the tattoo. In tattoo-lang, it is called the onion skin. This does not fall off until the Halley's Comet zips past the sky five times. And then the introspection begins: So, why did I do this to myself? What went wrong? Was the tattoo an overcompensation for my other failures? Does the tattoo really look like a cat? What the hell was I thinking? Do I even like cats? 

Stage 5: Depression

The onion skin just does not fall off. The ink looks faded. Your friends still scoff. WebMD makes life tougher with all those graphic articles about how chemical tattoo dye infections can result in possible amputation. And your hand still needs baby oil every couple of hours, to not look like King Joffery at the Purple Wedding.

My wrist could die a hundred times like this, and my onion skin would still be there!

Okay!! Maybe not that bad. But waiting for this piece of skin to fall off has been the longest wait of my life.

Stage 6: Sweet, sweet freedom :)

And just like that, one day you wake up to this beautiful tattoo, shiny again, beaming at you. 

Inked!

And despite the melodramatic and symbolic crumbling of life that was supposed to be explained through this post, all you have got to remember is that - it always comes back together! And just like that :) 

Can you breathe?

Emotions. Desires. Ambition. Expectation. Death.

And when death precedes them all. When you invite death. When you willingly submit yourself at the altar of everything that ends; how hopeless would you have felt?

How utterly devoid of hope? 

Imagine being locked inside a room. Just a dark room. No windows. No doors. No beginning and no end in sight. You could have called though. One call for help. 

How resolute did you feel when you hid in the bathroom and drank out of the bottle? And later when you cried in pain? And much later when your body started giving up? 

And when the doctors tried to puncture holes in your throat to help you breathe, did you want to fight? Did you regret your decision? Did you think of your favourite song? Did you think of all the great journeys we have had together?

Do you remember the time both of us almost got thrown out of the bus for being raucous? Do you remember the innumerable times you bailed us both out of trouble? Do you remember our long conversations on the sidewalk?

You, with your long hair and graceful eyes, mindful of the boys staring at us; yet dismissing them with a callous flick of your head. You were beautiful even without trying. Have I ever told you that?

You are gone now. Just like that. And I am trying to forget. To forget the shaky voice that told me you were dead.

But, your credit card bills are due. Your message on my phone still remains unanswered.

Can you breathe? I sure can’t.

Women’s Day

Yes I know.. Just another day for the men to get all self-righteous and post ‘Love all women like you love your mother and sister’ sort of messages on social media, and just another day for the women to.. well, gloat :) Not that I am complaining. But, this year, even though it has barely been 60 days, has taught me so many lessons that I feel compelled to share these learnings. So, here goes:

• Never apologise for who you are. You are what you are. You could be short, you could be tall. You could make heads turn with your outfit or falling down face first on a slippery floor. Either way, you rock the show.

• Never compromise when it comes to work. It might mean working on Saturdays and giving up your Friday movie nights with your girlfriends. But, it is immensely satisfying. The high you get after a job done well is pretty much incomparable.

• Learn to let go. Some things are just not worth holding a grudge against. Most of the times they are not even that important.

• It is ok to feel angry. There have been days I have stormed out of my house, because the omelette on my tava did not behave. And that’s fine. Who says you need to be on your best behaviour every single day? Go on, be a grumpy cat one day.

•  Always help a friend in need. Not to mention the karma points, but you gotta give some to get some.

• Clean. Clean your cupboard. Clean your house. Dust the TV. Wipe the mirror. Yes, it is a stereotype, but it is cathartic. Isn’t it liberating to break away from the shackles of living with an empty chips bag under your bed?

• And here comes the big one: It is OKAY to listen to Backstreet Boys. And to crush on Nick. And to wonder if AJ is still single.   Actually it is OKAY to listen any boy band that does not overdose on auto-tune. 

So, HAPPY women’s day! Try singing to the song and feel like a pro :) Gloat away ladies!  

Welcoming the New Year

2013 in review wouldn’t exactly be my favourite topic. Fall-outs, anger, angst, sadness, and rejection took their own time to slowly and dramatically change my life for the better. For the good half of the year, I had no faith in myself and was almost at the verge of settling for something that I knew wasn’t worth my time at all – professionally and personally. However, the miracle, in the form of an amazing job, taught me never, ever to second-guess my talents and never to give up.

The most important lesson I have learnt this year is to never limit myself. We often set so many invisible barriers around us and then wonder why our lives have become miserable. I have been told so many times not to get too comfortable with a city or take up a demanding job, simply because I would never know when I would have to ‘give it all up’ as I am at a ‘marriageable’ age.

So, this year, my dreams are sky-high. I want to adopt a cat, no matter what, this year. I want to learn to drive. I want to learn to swim. I want to read as many books as I can. I want to muster up enough courage to finally meet with a publishing house. Most importantly, I want to stop doing things I don’t care about anymore. So, here’s to a fantastic 2014.

Happy new year! 

That one time I almost died...

I have always taken travelling in a bus for granted – Hop in, curl up under the smelly blanket, and hope that the speed bumps on the road do not break your back. Until, I woke up dangling off a 20 ft elevated highway at 3 AM in the morning.

My dad, mom and I were on a temple trip to a nearby village in Tamil Nadu.  The sole intention of the trip was to bribe Lord Shiva enough and accelerate the process of finding a unicorn that wanted to marry me (being 26 and having dramatic ‘will we ever see grandkids’ type of parents is not easy, I tell you)

So, half the journey went without a hitch; until at about 2.30 AM in the wee hours of the morning, when the driver stopped the bus for the very crudely put ‘ladies toilet’ break. As the driver shook us awake and demanded that all the women go for their ‘onnu’ now or never, all of us groggily trooped out. The thinly veiled threat of not stopping for even ‘urgent’ matters, actually worked.

After settling back into the smelly blankets, the bus had barely moved for ten minutes, when it started doing a weird bumpy dance.  Like a bewildered rocking chair that went sideways instead of to and fro. This continued with increased intensity and frequency, until we heard the chilling sound of a window shatter and the bus screeched to a resounding halt.

You never realize how scary an accident can be, until you are in one.  You can see the world whirl outside, hear frantic horns, cries of surprise and shock, and feel every single bone of your body shake in fear.  Our bus, to avoid a collision with a lorry that had abruptly braked in the middle of the freaking highway, suddenly swerved and almost fell off a 20 ft elevation.

What actually happened

This left the driver, conductor, my dad, mom and I, almost dangling off the highway in the middle of the night.  As the tyres had sunk into the mud, the doors of the bus refused to open.  This is when the whole ‘we are OMFGodly trapped inside a bus that could blow up any minute’ tension started to grow. The conductor sensing an alarm (or probably just looking at my pale, resigned to death, face) broke open an emergency exit window at the back. All of us, in a Spidermanisque moment, jumped out of the window one by one.

Then, the wait began. Like some sort of displaced refugees, we stood with our baggage on the side of the highway, under the pouring rain for 40 whole minutes. There was real fear of other speeding vehicles splattering our brains, but somehow we survived. I just stood there, shaking like a leaf, amidst the heavy rains, the gloomy police patrol vans, and the reckless lorry driver (who had by then escaped) being called ‘eruma maadu’.

Our rescue bus finally arrived with flashy lights and a driver who had the smug ‘I think I just saved a bunch of idiots by the road’ look.  My mother, obviously traumatized, remarked that this was all ‘andha Shivan oda’ miracle.

Drenched, scared-shit, and stunned, I could only think – if this really was the Lord’s doing, then our Gods must be crazy!

Ship of Theseus - a rocky ride

If all organs in our body are replaced, do we still remain the same – asks the funny sidekick to his stock-market crazy boss towards the end of the movie. This offhanded and funny remark pretty much sums up what the actual Theseus paradox signifies. This movie is full of moments like this.

Mumbai comes alive on screen – sometimes in chaos and sometimes in deep, contemplative silence. Every frame is beautifully etched and echoes the gloom of reality. One scene stood out for me in particular – The photographer, who goes to a pristine mountain landscape, in desperate need of some inspiration, realizes that she does not find any. Her anguish is clearly reflected in the angry rivulet that gushes forth and in a moment of distress, when she loses the lenscover of her camera, your heart goes out to her.

Another very poignant scene is where the stock-market guy screams at his grandmother and says that happiness and compassion is all we need, while she argues that he still needs to experience a wider range of emotions. At this juncture, all of us are torn because we agree with the guy and with the grandmother too.

What I really respect about the movie is that it does not try to milk your tears dry with its overt sentimentality. There are no scenes of animals being tortured endlessly, and no unnecessary footage of the diseased monk frothing at his mouth.

The movie challenges several notions about life, art, and religion. Is the photographer’s creativity worth more than life-saving vision? Can the monk ever make peace with the fact that he is alive at the cost of torturing several animals? Can the stock broker finally grasp what his grandmother meant by ‘this is as good as it gets’?

Kiran Rao's 'Dhobi Ghat' left me thinking 'too wannabe arthouse', but this hits the nail right on. So, do watch the movie and be prepared to leave the hall feeling unsettled.

Failure

There are a few days when you feel like a complete moron for asking inane questions at workplace.  Over the last few years, I have come to realize that it is okay to feel that way. It is okay to ask stupid questions. It is okay if you get judgmental looks for sounding so dumb. It is okay to be rejected. It is okay to feel worthless. And it is perfectly okay to fall face first. Because, if you stop failing, you stop learning. If you stop feeling worthless, you will never be able to push yourself. If you do not cry, you can never appreciate the happy times.

Today, I begin to feel stupid. Today, I begin learning. Once again.