A Love Letter to TISS & Bombay

This post is long due. It has been 9 months and 26 days of being home, of leaving Bombay. And in these nine months, there has hardly been a day when I have not thought of the city, of my college, of friends who I had to leave behind in a haste. Despite posting umpteen number of pictures on Instagram, doing so many 3-hour long video calls, I somehow don't seem to get enough of the two years that I spent in TISS. 

I wonder if things would have been different if we had not been asked to leave the way we did. 

On 17th March 2020, I booked my tickets for home after being told that we have to evacuate hostels. Amidst packing, I went to tapri with friends for some chai-maggi. My father called to discuss the logistics and I started crying. I don't know if it was the fear of the virus or the uncertainty of the future or just this forced rushed up good-bye that I was supposed to say to my college that has given me the best two years of my life. 

The plan was to submit the dissertation and the final film and then stay in Bombay for one and a half more months till convocation. Sure, it would have been hot and there was no cooler or AC in the hostel but the idea of staying and exploring Bombay still seemed nice. I was making a list of places that I would visit. I was also planning on buying a new saree for convocation. I had imagined the convocation so many times in my head but not once did I think that I would be sitting miles away from the TISS quadrangle looking at Nagesh Sir taking our names one by one through a screen. 

I imagined my convocation to be on a humid sunny day when everyone is running around, taking pictures even with people who they don't like much, showing parents around, and absorbing the beauty that TISS is for the one last time. And here I was sitting in layers of clothing in my bed watching the convocation that seemed nothing like a convocation. There were no hugs exchanged this time, only screenshots taken on the google meet that I reluctantly joined thinking that it might be better to laugh it out with friends than cry alone. 

I have thought about writing this blog many times but there were never enough words. I don't know what it was about TISS or Bombay that thinking about it still gives me heartache. When I look at old pictures I think it was my short hair. Haha. Does that make sense?

I miss the person that I was. I miss how TISS and Bombay gave me the confidence to just be. There were no frills. There was never any thought put into how I was looking and what people are thinking about me. Bombay was too far from the familiar. From North India. From the kind of people, I have lived around all my life. Bombay was different from anything that I had ever seen or experienced. It embraced me and gave me the kind of anonymity that was liberating. 

There is something about your hair not covering your neck. It feels light as if the weight is gone both literally and metamorphically. 

Everyone I met was kind and somehow knew that I was new in the city. I remember my first cab ride from the airport to the TISS campus. The driver was a chatty fellow. Being from Delhi, I had a kind of cynism that pushes you to have your guard on in front of strangers. He asked me where I was coming from and I reluctantly told him. As soon as he got to know that I was new, he told me about the weather, what I can expect and the places I should definitely visit before leaving. 'Bombay is the city to be seen in the night', he said. 

Getting into TISS was a dream I had been living with for two years. So when P told me about the history of TISS and how old the college was, it charmed me. In the class, AnJ talked about their journey and how TISS has been an integral part of it. Both of them were newly married when they came here, they had their daughter on the campus and now they retired in 2020. The library, hostels, quadrangle seemed like places where so many stories like mine must have unfolded. I watched women who are now in their sixties talking about what TISS meant to them in the eighties and nineties on Youtube and imagined myself doing the same someday. I was beyond happy to be a part of this institution and that happiness never faded in the two years that I spent here, not even on the longest days. 

I remember sending an audio note to R and telling her about how much I loved the classes here. I liked the course so much. The realization that I had chosen something that finally fits hit me on the very first day. I was in awe of most of the things that I was reading in the class. My world suddenly seemed to have become bigger and complicated but also simple. I was getting my answers. I was reading definitions and names for things that I have struggled with for years. It was humbling to know that everything that I feel has been felt by so many people who have come before me, and they have written about it. 

There was just so much to learn and unlearn from everyone around. I met students of all kinds, from all parts of the world, teaching me just by being. TISS pushed me. I pulled all-nighters to finish assignments, learned how to shoot and edit despite being supremely uncomfortable with technology. I started writing and publishing. I became my own person. For the first time, I knew what I want. And as someone who has been indecisive all their life, it was a big thing. TISS also gave me the courage to clearly see and separate the things that I really wish for and the things that society has conditioned me to desire. None of this happened in one day and if it did I can't pinpoint which day it was. Everything flowed and the change was so gradual that it never announced itself. 

My gallery is filled with pictures of sunsets taken at the Marine Drive. I can't even begin to describe how it was to see the sea for the first time. Most of the people don't remember their first time or they have just been familiar with the sea all along. For me, it was about imagining Bombay all through my growing years and then finally seeing it only to realize how all those beautiful poems and songs written for and about Bombay are true. 

The city gave me a 24-hour clock. Nights were not unsafe for the first time. I was happily surprised to see families and children and friends chilling together at Marine Drive after midnight. There was nothing not normal about it. This is what they have known all along. Bombay is kind and gentle and accepting. For someone like me who has been used to rushing home/hostel at 8 PM because that was the curfew time, nights outside were more like a forbidden fruit. 

Also, in Bombay, the world seemed to be less like a man's world. I never found myself alone. There were always women around. Women of all kinds, of all age groups. Just knowing that they are around was comforting. And so me being anywhere at any point in time never attracted attention because there were many like me, who looked out for me by merely existing.

Two years in Bombay were also about seeing pain and misery very closely. And on somedays also living with it. I was a part of a community where people every day were struggling to wake up and make a difference, to do something that makes them sleep better at night. TISS taught me that kindness does not come easy but we still need to strive for it. It humbled me in so many ways to be aware of my privileges. I learnt the meaning of solidarity, and what it is to be there for each other. 

There is no end to this blog. No concluding line. 

I have no two lines to sum up my experience. There are still big and small details that are missing, that I want to put together. 

So I am going to leave it here hanging abruptly and would come back to it someday. Till then, just want to put it out there that I am very grateful. 

Lockdown Chores

There are certain things out there in the world, in books, in movies, in memes, in poetry that we don’t understand or relate to. One of those things, for me, has been the love for chai (tea).

I have never understood that uncle who asks for 10 cups of tea in a day, never understood friends who attach tea with nostalgia and limerence. It’s not just people, books and movies are also filled with romantic anecdotes of tea. Tea breaks at Tapri and tea dates at Irani cafes were sacrosanct in college. Some people paired it with Brun Maska and some with cigarettes (chai-sutta). At times, tea became the glue that gelled people instantly. They said tea can be a comforting company on a lonely day or something that one turns to after a tiresome schedule. Long-distance friendships were also rescued by tea; tagging each other in chai related memes became a thing.

Sigh. I was never a part of this party. I have had tea but only to give company to people. I have even been borderline irritated at friends who made assumptions and ordered tea for me without asking. I am in my mid-twenties and somehow a cup of tea or coffee never made their way to my daily routine.

However, things change. As they say, these are not normal times. While in the last five months the world around me has changed drastically, I couldn’t help but notice how ‘tea’ tiptoed its way into my life. I have been home since March. When the house chores got divided in an unstated way, brewing the evening tea became my job.  I was indifferent. I had no business with tea. I did not make it for myself and only followed the regular obvious way of making it without giving it much thought.

However, eventually, after doing this for a few days, I realised that I have started looking forward to it. It gave structure to my day. Now, I knew exactly what I have to do as soon as work got over. Honestly, when everything in the world is bizarre, predictability becomes comforting.

I started walking towards the kitchen with a little jump in my feet. From a ‘chore’ it became a part of my day that helped me unwind. Long days of work became better by watching the simmering tea change its colour from milky white to sunset orange. It was my time of solitude. I stared at the tea, imagined shapes in the froth as it subsided and thought about nothing. It calmed me down. 

Yesterday, when the tea was almost done, I let my face soak the steam and lungs fill up with the essence of ginger, cardamom and tulsi. And there it was my ‘Julie and Julia’ moment. I think this is the closest I have come to tea. 

Not a cup, but a pan of tea has certainly become a part of my life now. 

Incoherent

Are there days when you feel a lot like a little too much. Days when things feel more painful or happy or frustrating than they actually are. Or maybe these are the days when you are not able to brush your feelings away under some numb activity like scrolling or Netflixing.

You close your eyes for some respite and suddenly see yourself sitting on a bench with someone you knew seven years ago but don't want to know or remember anymore. Memories are persistent and stubborn though. They stay. The bad ones sometimes longer than the good ones. Or maybe I am just self-pitying and cribbing here. Maybe, all memories are equally persistent. 

It is difficult to write coherently on such days. Your mind is full of so many thoughts. One can say that why not write all of them. But it is still difficult, you know because while you are writing about one thing, the other thoughts start hitting the walls of your brain. Wanting to come out. I am not sure if they want to come out or if you want to get rid of them. Does that happen? 

Adults are a sugarcoated, superficial, glittery bundle of shit. On most days I don't like them. However, I am an adult now and maybe I am becoming exactly what I despised. 

I like observing my sixteen-year-old brother though. His energy is infectious. While I am typing all this grimness frantically on my laptop. He just entered the room with a lot of ice in his hands. He was playing with it. Sometimes, I feel bad about not being responsive enough when he is in a playful mood. He looks happy. Was I also like him when I was a 15-year-old? 

I am not sure if it's a good thing but in my head, I was never young. Maybe it's because of the good old stereotype where you say 'girls mature faster than boys'. No, they don't and even if they do, it's not nice. My most prominent memory of my younger self is writing diaries. I used to write poetry and other random things. I had several diaries. I remember once on Rakshabandhan my brother gifted me a lock-diary. I was very happy. But I could never use it. It was too pink and small. That's not my problem though. It was just not comfortable to write in it. The pages were fancy but loose. They would come out easily. I guess the priority of the makers was to make that diary look pretty. They never focussed on making it useful. Sounds familiar? Might sound familiar if you are born a female in a patriarchal world. 

I read a quote today. 

If you want to talk about anything, you have to talk about everything first.

It's relatable at this moment. I don't know what I am writing about. But it also feels like if I want to share just one thing with you, I will have to share a lot of things, which I would love to do, but some other day. It's been a heavy day. I can list the reasons but I prefer not to archive them. It's better to not archive. I am not a fan of archiving anyway.

I don't think about the readers of this blog much because I know there must not be many. But today I am thinking about them. I am thinking about you, in case you are here, reading this. It's weird. Sometimes I like it because this blog is a way to put things out there. In the universe, I suppose. But today I am getting creeped out. What if someone I am not fond of is reading these random details of my day. 

There are days when I romanticise the existence of this blog. I watched Julie and Julia and was elated to see what Julia did with her blog in a year. It was also on Blogspot by the way. But then there are days when I am just bleh (cynical) about everything in life and the world, including this blog. 

I think it must have been one of these days when I destroyed all my personal diaries. In my defence, I was just trying to save them from the eyes of the world. 

Pandemic Poetry

reading a poem

has lately been difficult

i read a line, the first line

and then the second

and then again the first 

to make sense of it

i still don't hear the poet

i don't get it.

what is she trying to say

the metaphors take

too long to unfold

i feel an itch on the nose

read the second line again

drink a glass of water

come back to the poetry

read the third line

while thinking about 

the image of that hungry man

drinking milk from the road

with the dogs

read the fourth line

about the blossoms

i get that

it reminds me 

of the rain flowers

and the rain and 

the muddy feet

the phone vibrates

and i scroll 

through flowers and skies

and empty roads

some random numbers

talking about death

i come back to the poem

go on to the next stanza

the metaphors ask 

for my attention

but my mind wanders

art heals? it does.

who does it heal, though?

Uniform Does Not Guarantee Safety

A couple of weeks ago I had to go to the hospital at around three in the night because a health supplement that I took after dinner did not suit my body. I went to a good private nearby hospital. Contrary to my imagination, the hospital was not at all crowded. I met two nurses in the casualty and they asked me to sit, saying that the doctor will arrive soon. The doctor came and after listening to me said that he will give me an injection and after that, I can go home. I am not scared of injections but the moment he said that my mind was filled with horrifying thoughts. What if this injection makes me unconscious and the man standing in front of me in the white coat violates me? I created a whole scene and inquired about the injection as much as I could. I googled everything before I let him give me the injection. The doctor and the nurses obviously got irritated but, fortunately, I reached back home (hostel) safe.

Often the white coat or a uniform is not enough assurance for a woman to feel safe because what she sees is not a doctor or a policeman but just a man who could be a potential predator. My previous roommate once told me that she checks the door of her balcony multiple times before going to sleep at night. My classmate says that she becomes restless if she is the only woman in a lift filled with men.  These are not the stories of just one or two women but of all of us who are independently living away from home. According to WHO, the high prevalence of sexual violence to which women are exposed and the correspondingly high rate of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) following such violence, renders women the largest single group of people affected by this disorder. It’s disheartening that when women meet, today, for a dinner or a sleepover, they end up sharing and discussing the trauma that the everyday banal violence causes.  

What is sad, though, is that all of this is not enough talked about in the mainstream media.  It takes a rape or a murder to happen to bring the attention of the society towards half of its population. It’s not just about the man who abuses but also about the society that acts as a constant enabler. The harder questions are still being brushed under the carpet. It’s easier to blame the night or the darkness or the empty street but what about the harassment that happens in the broad daylight at home by someone who is not even a stranger.  Young girls are raised to be tolerant and empathetic while our boys are raised with such inflated egos that it’s hard for them to understand and accept a ‘no’.  If our answer, as a society, to every question is still “boys will be boys”, if hundreds of people are still clapping on a rape scene in cinema halls and if we are still okay with making and telling rape jokes then I am sorry but our outrage towards this heinous crime really means nothing.

It’s That Time of the Year Again

It’s that time of the year again.

It’s December. It’s Christmas. It’s the New Year.

The other day I heard someone saying that December is a mood. Sure, it is. It’s a mood which constantly makes me feel that everyone in the world is much happier than I would ever be. It’s a mood where people around me are generally planning vacations and I would still be in the middle of my everyday chores. Assignments, college, laundry, job etc. etc.

English films and various other pop culture references have made new years and Christmas a thing for most of us. People often come up to me and ask about my new year plans and I don’t really know what to say. While growing up, I spent my new year’s eve watching random award shows on TV with my brother while everyone at home slept at their usual time.

After joining college, New Year’s Eve for everyone else was all about drinking and forgetting all the worries. But neither I drink, nor do I forget my worries. So while everyone will be giggling and dancing their way to a new year, I will be sitting in a corner thinking that how are they doing this. How are they so happy and I am not.

Now that it’s that time of the year again, I am already anxious about people calling me a bore. People asking me to come to some random party to chill and getting disappointed to hear a ‘no’.

But the thing is that I like quiet. I would prefer going to sleep at eleven than partying all night. I would prefer having dinner with my loved ones than going to a party full of acquaintances and socializing.

I would any day prefer new years to be a normal day where there isn’t so much pressure to be happy.

The Train, Yet Again

Thirty hours is a lot of time to be spent on the train, at least for me. 

My favourite berth is side-lower for it allows me to have minimal interaction with other people. The people occupying lower, middle and upper berth mostly indulge in discussions related to weather or food, sometimes politics too. Side berth gives me the option to just sit back and enjoy the conversation, if it's interesting, or turn around and pretend to be asleep, in case I am bored. Rarely people turn to the person sitting on the side berth to talk unless the person who is supposed to be on the side-upper berth is actually sitting in front of you and is looking at you with a wide smile.

Last vacation, once again, I took a train from Bombay, Lokmanya Tilak Terminal, to home. I got the tickets done early and hence I was relieved to be on the side-lower berth. There was no one on the side-upper berth and so I conveniently took two pillows, plugged in my earphones, and started watching one of the gazillion things that I had downloaded on my phone for this long journey. After a couple of hours of watching and napping, I woke up to this lady sitting in front of me wearing a wide smile. I tried to smile too and sheepishly returned her pillow.

I got up, sat and folded my legs to give her enough space to sit. She smiled again and opened the curtains. The glass of the window of a third-AC compartment is like a sepia-toned blurred wallpaper. You can’t clearly see, but you still like what you see. After a few minutes, she asked me where I was coming from. I got confused if she wanted to know the station that I boarded the train from or about my hometown. So, I told her both. After half an hour of conversation and her showing me pictures of her kids, she offered me a small pack of Bourbon and water. I refused to take the biscuits even though Bourbon is my favourite. I don’t like eating much on the train, especially on a thirty-hours journey. I eagerly took the water though. I had finished my water bottle a while ago and had been waiting for a vendor. No one showed up though; they are not very frequent in AC compartments.

She got down after a couple of hours. I envied her for my destination was still quite afar. After her, I saw a lot of people coming and going while I was still curled up inside the sheets. I have taken uncountable train rides to home. Faizabad, my home, doesn’t have an airport. The nearest one is Lucknow though, which is used in case of urgencies and emergencies. Earlier I used to take an overnight train from Delhi to Faizabad. It used to be the best. I would sit at around seven in the evening, eat the burger that I got packed from the station MacDonalds and sleep, only to wake up to the hustle-bustle of Faizabad station. My father would be trying to see through the window glass and I would wave at him only to realize that he can’t see me. Delhi to Faizabad is only twelve hours. Twelve hours in a train is warm and cosy and even better if you decide to watch a film like Highway, which I used to do quite often.

The days of loving the train rides have become a thing of past since I have shifted to Mumbai. Now it’s more about convenience and feasibility. This time I was very eager to get down from the train, so as soon as I overheard someone saying that Faizabad is just an hour away I started taking out my bags. I also checked the sheets and the pillow and the entire berth to be honest. I did not want to forget my earphones or charger in a hurry. I came out and stood at the gate. The train went right past my father and then stopped a few seconds later. I saw him following the train and me. As soon as I got down, he kissed my forehead and I touched his feet and then gave him an awkward hug.

I reached home and saw my grandmother standing at the gate waiting for me. After meeting her, I walked straight into the kitchen only to find my mother preparing my favourite breakfast. Later in the day, I was telling my brother, who is still in school, about the train journey and the lady I met. He instantly said, “But don’t you know that we shouldn’t take food from strangers. What if she stole your stuff or did something bad?” I had no answers so I just apologized and promised to be more careful next time.