I feel like a pressure cooker waiting to explode. Maybe that is an exaggeration. This past week, I went on the equivalent of a bender, staying up deep into the night, unable to switch off, and then because of the mosquitoes, unable to sleep, too tired to think straight about my mother's health or to work, only seeing that things were slowly going down another notch. It is worsened by several things because of the boss I have, who is an immense pheku and slacker and politicker who gets away with murder everytime. While I have tried to play along, I just feel exhausted by her now. And I have also done a khal ketey kumir aana, I think.
Sunday has been better, I think. Anyway, I go to bloody Solan in this cold weather for a product presentation. God knows what will happen there.
I have discovered Shameless. Weird how the end of the year always throws up these things. Last year's was Queer as Folk, again by Showtime. It's about a 'dirt-poor' and extremely dysfunctional family from South Side, Chicago. I was thinking about Fiona. She didn't bail out on her family. People do get dealt a far harder deal than they deserve, but they don't cop out. So maybe I too. It's satisfying and a bit of a relief, rather than easy identification, to immerse myself into another world, another set of lives. O keeps saying that you should not have to be your mother's keeper, that she does not know what she would do in a similar situation and that she sees clearly that staking your all for someone is something she would never do again. I don't think she engages with that anymore, but well, faced with it, there's nothing else to do, is there?
A whole year has passed by since this started, and it is just the beginning. Yet, also relief that more time has passed by, like ticking off the boxes.
A is very happily pregnant, O says. And we both expect C will be next. God, how the cycle of life must continue. That does not preclude how much I look forward to being, well, a mashi. Haha, how crude that sounds. I have been damaged forever by being awake to the possibility of double entendres in everything.
I think the more difficult people's lives are, the more they laugh. 

I watched Haider today. Apart from the fact that it was time I decided to keep just for myself – no worrying about ma, but giving myself over to pleasure – it was moving for other reasons.

It made me remember Hamlet, perhaps why it had touched me so much when I read it in school, just the play without the many readings one came to hear of in college, and how deeply, deeply affecting it is in the backdrop of Kashmir. You cannot ignore it, you cannot swallow it: how much people in Kashmir have suffered, how terrible the behaviour of the army would have been, how there is no end, no justice, how much anger there is and no catharsis. There is no acceptance of such death, such loss. And how startlingly alive Shakespeare’s play is to this panorama of living. It was electrifying because of this: Vishal Bhardwaj’s adaptation, despite the unevenness of the texture of the film, the stilted acting in parts, the ebro-khebro accents. When Haider and Arshi are together the last time, and he is laughing – laughing with all the delight of being alive, the tactile immediateness of this life and the loving and then when he cries – the irrefutableness of his knowledge – there is no turning away, there is no turning over to your other side and forgetting this happened, or telling yourself this was imagination or mistake. And once the violence starts in the latter half of the film, then, as in the play, it just rages through, there’s no stopping – the mental violence as much as the physical – minds collapsing, mental frameworks giving way to oblivion – deaths, suicides. And in the end, this Hamlet remains alive – you never get to know what living there is for him after what he has seen. Which is all the more harsh, because that is how it would have been and is for those who have lived through the violence in Kashmir, and also in Palestine. I can’t imagine how people in these places reconcile the unspeakable turn of events and can still live on without losing their minds.

The anger was very close to me too. I was very angry yesterday, at my life – that this is how things have turned out to be, that yesterday, I was 31, it was Durga Puja, people around me were so very caught up in the fabric of living, and I was swirling in the memories of the 2012 pujas, when F was there, that puja photo of hers, the feel of her, her smell and her love, and dealing in present time with an ailing, cranky, uncertain mother. I was scared that this Puja might turn out to be as good as that year's. And I was just so very, very angry that even she was taken from me, that I was without someone to share it all with, that I should be without a partner or a friend to even talk to, to shout and say how angry I was, that there should be no one I can sleep with, kiss, or reach out to for the simplest physical intimacy: that my life should have panned out such that I have consciously made these choices and will live through them. In Hamlet, it is always about agency, every step of the way. At every step, he makes a choice to not kill his uncle. He recognizes the deep moral violation it means – the same violation which his uncle and mother are guilty of and which inspires such horror in him - which he cannot bring himself to do. It is this agency, and how you know you will always make this choice - and be accepting of its consequences, that felt really close to me.

In its bombastic way, the song where Haider sings and dances – the counterpart of The Mousetrap play within the play – played out here with choruses, ancient Greek drama r giant puppets – is so poignant, because through all the loud song and dance and vibrant colours, he is appealing to his uncle, a man of far inferior moral fibre, to recognize what he has done and repent for it. It feels so powerful also because it is peculiarly helpless – Hamlet, a poet, is attacking the only way he can, through words and not the body, but the mind – but it is such an inappropriate and inadequate weapon for a man whose mind is not built to be swayed by such appeals. Yes, he is remorseful, but it does not change his course of action. He is out to kill Haider till the very end.

Hamlet, or Haider, is not a man who wields arms until there is no choice left to him, but when he does, he does so with 'chutzpah'.

Now, I am thirsting to watch the original play.

It’s a long time to have been away from the blog, such an old blog now. Dear J, you are no more. Dear P, you went away with all your love for this world, your pleasure in just living. My dear friend M has a uterine cyst which the doctor won’t operate saying it’s too dangerous, and to wait till an emergency occurs, though everywhere I read suggests it’s a very treatable condition. Ma has been losing weight over the last year, has high pressure and had microalbuminuria, has been getting injections for macular oedema caused by diabetic retinopathy. In one eye, it has progressed to cystoids macular oedema, so she was given a steroid which cost Rs 38k and is supposed to last for 3 months. This last I paid for.

We were in C for a week for the yearly paperwork, and ma was relaxed and her pressure was also down. We have been back for only a couple of days, but she is tired, lethargic. I will do 5 things: get a urine chemistry done, check her pressure, start looking for a cook, take an appointment for an eye check-up and get an ECG done. Does it never become OK, with everything alright for some time?

My boss has also quit, the person coming in his place is just notorious. Ar ki, my own eye check-up is also due. The amount of flashes I have been seeing suggests I might need another laser. I have been having sweets like it’s nobody’s business, which I hope will stop once all the C sweets finish.

Did I say that we went to Jaipur, where ma’s pressure shot up? I am not sure whether it was at all a break for her. She ended with a cold which turned into a fever and stayed till I made her take Crocin. C was a break in a very obvious way in comparison. Maybe from now on, we can just take breaks by going home.

Ma bought gold earrings, rather pretty, I thought. After much fighting over whether she would put in more money than already sent down the drain for this gold scheme. I bought 3(!) pairs of silver earrings, that indigo cloth and a ghastly kurta from Jaipur. Ate phuchka, biryani and sweets religiously in C, couldn't have chicken roll, checked out 1 much-hyped new restaurant and was relieved to find that it was just hype and the food quite nondescript, went to C Club for the first time and found it nothing to write home about, went to Hatibagan and sadly, didn't buy anything.

We have this dog who comes for dinner all the way to our 4^th floor flat. And poor M the cat died. I wish I earned so much more. I met my evil aunt and it has left a bitter taste. 

Much has happened in these months. I got my left eye lasered, ran around to other eye doctors. Ma's health has taken a further small dip. 'Nobody said it was going to be nice.', but that doesn't stop it scaring the hell out of you and wish that things were better, and stop you praying that she lives longer than you fear she will.
It's the beginning of the slide, the noose is slowly tightening, it's slowly, little more than imperceptibly slipping out of our control, until the beginning of the end, jokhon hurmuriye the rope slips out of your fingers, ar tokhon tumi victim, as the waves hit you, ar matha nichu kore brave kara chhara ar kichhu karar thakey na.

I was going to write that I thought the single life would be about being able to live in a carefree way, spend as much as you want without having to worry, etc. But that is not among the things I had looked forward to, really, as a person of the world, though it is always welcome. I thought career would always happen, and the thing to get a-hold of was a really fun relationship, and lots of sex. Anyway, I digress. Because, at 31 and as a single person, 'woman', if you like, I find myself wishing I could spend money without worrying about it. Not on knick-knacks, but rather more weighty frivolities: an AC, renting a nice flat, travelling without the cost at the back of my mind, hiring a cook. The first and the last will likely happen, while I worry through them, because I might not hire an AC this year and ma is slowly getting slower, and less able to manage things by herself. And she is just 57. The other thing I end up spending money on is food, in a most Bengali way, it seems. Food for me is what clothes are for most people my age, in that it always seems a deserving and worthwhile spend: bhalo jinish ekbar ontoto chekhe dekhbo na! Clothes are, at the end of the utilities: sometimes you dress well to make a point, at other times, on a whim. But mostly, halfway decent and comfortable things would do.
Well, here's what I wanted to record about my last food foray, not that there are too many these days (I wait for the astronomical medical bills to start raging in: each of ma's eye injections cost Rs 12,000, and Rs 1,000 for doctor's fees have become like loose change.) Yes, food. Last Friday, I had gone to Medanta Mediclinic, where the retina specialist told me that I had nothing to worry about, that the laser was not necessary (I am not sure it wasn't) and shooed me out of his office. Buoyed by his verdict, though not completely believing him, and telling myself this was good enough news, I walked into Godrej Nature's Basket convinced that good stuff was obviously in order. And bought several things which I think I would not have if my vision was not quite so blurry. Not being in complete control of my surroundings made me very blase, so I bought food worth Rs 1200 and swanned home on an auto. But if I didn't spend all that dough, would I have tasted those heavenly pork salami (Prasuma), the not bad pork frankfurters (Prasuma), the bloody awesome banana walnut bread (Chez Nini. this I know I wouldn't have bought in other circumstances. Rs 200 for a tiny hunk of bread!), and the Monterey Jack cheese (very mild and astronomically priced, bought because of the recall factor of Steinbeck's Cannery Row which is set in Monterey).
If ma could eat out, we would have gone to so many places. Now, we are looking at a cystoid macular oedema. Thakur, ma ke koshto diyo na. Ami eto bhalo mondo khachhie, ar desher beshir bhaag lok bhalo kore khete pay na, bina chikitshay mara jaye. Tao ami eta chaichhi ma r jonne.

If we could live more austerely, and give some of what we earned every month to those who have nothing, we would perhaps all live better as a whole. 

There is a hole in my retina. It is a precursor to retinal detachment. I have to get a laser done to close the hole. A called today, and said, among other things, that she wanted to take ma and me to a safe place and keep us there. It made me wonder, because, thankfully, I've stopped wanting that kind of escape.
I have been thinking of the shooting pains in my lower back which come and go and whether they might mean something bad as well. Given my luck, they could be.
What scares me is that my eyes are everything. My job depends on it, as does my being able to take care of ma, and of my life. Without it, I am totally handicapped. Such few cushions. None, really. If it's not me, it's nothing. There's no one to step in.
And this is how it will be. Don't worry, K said. But I don't. I know there's nothing but the next step that you take.
And Rimi di smokes. What kind of foolhardiness is this?

When life feels like total shit, and even when it doesn't, it's good to take a short holiday and escape. One of my favourite escapes is the world of Queer as Folk, with the beautiful people, the heaving bodies at Babylon in a world so removed from mine that I know the two shall never meet. :-) This had seemed frustrating when I was watching the series for the first time in Kolkata, but I am more accepting of it now. After all, what would I do in such a world? And a place like Babylon must stink beyond any usual miasma of male sweat that I am familiar with. :-)))
We shifted to a new place. A bare place, an unfamiliar place, surrounded by views of more brick and mortar: how pretentious this language this. But I know this too shall become bearable. Habit, that wonderful equaliser, time, that eraser of all that is unbearable. Put one foot in front of the other, line up the days one behind the other, prop them up with routine, and before you know, another unbearable chunk of time will have passed. If you are so disoriented you don't know what to do, sleep. That's what I did over the weekend: slept and read, alternately, interspersed with meals. Then I got desperate and had to finish the Rebus book I was reading, so stayed up the night and bunked office the day after. It was almost worth it. Some things don't change. The early morning, seen from the many many windows of this house, was almost worth the bunking. Then, it was another anaesthetising day, as I watched Oscar and Golden Globe footage on YouTube, took that long-delayed bath, had the fuse blow up in the bathroom while I was waiting for the immersion rod to heat up the water. Still haven't paid the pending huge electric bill.
The day ends with some lovely videos of Peter Paige. I like him so much. He is so very charming.
I curse my mother all the time, but I know the shift would not have been merely disorienting if she weren't here. I remember how hard it was when I first shifted to the other house, how hard it was when I came to Delhi. I felt completely out of all bearings. Her presence gives me things to do and makes any place home, and when I don't do things, like day before, she supplies me food and indulges my occasional whims and little cruelties, like when I ask for food at 1 in the morning. If I had shifted alone, I would have retained much more of the packed stuff, worked myself to exhaustion, and gone to bed dirty and hardly having eaten anything, or ordering in food that would have made me feel like shit later.

In good news, the black puppies have grown a lot, and they stood on front legs hooked on my arms and licked my face the day I was shifting. They are adorable, absolutely adorable. 

If I decided to react to all the shit around me, I would hold my head and scream, scream, scream. For the tiredness, for the burning eyes, for the dreams that faded into nothingness, for the things that don't work at work, for ma being unable to think anymore, for the many illnesses that she is plagued with that I can't seem to get under control, what with the medicines, doctors, tests, medicines medicines. Do you know how much I am waiting for you to arrive? Do you know how scared I was to find myself so helpless at the crowded crossing today, when that guy followed and came and stood close to me? I knew then I couldn't do anything if he picked me up and took me off somewhere. How humiliating it was to go away with the autowallah because he offered me a way out when I wouldn't have been able to control the situation. Why my friend of 10 years does not understand this, is it because she lives such a sheltered life that she has forgotten what it is to live like ordinary people? That the happiest part of my day was to find the black pups, who jumped and licked my hands and played with each other ceaselessly, and looking at the fish in the aquarium at the hospital, when they came and crowded around where I was standing, and I fancy, looked at me curiously, that it is escape from the chaos.
Do you know I dreamt on Sunday, in the afternoon, of baba, already in the grip of his last illness, feebly tapping on a giant touchphone, clothes hanging loosely on him. Still, I was glad I had him, though I was scared. What kind of stupid person doesn't get alarm bells ringing in his head when half his muscles atrophy away in the space of six months? That was in the afternoon. At night, I dreamt Floppy came back, through this tiny wire opening in a gate. But it was another dog, brown and black, and was immediately attacked by another random brown dog we had and had a bit of flesh plucked away, but even so, I was glad that she was finally alive. I remember feeling reluctant at the prospect of more responsibility, but also of being accepting of it. God certainly knew what he was doing when he took her away, I smile grimly to myself, but also this: that if we had her, we would have found a way of managing everything. But then, I would probably not have paid attention to ma much if all else were hunky dory.

The days are leaving me progressively lonelier.

I feel very tired.
I feel like shit.
I don't want to have to play God.
I wish I had worked, but know I would not have.
I feel old and worn out. 2012 seems like a fool's dream, 2013 the year when the fantasy fell away, 2014 will be the year of my growing up. I finally feel like the adult that I always wondered if I would ever be, and it is a trajectory of loss and responsibility that has no end. Today I found the tired part of me wishing I were dead, so that this burden will not have to be carried anymore. It is a long-term fear, and living through days and years as one by one the machine develops faults, and you do the best you can to repair it and help it to carry on. It brings out ugly sides of you, as you grow cruel and more intolerant: I find myself wondering if this is what made my aunt the way she is and sympathising with her at times.
I don't feel light anymore. I don't even want to run away. I live in this constant state: this stasis, which comprises sadness over all I lost last year and the things that I am losing over ma, work which is a familiar territory even when it's bad, and hence good, occasional outings with occasional friends that I am glad for because it's a break, and guilt and sadness over stray dogs that I don't/ can't help. That's another reason why I want to die: then I won't have to see dogs and cats in pain anymore. And did I tell you about the dog on the way home to Labour Chowk? I wish some part of me had died that day.
The body also makes it known that it won't take such otyachaar anymore. The terrible nerve/ bone pain in lower back, shoulders hurting from the laptop bag at the end of a work day, being unable to manage on 5 hours' sleep, carrying a heavy bajarer bag home necessitating a long nap in the evening and tiredness which still doesn't go away.
Ei holo jibon. Dekhte dekhte koyekta decades kete jaabey, chhibrey hoye jabo, tarpor morar pala, and associated bhoy ar koshto. Bhogoban, jeno beshidin baachtey na hoy. Ma ke tuley diye, ar kata bochhor beche without too much pain chole jetey chai. Of course assuming kono loved ones thakbe na to live for. Thakle, I need the normal span of years and to be resigned to the loss of physical and mental acuities and drawn-out, lingering, painful life.

On a positive note, I found a flat. Hopefully, it will stay and I can move in in March. Ma's USG report has to be collected, something which completely slipped my mind after going to sleep at 6 am.

Totally inappropriate in the middle of all the shit that's happening, I am wishing for sex. Totally wishful thinking, of course. To lie relaxedly in the company of someone you've known for ages and are comfortable with, who knows and understands the shit happening in your life. Anyway, this is all totally criminal thought.
Ma's eye, USG, and her two regular doctors, along with looking for a place. These are my primary concerns along with work. I woke up from an evening nap today dreaming, a. that a random, very peaceable junior from college was mocking and berating my work, b. that I was indulging a few fantasies in this very swank five-star hotel-type apartment with wooden everything and a lot of gadgets. Woke up very worried and feeling like shit about work not done.
I am very worried about her eye problem. If there is a god, I pray that I take the right decision, and that things go well and her vision improves. But then, there rarely is a god, is there? There wouldn't be so much suffering otherwise. This former classmate of mine wrote that we are all mere stories gone wrong. That makes so much sense.

2013's discoveries:
Queer as Folk
Community
Ian Rankin's Rebus books
Hugh Laurie's singing, again
How terrible travelling to Noida Sector 57 is
School ELT