I disabled my Instagram, my biggest source of entertainment and distraction, I have no feelings about this move, I know I will most probably get back to it tomorrow. I also deleted Twitter from my phone yesterday after I saw Raman’s tweet on my feed. I’m very proud of the healthy decisions I have been able to make lately. Yesterday my calendar reminded me it is his birthday today and I decided that under no circumstances I will text or call him, not out of anger you know? Just that…if I really wish that he has a good birthday, wise thing to do would be to not bother him and risk causing him panic or spiralling myself. The realisation that sometimes our absence does more good than presence is nice. It makes me want to be able to pull myself out of situations instead of screaming truth nobody cares about.

It is a good day with my healthy brain. It is Dad’s mahina today, so mom fed a poor person who came at the door, gave him Dad’s clothes. He also tried pile on and took a bath in the garden and my mother’s giving nature once again won over my stern words when I asked him to leave. After demanding tea and water bottle and a towel and a blanket, this person was finally made to leave (you are welcome, mother). You just cannot leave my mother alone and expect her to not give away every last thing we own, when I tell people this they want me to be proud of her but the truth is we do not have much left to give, so maybe a wiser choice would be to not be proud of her and discourage her Saint Tukaram habits.

It was Saurabh’s Dad’s birthday yesterday, Tanmay and I went to visit them and they were so happy. His Dad is a moderately strict man who likes to stick to his old values, his mom is a sweet person who would not allow us to leave without dinner. We ended up having (the best) khichadi and kande bhaje. They also didn’t allow Tanmay to drop me home and insisted on driving me themselves, they got to meet my mother and had a nice conversation. I hope they slept well after that. I really wish Saurabh was here to see this, he would have been very happy to see his friends surprising his Dad. He deserved so much, so did Dad, so does Raman.

So yes, that was another day of surviving harder and loving louder.

I’m often amazed at how much we have and how little we are capable of sharing. My walk sometimes, mostly in mornings, somehow I never seem to get used to the sight of people sleeping sleeping on footpaths and public benches. How did we come to a world where homeslessness is a crime and hoarding wealth is not?

In my attempts to open up about my personal life more, I have been speaking to a few new people recently. Acquaintances, I suppose. I’ve realised it is so much easier to speak about the pandemic, the crisis, politics, environment, legal issues, the outside in general but despite all my efforts I have not been able to tell anyone how it felt going through everything, maybe even myself. I don’t know, I thought I was an expressive person but I seem to be shutting myself from facing anything recently. I’d rather brush of the memories and think of a “real” problem, almost as if what I’m feeling is not relevant to current situation but how can that be when it is the direct consequence of what happened?

Why do none of my family members hug each other? Unless of course it is meeting after over a year or if someone dies. I don’t think I hugged anyone after dad died, I just took his place hoping this ends sometime but it has started to dawn on me that it probably doesn’t. This is it, childhood is over. I no longer have the option of responsibilities. I’m so mad there is nobody to help, how can dad build an empire and leave nobody else in charge? I had just starting building mine and I don’t want to abandon it, I’ve left too much of childhood already for this. To leave that behind, take over this mess and live 2 lives is exhausting.

Oddly, I also believe that nobody is given anything more than they can handle whether it is empires or castles or a broken family, so let’s see. Even if I fail, there is not much left to lose. I’ll build something else, maybe a little cottage next time.

It is 15th May 2021, 7:24AM as I sit down to write this with no purpose. I have nothing and everything on my mind. I don’t remember when I lost the habit of not doing things with agenda, I plan my day down to the minute and basically function perfectly well in this capitalistic world. Not doing anything is harder for me…and everyone from law fraternity I guess, but let’s keep that for some other day.

I woke up at 6 and went for my usual (? it has been 2 days) morning walk, now I’m back on my swing chair, typing whatever this is while radio fm 101.4 plays in my neighbour’s house. It is a perfect day, today I allowed myself the freedom to think about…

(deleted paragraphs because the author chickened out from sharing her feelings.)

….life is a mess right now and now that I think of it, it’s much easier to get back to planned days and being productive.

Before you take a guess, let me make it clear that it is not cold. I live in Bombay and I guess I’m happy. It is Diwali today and my first one away from my family. Every year I travel back to home to spend this time with my family no matter which part of the country I’m in, so why am I not doing that this time? Pandemic.

Weird how it started and everyone around me was happy to have things slowed down, I guess it allowed people to take a break and breathe a little and I know that is important. Just as important as setting up a system that would allow the migrant workers to go home without having to walk from one end of the country to the other but I didn’t dig out my old blog to bitch about that. I dug it out to bitch about something else.

Okay, now I’ve forgotten what was it that made me so angry/upset that I came here, could have been men, some sexist joke I saw while scrolling Facebook, cringy diwali post on subtle curry traits, my inability to spend time with myself even though i am alone all the time…so idk if it was that but let’s talk about that.

*after some sulking, watching The Big Short, some more TV, some more sulking and about 12 hours later*

Yeah, let’s talk about that. Why can’t I spend time with myself? I have always been aware of the capacity of human beings of to be alone, it’s zero. I think the problem is being left alone with our thoughts, I know that I’m thinking of a hundred things at once. Even now, I can’t focus. In the last 10 seconds I’ve thought about so many things that I’ve lost the seriousness of this in my head, it’s really weird, all this thinking. I know I constantly want to work on myself but I just can’t focus.

*after bitching on facebook about people’s fucked up opinions on reservation for half an hour later*

*after doing work and inviting someone over….ugh, there goes my entire day, how I cancel this now?

Last week I got a call from someone who informed me about the case of a relative of their house help who has been molested, I requested her to pass the phone to the said house help and enquired. I found out that her granddaughter, a minor, who lives in Byculla with her parents and siblings had been a victim of something bad at the hands of her father. On 19th October, I consulted my seniors on the matter, printed a copy of a government scheme for victims of sexual assault, and drove to Byculla Police Station where I had called the mother of the victim. She was not given a copy of the FIR 10 days after the complaint.

Upon reaching there, she telephoned me and asked me to meet her outside. A visibly nervous woman in her late 30s, covering her head with dupatta but not her face with a mask, was accompanied by a man who she said was her brother. She told me that she does not want to go ahead with anything because that would mean her husband would have to sit in jail and there is nobody to take care of the family, a concern I had read and heard about in parliament speeches about POCSO Act. I tried to explain to her that it would be terrible to have her daughter live with someone who tried to hurt her, she told me that other than the victim she has four other children and that the family has refused to help her during this time. I looked at her brother, the family that should be taking care of her. I was informed that this man is not really a brother but a friend of the husband, the accused, and I realised the possibility of this lady being surrounded by “family” and in-laws who might have talked her into regretting taking any action. She would rather live with a criminal than being abandoned by society, I’m sure she was aware that she may be subjected to domestic violence as soon as the accused gets bail. Before me, stood a woman who had been discouraged from getting an education or financial independence and conditioned to depend on the male head of the family; I cannot expect her to not be scared and feel isolated in this.

She refused to enter the Police Station even with company, so I went to speak to the officers and see what happens. The officers were nice but could not show me the FIR, upon requesting for quite a long time to at least tell me the applicable Sections I was told to meet the Investigation Officer (IO) in the case. A second after meeting the IO, I got a call from this lady asking me again if claiming compensation means that her husband will stay in jail, I did not know what to tell her or how to explain how the system functions, hesitantly I told her not to worry.
The IO, API Mr SK, a cooperative and empathetic man, was sitting with two people I did not give any thought about. He discussed the issue with me but did not share a copy of the FIR with me, he informed me that the victim is now with Bal Kalyan Samiti in Dongri. I was asked to come back the next day. (I got a copy of the FIR the next day which made it clear that the 15-year-old victim had been raped.) One of the two people, after my conversation with API, approached me to ask if I will be able to provide them legal assistance. This man, a doctor, told me that his wife, the lady sitting next to him, an anaesthetic professional, had been raped by her colleagues. I may have looked like someone in control of the situation but I honestly had no idea how to take the sudden hit that this encounter was. I said sorry to the lady and told them that while I am not equipped to help them, I will connect them to NGOs/persons who can. The next day when I had gone back, I found them waiting at the Police Station, they told me that they are stuck in the process of statements and rounds to the police station and courts. This was a lady about my age, she was educated and empowered and everything a modern 21st-century person ideally should be, I am sure her colleagues were too. So obviously education made no difference. 

So what DOES make a difference? What does a person have to be to have the sense to not consciously hurt someone? It blows my mind that we need to tell people to not rape someone and even that doesn’t work. I have been asking myself for the last two days, how much exactly does the society need to evolve to know that you shouldn’t rape people? I can pat my back for speaking up and making noise about it but in my heart I know it is not enough. We are not angry enough, we were not angry enough when the migrant workers walked from one end of the country to the other to get home, when they were hosed with disinfectants like animals, when labour laws were suspended in parts of the country,  and when a rape victim’s dying declaration was ignored but a movie star’s personal chats made to the headlines of newspapers and national television. I feel helpless and take this as a personal defeat. We have failed the educated, the helpless, alike.

Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.

— Oscar Wilde.

The theme template I put on my blog came with this post that read ‘Be yourself’, Oscar Wilde didn’t live in 2019 to understand that the pressure of fitting in is so much that we can’t possibly be ourselves and dare to stand out. There were far too less people during those days and no social media, so I’ll forgive Wilde for that.

I am an absolutely messed up and still surviving 20-something, like you. So hi. I hope I don’t ever have to meet you because I really enjoy my time sitting in the bed and scrolling Instagram for dogs, memes and dog memes but I do hope that this brings you some peace with consolation that you’re not alone. No, sire! You’re not the only one with parents who don’t understand you, treat you like a child but expect an adult behaviour in return, a lot of us have shitty friends too who are nice most of the times but are absolute assholes that we can’t help but love. Yes, my job is a wreck too, and to tell you a little better news I quit the firm to stay home and write this. LoL no! I quit to look for “better opportunities” but apparently, lawyers are supposed to work 16 hours a day and somehow survive on an intern salary. You guys, I really hope this makes you feel better to know that there are so many Instagram “influencers” who “made it big” because their Gujju Pappas are loaded, so please don’t be too hard on yourself.

I studied from one of the “most premier law schools” (yes, I’m mocking it) and I get rejected by HRs who did an MBA from some shitty college because their engineering degrees couldn’t get them jobs. Like bro, do you even know what my field is about? What do you even understand in my resume? Just do your job and forward it to the Partner, what do you understand by my one year M&A experience?

Anyway, your sucky life is not entirely your fault, we’re victims of a broken economy and messed up work culture. Okay, it is our fault too sometimes but I need you to be able to see the difference between your mistakes and flaws in today’s culture. The latter is not your burden to carry, you can and MUST forgive yourself for the errors of the system. What this exercise will do is let you free from the things that are out of your control and give you more time and more importantly, the mental space, to work on your personal flaws, and trust me, it is so very satisfying to actually overcome something bad. It doesn’t only make you better but also gives you the right motivational push to wake up for a brighter day and start working on yourself again.

In this process, you would have created a chain of identifying your flaws and using the improvement of the same to work on the next one in line. It’s a beautiful journey, one of the very few in this wretched world of blame-the-millennials culture.

We can’t change everything but we can change ourselves, improve a little everyday. Don’t let anxiety get the best of you, we have so much more that we still don’t know. All the best, suckers :*