Diary entry 4th Nov. 2023 - I am my own subject of psychological experiments.

 

4^th Nov. 2023

Kya likhu, kahase shuruvat karu? Kay hi hai ab kehneko? Do pure mahine aur dedh hafta akele rehna, Ek bohot hi alag anubhuti hai. Some days pass so quickly and some feel like a bottomless pit. Mind is such a vicious thing. It plays such tricks on you. Seeing things that don’t exist, feeling, hearing. Hud toh tab paar hoti hai when sometimes you smell things, sheerly out of your memory. And no, it is not the same as remembering the smell. It is in fact smelling it. But there is no way it is actually happening. The substance you smell physical does not exist in your surroundings.

And there are people who have done this and are doing this all their lives, forever! I don’t know how, this is one thing I will respect the American courage for, and some Indians, especially sanyasis or old people. 

Just when I thought my battel against loneliness was over, I can’t believe I manifested it in all its physicality. Now I truly don’t know whats worst. Having family around and feeling lonely because they don’t get you. Because I don’t get my freedom. Or actually physically being lonely and missing family because for most parts there was love and understanding but we just didn’t see it. I don’t know what’s worse wanting human connection, or being scared that when people actually do turn up, I might get exhausted and want them to go back home and leave me alone. Or that, when they do actually go back, I will have lost my ability to be self sufficient and stable in the physical loneliness again.

Who am I? am I an introvert? Doesn’t look like it anymore! Definitely not an extrovert. May be ambivert. But it ain’t as simple as saying ‘oh, I am an ambivert”. What does it mean? What does it REALLY mean? I hate people, yes. I love people, yes that too…..oh so I am perpetually fucked. Right, that’s what it means.

Covid was bad for many people. No, not because they got sick or died. But because they got locked in and alone. People who were locked in alone were alone. People who got locked in with other people were alone. I escaped covid miraculously. But no! loneliness found me after 2 whole years. It always has. But I didn’t think it would find me, embrace me so tight.

Don’t get me wrong I like it, I like watching myself traverse this new atmosphere. To see myself grow, one day embrace it, break down another day, pick up and embrace it again the next day.
I am my own subject of psychological experiments!! Makes me feel so fucking smart and proud that I break down the next moment knowing how seriously damn twisted this is.

It's bizarre, the kind of people I remember, those that I had forgotten. I don’t quite remember their faces, sometimes don’t even remember their names. But I remember them. Is that even possible? Hell yes!! Who needs faces or names to remember people?

When you live alone, you have to plan everything very finely. One extra spoon of rice and you are eating stale food for 2 days. You can’t wear clothes that you need to repeat in less than a week, without washing. You have 10 household chores that cannot wait for another day, 10 that can happen once in two or three days and a million little things that you can push aside but not out of your mind. Did you switch of the gas? the light? the geyser? You cannot just go down to the shop to buy the bloody eggs without timing it in ‘your schedule for the day!’ You can’t just slam the door and yell I will be back in some time and go out randomly for a walk, or to meet a friend, did I take the keys! I hope I did.

If this is what my life is going to be like till the end of it, here’s what I want. And universe you better be listening! I want a one room house / cottage that has the kitchenet/laboratory, bedroom, my office desk, my library, my bath and my entertainment, instruments and collectibles all in one room!! I don’t want a big ass house, just smartly arranged. I want this house to have good windows for lot of sunlight and air, I want to watch sunrise from my bed and sunset from my desk. It needs to be on the ground, where, when I step out of the door my feet touch the soft soil or grass, or pebbeles, anything grounding, I don’t care! But not concrete or tiles and no elevator. So yeah, I want this house where the air quality is not fucking 300 something, where if I go out, I don’t feel like I am in some post apocalypse dust storm. Where I don’t need to wear mask and clear goggles to save my nose from sinus infection and eyes from itching. Where just by breathing the right air my lungs and metabolism feels orgasmic. A roof for the occasional bird view would be nice or maybe I will just put a really high machan for full moon nights and build a spiral staircase winding up right from my kitchen, which of course is next to my bed. And I want a big ass backyard and front yard with fruit trees and vegetable beds. So that I can love people from there and I can go back inside home, without having to ask them to leave, when I can’t love them.

And I want the house to be visited by dogs, cats, birds, some occasional deer, cows, foxes and leopards. Snakes and monkey or okay too, but stay in the yard please. People who represent monkeys and snakes are not welcome though. Oh, did I mention a stream? Yeah, I want that too. And as idealistic as it may sound. I am not. so, I want my 24/7 electricity and internet, running tap water and fuel too. And a small moped and truck to drive around.

Look at me go at it! So greedy you may say. What would I do in a house like this? Why, live of course! Live doing what? Reading, writing, sharing a cup of tea at sunsets with however it is that shows up. And giving endlessly to the world whatever it is that I have to give. Love? Yes, love and occasional silence, an occasional laughter or a fruit from my yard. Occasional music, a love sonnet may be. Pearls of wisdom if anyone cares to listen to this seemingly shy, introverted, awkward lady. If anyone cares to see the power behind the seemingly meek smile, if anyone cares to see the crazy behind these seemingly calm eyes.

One thinks that only in the centre of the buzz, one will be noticed, but I think we get lost in the noise way more easily and quickly. I feel I will be more seen from my hiding than I am seen right in the middle of this hustle bustle. Have you not seen how easy it is to get lost in a city? How easy it is to be walked over? This never happens in a house by the stream though. Everyone knows where the house by the stream is. Where the house with the 70year old mango tree is. Everyone knows where the house from where the fragrance of fresh brews wafts from.

I wonder if 30-40 years ago when our parents came to the cities, did they ever imagine they were turning their children into a whole generation of rich beggars, aching to seek the most basic. Begging, crying at nights on their pillows because they feel betrayed that they cannot afford clean air and fresh fruit, they cannot afford love, lovers, soft sensuous soil under their feet, laughter and chirping and music of birds in their lives, a truly silent soft night, a starlit pitch dark night! did they imagine we would be begging to see the stars and moon, and not just be alive but feel it too? Did they imagine that we would all become so numb that we would forget what keeps us alive? We would forget to seek it? 

I don’t know the last time a wrote a blog like this but I know it always happens when I am in the city. So now what? My so-called creativity is umbilically tied to the pain of surviving in the ever-degenerating city? Or will I write happy tales from my single room cottage by the stream? Who am I? what do I want? Where am I going? And where will I end up? Good night.