I am back, for myself!

The past year has been a time I strictly spent with myself. I say this in a digital sense, not in the analog. I quit all social media around my birthday last year. It was long coming. I was trying to kick the habit for a while. I first realized that my social media usage was becoming unhealthy during the pandemic. The first step was to keep checking my screen time for all apps. It usually stayed in the neighborhood of eight hours. That was stupefying at the time, but I rationalized it by telling myself that since we were all sitting at home, there was no real life as such. Then gradually things opened up and I started going to work. In my line of work, which doesn't involve any work from home, I started going out earlier than others with proper permissions. I thought this would take my screen time down automatically because I was going out and doing actual work. But the drop was only so much. I was still hovering around six hours a day. 

I think I must have been desperately sincere in thought about kicking the habit but hopelessly lax in action. Still, one day I bought a new handset. I bought a new sim card and I set up what I called The Social Media Phone. This project was going to succeed because I was going to keep my social media phone at home when I went to work. I was really proud of coming up with this clever idea. Since then, anyone I met through social media always got that number and I met a lot of people. Almost too many. My Serious Office Phone, on the other hand, was used only for work (which fortunately it still is). So there I was! I was holding two ends of the Earth that were never going to meet!  Something that Kipling said a long time ago: 

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet! 

But I forgot that the Earth is round. And after a few months of getting better (like all addicts do) I relapsed. Social media apps started showing up on my work phone again and I also started carrying my social media phone to work. So effectively, I was in touch with my work contacts AND my social media contacts at all times. This is how a very smartly designed system backfires. When you don't understand the ability of your own mind to argue with you until you reach the absolute nadir. Yet, it kept telling me that it wasn't as bad as I thought it was. Well, it was worse than what I thought. 

It took a few external jolts  (meeting the wrong people, going through friendship break-ups) for me to realize that meeting people off social media perhaps wasn't my thing anymore. It started out as meeting people isn't my thing anymore, but my ever oscillating anxiety fueled mind has now accepted a cleaner version - that I am a better person (to myself first) when I am off social media. 

So after messing up my two-phone system, I decided to start a journal! I would journal every single day. I didn't know exactly what I was trying to achieve by doing this back then, but in retrospect, perhaps my unconscious had taken over to lead me to something that might work. I journaled almost every single day from 2023 until this morning. And every month, I used to review what I said on the same day last year in my journal. Gradually I realized that whining about my social media use and failing at different strategies to control it was basically my entire journal. I used focus modes, I decided not to look at Facebook for 4 hours and gave myself a star, I intermittently kept my social media phone at home. I did a lot of things which led me to believe that deleting my accounts like a waxing strip, all of a sudden, was the only way out. And one day I did it. And didn't look back. It has been more than a year and the world has gotten worse. There is AI writing everywhere. Except for books, you don't get to read very many things on the internet that aren't written using AI. This becomes all the more evident on LinkedIn, which my PhD supervisor named tar-baby long time ago, much before it became a tar-virus. 

So I decided to write again, because I believe that writing shouldn't be outsourced to a robot. It is something that comes from the very core of being human - language, writing, painting, reading. These things are all best done by real humans because they are essential for our sanity. I never wrote for applause. There was a long time when I wrote on Facebook but even then, I never felt compelled to write for applause. My writing was applauded and I enjoyed it, but now that I am off Facebook, I don't miss the applause. I miss writing. So I decided to choose the most discreet place to write on in these times - A Blog! (Seriously! Who even writes a blog anymore?). But I am going to keep writing because it is essential for my sanity. 

Finding Friends

I spent my twenties looking for love. For the perfect soul mate, I would spend the rest of my life with. I wasn't alone. We were all looking for love! My friends, my flatmates, my swim buddies and my Yoga friends. As we moved, with our nimble limbs and unbroken ligaments, through relationships we thought would "end" in family, we cheered each other on. We talked to each other into the wee hours of the morning, across timezones, sorting through intense emotions. Somebody would break up on a Monday morning and they would be back together by Wednesday. But we would all be there for them through Monday and Tuesday. 

We had our own little rituals. When one of us was upset, the other would make her a bubble bath. Then she would sit on the edge of the tub with a glass of wine. Drinking in the bath-tub was the luxury which came with extreme sadness or derilious happiness. There would be happy times too. When we went off on road trips, got lost and blamed the GPS. Taking coffee breaks in godforsaken places and blaming American coffee. Hooking up our phones to the car and playing Adele over and over. Sometimes choking her with our own voices. 

We were sharing angst. We were sharing uncertainty, but we never fully grasped the completeness of our friendship. 

Then we got all that we dreamed of! Soul mates and children. We kept up. Sending little booties in mail. Calling, skyping, whatsapping, Facebooking. But we gasped for breath and realized we needed some local friends. 

For the first time in our lives, perhaps after kindergarten, we set out to find new friends. Without a toolkit or a self help book. Without a procedure, we were thrown into a world full of people who were out for friends. Not love. 

And we realized just how hard it is! After losing touch with so many, after falling off with a few, after spending two hundred evenings straight reading aloud the Very Hungry Caterpillar, we set out to make friends who'd want to sit down and have a glass of wine with us. And talk about adult things. Like what? Was Adele still cool? 

It was just like dating. All over again. 

There were a lot to go through whom we didn't match with at all! Some asked us how much we earned. Some were too right-of-the-center. Some weren't really looking for friendship, and we didn't want anything else. At least with them! Some kept talking about kids and we were trying to run away from ours! Some became competitive, right away. Some searched for and revived the therapist in us. 

We were annoying too. We took too much space. No filters. Oversharers. Over thinkers. Attention seekers. Too previleged. Out of touch. 

But it was much better to be not liked in our thirties. We could shrug and turn around. Return to our babies and read the Very Hungry Caterpillar for the three hundredth time. We could tell ourselves that it is a good thing it didn't work out. We could read that book now. We could get more sleep. Smuggle some rum in our tea. Get our nails done. 

It was easier to get betrayed when we were younger. It was easier to get bullied. It was easier to overlook a rivalry. It was easier to forgive. It was easier to cry and rush into the arms of a friend. It was easier to vent and not worry about being betrayed. 

Now I need a band for my knee sometimes. For the ligament I tore, running on concrete in my twenties. It is the same for friendship. But for every ten people I meet, I find one. Who'd sit next to me with a glass of wine, on the edge of the tub, and talk me out of my confusion. 

Crowfall

 

Right after I read her autobiography - One Foot On The Ground, I ordered Shanta Gokhale's 'Crowfall'. This is an English translation of her original novel "त्या वर्षी", which won the Maharashtra State Literary Award in 2008. Since this translation has been done by the author herself, I hesitate to call it a translation. Perhaps when I read the original, I would be better informed to label it. 

Before I started reading it, I looked for reviews online. It has been repetitively described as a "portrait of Mumbai". Although this description is what we scientists often call 'fit for purpose', this book is so much more than just Mumbai. It is a story about a group of artists living in Mumbai in turbulent times. 'That year' is the year 2004 - based on the events in the book, but the characters relive their childhoods through their parents' youth, making it an account of  post-independence India. 

Ashesh and Anima are siblings, raised by a Gandhian father and a reluctantly secular mother. They are the central characters of this novel. Ashesh is an artist - a painter and Anima, a school teacher. Stumbling through personal tragedies, both of them have found a life of their own in Mumbai. They have found a family in their artist friends. All of them together, are witnesses to the socio-political transformation of Mumbai through the 90s. 

Shanta Gokhale has unfolded all the shades of the act of human grieving for the reader. When people lose their loved ones to death or failed relationships, the grief stays back with them and grows up for the rest of their lives. It is like they birth an entity at the end of the relationship which haunts them forever. How you remember the one you have lost changes with time. The intensity of the grief wanes and the mind sometimes re-organizes your memories. It is quite possible for two people related to the same dead person to have two diametrically opposing memories about them, often prompting you to wonder, if they are indeed talking about the same person. She captures this process of living in memory of someone. She has done it so brilliantly that it flies out of the novel and reads like something universal, which even I can experience as I read. 

Art is the carrier of this story. But this book is as much about the technical aspects and the philosophy of art, as it is about the humans who create it. I was taken aback, when I came to a point where Shanta Gokhale confidently spends an entire chapter on describing the proceedings of an art conference to the readers. Who takes these kinds of risks in a novel? But I read the entire chapter with as much interest as I had in the burgeoning romance of two characters in the novel. 

Through the storyline, this books tackles fundamental questions about human creativity, starting with something as basic as, what is art? It also gives the reader a peek into the politics within the art community. Visual art is no exception to other human activities. There's fame to be sought, there's money to be made. Gokhale obviously comes from a position of rich experience in the area, hence is able to show us all the faces of the Mumbai art circle. 

A recurring theme in the novel is  the struggle of the young to break free of their mentors. This happens in every generation, yet every generation feels utterly dismayed at the way the younger generation is going about their lives. This struggle, to break free and keep your peace as well, with your gurus, your parents, your audience is also a process of constant negotiation. The negotiation is with ourselves as much as it is with others. This books unravels that process for the reader without making it overly dramatic. 

Some parts of the book make you wonder if a poet is writing this prose. There's a description of Laburnum Road in Gamdevi leading up to Mani Bhavan. I have never been there, but the words literally took me there. Which brings me to the most important part of this novel. Above all the human entanglements and art, or the vivid portraits of Mumbai, it is perhaps more importantly than anything else, about the slow, steady yet viciously persistent process of dismantling Gandhi in an independent India. It began in 1948 and has continued doggedly, bringing us to the India of 2021. We see a nation today where Mahatma Gandhi has almost successfully been replaced by Ram. All the things he stood for vanish in front of our eyes as we become helpless observers. I wonder if the author was aware of just how ominous her metaphors were going to be!  

The Audacity of Hope

I bought this book way  back in 2012, when I had just moved back home from the United States, and Obama had been reelected for a second term. Having been through the election frenzy, surrounded by both passionate Democrats and Republicans, I had really enjoyed the entire process of the election. I never got around to reading the book, until now. But I vividly remember why I bought it. I stood there in the bookshop looking at the title and analysing it for a moment. Why would he use the word 'audacity'? There are a lot of less audacious synonyms for the word. Courage could have been a slightly meeker option. I was also struck by the rest of the title. How can something so fleeting and changeable as 'hope' be full of an emotion reserved for words like passion, greed and ambition?

Now that I have finally read it, Obama's tenure as the President of  the United States is almost over. On second thoughts, there could be no better time to write this review than right now!

On the surface, the book is just like the President. You don't come across a bold plan, or a radical rhetoric. To a great extent, it felt like reading Amartya Sen. The narrative of his early life explains his constant (and sometimes boring) sense of balance between both sides. The book is neatly divided into nine chapters, each one a balanced essay on the topic at hand. In the first few chapters, it comes across slightly contrived, or so it appeared to me, considering that he wrote this before running for president and he was just being very careful in his approach towards controversial issues. In the first five or so chapters, his positions definitely seem rather "safe".

However, his writings on faith and on race are so well thought and presented that they transcend the "American context". Particularly moving are his observations on inner city Black poverty, the neglected Black neighborhoods and the breakdown of the Black family unit as such in America. What is also remarkable is his ability to present both sides of the issue, even when it comes to race and welfare state.

And now that we look back, President Obama has done something productive about almost everything he talks about in this book. Whether it is the passing the Affordable Health Care Act or the capture and killing of Bin Laden. The US saw the repeal of the Don't ask Don't Tell policy, ensuring people of the LGBT community can now serve openly in the US armed forces. He has achieved almost everything he had promised. It kind of brings home the point that big changes need not be accomplished by waging wars. Big changes can be brought about through collaborations and team work. And the face of change doesn't have to be one person.

His choice of the word 'audacity' was inspired by a sermon. However, I think his presidency has given the title a new meaning. It was historical in many ways. He was the first (half) Black president with a paranoia inducing middle name, to win an election post 9/11. He took control during a recession and promised changes which seemed too difficult to achieve given the socio economic mood of the nation. Yet, he has managed to accomplish things which most of his predecessors couldn't.

My greatest source of (un)happiness.

I happened to stumble upon this hilarious talk by Prof. Dan Gilbert. He is one of the leading researchers in the field of positive psychology and the author of the best selling book, 'Stumbling upon Happiness'.

A few years ago, one of my European friends had a rather peculiar observation about how modern humans reproduce. He said to me, "People spend all of their 20s trying hard not to have kids. And then the same people spend all of their 30s trying hard to have them". It was so true in that given moment -- at a house party of about 30 drunk adults in their twenties -- that it made me laugh and broke my heart at the same time. I was once discussing the modern (?) dating problems with my mother, who in spite of her rather liberal stand on relationships and dating, still believed at the time that getting me married and having a grandchild would make her happy. The discussion came to all the deal-breakers in modern relationships. And one person not wanting kids was always trending on the breakup analysis. Even for her, it was unpalatable. "If you don't have kids, what do you do all your life?", she exclaimed.

"You travel! You set up a food truck! You read as many books as you want!" , was my answer at the time. But inside I knew that all of this is never going to  make me as happy as having a kid would!
I was not entirely right. Before I sound like I regret becoming a mother, let me establish the boundary of my thoughts. I don't think having a child is going to make you happy, if you are not already reasonably happy. A sad person wanting a child in order to become happy, probably won't work. But as you go about your reasonably happy life and happen to have a kid, I think you'd find that your happiness is a bit on the decline. :)

Kids are cost and energy intensive. For the first three months or so, it feels like a startup which is going no where. You are just feeding and cleaning a strange little human. You love them to bits but they are just using you for  nourishment. They don't smile at you. They are constantly stressed and have trust issues with you. The sleepless nights don't help, and neither does the constant anxiety of doing something wrong, for you are nursing a piece of your own heart.

As you get back to your life, amidst various judgments (should you have any other life now?), the graph definitely picks up. Your child supports you through this ofcourse. I watched this talk again and again. Then I realised that before we can summarize that kids make us unhappy, we should also define what makes us happy. Not in terms of circumstances, but in terms of the state of our mind.

The great thing about toddlers is that they live in the moment. On my way to work every day, I used to hear my son yell "fan" from his car seat at the back. Initially I dismissed it as his word practice. Eventually, I realised that he used to say 'fan' every day at the same spot on the road. One day, I pulled over and checked, and to my surprise, there it was! A giant air conditioner fan installed on the third floor of a school building! After the initial swell of pride, and the superiority of my DNA, I realised that he could do that because he was drinking everything around him with his eyes. I never do that anymore.

At our recent vacation in Pondicherry, my son threw a tantrum because he wanted to go to the park (of all the things we could do, we had to drag ourselves to a park which felt no different to what we do in Pune). We dragged ourselves, feeling sorry that we cannot just sit at a French cafe, sipping on an espresso, eating a pan-au-chocolat. Once inside the park, it was obvious that we HAD to buy a soap bubble maker. So I sat down on a bench and started making bubbles for Vikram to chase. All of a sudden two blonde kids showed up next to me. They were French and they followed the bubbles and realised I was the source. For the next 30 minutes or so, I was standing on a park bench like an idiot and blowing bubbles at roughly 7 kids. They were all so deliriously happy that it indeed made me forget that I was pissed off about coming to the park instead of a cafe!

I think that's how kids make you happy. They are, like Prof. Gilbert says, like cashmere socks. Sometimes you like them because you are spending so much of your life and money on them. At others, they genuinely make you feel warm and fuzzy. Even if it is only for 30 minutes in an entire day. :)

References Matter!

I used to follow Rujuta Divekar quite ardently. I read both of her books and at the time, tried to follow her strategy and quickly became disillusioned with it. I realised that for me and my situation in life, her strategy does not work. But I still respected that approach. Basically Rujuta's strategy can be summarised in just two words: Portion Control.

She advocates eating everything. She does  not demonize just a single ingredient. She advises against shunning fats. She advises eating fruits like mangoes and jackfruits. All of this is amazing. However, in all her open lectures she almost never mentions that you can eat all this (in small portions) to lose weight.In this interview, her advocacy of mango and jackfruits borders on disturbingly nationalistic. She opens with a statement (which I am translating from Marathi, video is shared for verification):
"The farther your food travels to you, the farther it will take your belly from your spine". She uses this statement against apples and kiwis, which typically are imported, and tries to promote mangoes and jackfruit.

Giving her the benefit of doubt and considering that the statement is metaphorical, I still have a lot to say against this statement.

Firstly, eating (Indian) mangoes instead of (imported) apples because we have looked down on our own fruits in the quest of Western practices, sounds just nationalistic. Mangoes are mangoes and apples are apples. They don't travel with passports.

Secondly, it would be great if they are compared in context. It can be presented as: "Instead of having 1 apple and depriving yourself of mangoes, have two slices of mango, which is equivalent to one apple." That's how any non-famous dietitian would explain it. .

Eating local food is great. And it is commendable that Rujuta's lectures have made people realise that you don't have to eat quinoa, chia seeds and almond milk. You can always substitute western ingredients with something local. However, if you eat the right amount of food and aid your diet with a work out, any kind of food, Western or Indian, should give you the same results!

After I watched a couple of her open day talks, I went back to the sample diet plans she recommends in her book "Don't lose your mind, lose your weight". I am not going to give the diet plan here as I don't want to make that information available for free, But it would suffice to say that her claim that you should have 8-9 meals a day to lose weight is a bit misleading. In many of her diet plans, 1 slice of cheese is considered as a meal. If you count the overall calories of the entire day, the total would not cross 1000, which is the equivalent of about 2 complete meals (Rice, dal, roti sabzi, salad and buttermilk)  spread over the course of a day.

In most of these sample diets she recommends eating mango. However, it is taken as 1 meal with nothing else along with it. One mango can be a really healthy snack. However, when you say that people are scared of mangoes, the implication is not the fruit but its quantity and form. How does a normal Maharashtrian eat his/her mangoes? As pulp (Aamras) with fried puris! That's what we are scared of when we are trying to lose weight! On an average one mango would add 200 calories to your diet. So having a mango by itself as a meal (or having 1-2 slices with hot breakfast) would do no harm. But how many of us have it that way? And how long can we sustain considering a slice of cheese and a handful of roasted peanuts as "meals"? Only until we have professional supervision. The moment we let go of our dietitian, we also let go of the diet.

Let's assume that apples and kiwi which have a huge carbon foot print make you fat. Where are the references? Who has proved it? All of us have been gobbling up "rujuta's gyan" in good faith. We are taking her advice on eating ghee and fats. Some of it has already been proven by western science. However, it would be great if her claims about the mechanisms in which indian foods promote weight loss come with references. If there has been no research which proves that indeed eating a mango in Maharashtra is better than eating an apple for your weight loss, then it should not be claimed on a public forum and used as a click bait!

The Road Trip

                                                

                                                            I

Do you want to listen to Adele again?

Oui! But first, let me get this fucking GPS to talk in French. I cannot follow the stupid American accent.  Petit Conasse, can you please read the address for me?

Absolutely, my little slut! It is, 140 E. Walton Place, Magnificent Mile, Chicago, IL 60611.

Voila! We are ready to go to Chi-ca-go! I am so excited! Let’s listen to Someone Like You.

It’s like our little theme song now. Two single women. Women or girls?

Girls. Let’s be girls.

Yeah. Two freshly single girls, if I may add. Singing Someone Like You loudly over Adele’s voice, going to Chicago from Lansing. We are so happy, yet so sad.

I am French. All of us are always sad.

In India they prepare you for lifelong suffering, right from birth. It’s okay to be sad. When you’re sad about the big things, you can get euphoric over the smallest of things. I cannot imagine always being happy. It would be exhausting.

Yeah I agree. Sometimes I force myself to think positive when I don’t want to, and then I feel very tired from all the effort I put into it. It is easier to be sad when you want to be sad. You can be happy later.

 I know! We have our entire lonely life ahead of us to be happy! Fuck this road. I wish I could add some hills along this way.

 I could cut paste some from South of France. Or you could bring some Himalayas.

But the blues are a calling at the end of this road! Maybe we will meet some cute guys!

Pff! I don’t care. I am not so good when I flirt in English. I get tired from translating in my head. But we can go to the French Markets and get some cheese. That’s as good as having sex for me.

Cheese that smells like socks.

Will you please shut your mouth about my cheese?

Okay sorry! We’ll get the cheese and I will help you flirt. But you don’t need to flirt. You’re so pretty.

Ah Non! My, what do you call it, the part between your knees and your feet?

Ankles?

No. Between that and the knees?

Calves?

Yes! My calves are fat.

No they are not. And you don’t pronounce the ‘L’ in calves. It’s Ka-aa-v-s.

I don’t give a tiny rat’s ass.

Oh! You picked that up nice! I will teach you more.

I teach you French, you teach me English. I tell you about French mustard and baguette. You tell me about roti and paneer. We make an awesome couple.

Yeah! You know, our trips remind me of On the Road by Kerouac. Sur La Route. Except, he doesn’t whine about how monotonous the Midwest roads can get. He writes passionately about the corn fields and the clear starry skies instead.

How about the sunsets in the Midwest? Someone should write about it. Every evening the Sun gives a big hug to the corn fields. It is as if the sky is trying to make up for the boring earth. Sometimes, I just want to go right in the middle of a corn field and watch the sky turn pink, sitting next to a cow.  

You are so poetic! But there’s something good in every place. Today, we are bitter and lost. But in a few years, no matter where we are, this place is going to make us nostalgic. You, Ms. I-am-so-French, are going to miss The United States.

Non! Never! I will miss these times, but I will never miss this country.

You cannot separate time and place when your head is in the cloud of memories. You will miss everything. Even the big fat sugary muffin from the corner coffee shop. Our minds have the ability to edit memories. They are filtered to keep the happiest.  

In a way you are right. I didn’t like the time when I was in Toulouse. But now I miss it. Fabrice was never really in love with me but I was in love. And when you are in love, you remember those days with happiness.

Are you out of love now?

I don’t know. But I moved seven thousand kilometres to get over it. So at least I am far away. And you know, the idea that only one man is made for you is kind of crap. I think there’s only one rever, what do you call it in English, the story you see in your sleep and then sometimes you make one up, when you’re bored and awake?

A dream? Yes. It is a dream.  A reverie.

So you are just looking for someone to make that dream with. My dream is to live on a farm. I didn’t really want to get a PhD. I kind of kept studying and I ended up here. I would like to make cheese on my farm as a business. Live there with my three kids and a husband.

Cheese, which is organic and dairy free!

Oh come on! Don’t make fun of my Frenchness. For a long time, I was sure that it was going to come true. Now, not so much.

You are absolutely right about the dream. But the trouble is, we are trying to cast actors who are not willing to be a part of our movie. Our dreams and their dreams don’t match. And in our times, dreams are the only flimsy strings, which tie us together. What do we believe in, apart from our dreams? Our dreams even come with a plan B.

We believe in our phones. And our music. On that note, could you play something nice?

Like Edith Piaf?

Non! Zazie! Je Suis Un Homme!

What do we believe in? Do we believe in God? No one gets terrified into being good any more. We are good because we want to be good. No one is forced to get married because they got someone pregnant. People get married because they share the same dream. And that’s good. That is how it should happen.

In India people get married all the time. How do they do it? Indian men are not as much afraid of marriage as the French.

Ha! That’s because they aren’t really free.

What do you mean?

You know, the Indian middle class kids, the ones you meet here in the US, are raised on an imaginary conveyor belt. They are raised to excel at everything that brings status. Education, employment, marriage, family! There’s no breathing space. You can’t be a chef if that’s what you are passionate about. You have to be an engineer. That’s considered good. They are produced, quality controlled and packaged before they are sent off to the US.

But there’s structure. Indians do certain things at certain times. When I was growing up, I used to see my father come home tired from the farm, my mother cooking our meals, and we used to help out in the kitchen. I don’t see that no more.

Would you prefer to cook meals for your family instead of what you are doing right now? And our life has a different structure. We take a two hour swim in the morning, eat fancy food grains, and do Yoga to calm the fuck down after six cups of coffee in a day. That’s also structure.

Non! I don’t mean it like that. I would love to have some of that family structure. At least the basic structure. I don’t mind if I come home from work and my husband cooks meals. I don’t even mind if it isn’t my husband but a boyfriend. As long as we have children and we live happily.

But this is an endless pursuit. Finding someone who shares our dream, then liking him enough to build a dream with him, sustaining that dream while keeping it together. Sometimes I feel like having a baby without a man.

Me too. That would not be ideal but it will be more peaceful than trying to find a man who lives in the same city as me, gets good money, is not a psycho and wants children.

You make it sound so dramatic. With a sense of impending doom.

What is doom?

It is the feeling you’ll experience if Nicholas Sarkozy gets elected again.

Ah putain!

                                                            II

So, what do you want to listen to next?

I don’t know. Something that makes me calm. Yoga music?

Alright Madame! Anoushka Shankar coming up for you. Just, for, you!

How did you decide that you’re going back to India so quickly? At first I thought you did it just to feel secure after your break up. I was kind of sure you will change your mind.

I love this life. But I don’t want to live this life forever. I don’t want to live here and also try to live in a parallel Indian Universe. The same routine: meeting Indian friends on the weekends, setting up a perfect American home with a small corner for Indian Gods. Going to the Indian store to buy dead eggplants and shredded coconuts. Talking to your kids in your language only to get a reply in English. I don’t want to be an Indian in the United States. I want to be a westernized, cultureless idiot in India.

Is it also because you are an only child? And you feel it is your duty to go back and be close to your parents?

Yes. That’s a big part of my decision. I don’t feel obligated. But I feel the loneliness in my parents’ voice when they talk to me. If I ever have a family, I would love my kids to be close to their grandparents. We do a much better job of inspiring kids as a grandparent than a parent. And I am sick of standing in front of arrogant American visa officers. I don’t want to depend on the American government emotionally. For them, I am just a number.

But what if you don’t find a man when you go back to India?

It is not about finding a man and settling down as much as it is about courage. For years, I have evaded the nosy questions about my apparently directionless life.  I have tried everything but I was never able to look them in the eye and say, “I don’t know when I am getting married. Fuck off”. I want to do that now.

That’s true. If someone overhears this conversation, they might feel we are making a big deal out of all this, but it does hurt. Even though I don’t have much pressure from family to get married, when I see my cousin with her two kids, I feel pain sometimes. It is not a good feeling but it happens to me. And then I feel bad.

It’s okay to feel envy. It gets better if you accept it. Makes it easier to move on. Maybe, your cousin also feels the same about her smart, world travelled cousin.

I know. There’s always the second side. We feel sad because we want everything. This and that too. But when I am old and lonely, my travel will not make me feel better. If I have grandkids, I will have something to look forward to.

What if you die today?

Pff! Now you’re being a big drama bitch.

No. It could happen. You never know! What should I play next?

I know what I want to listen to. That Indian song with French rap.

Delhi 6? Awesome! Rahman coming up!

Sometimes I just want to get a big glass of red wine, sit in the bath and listen to music with no thought.

And sometimes I want to analyse what all this angst is about. You feel it. I feel it. It is about something that hasn’t yet happened. Maybe it won’t happen at all.

But many of my friends are married or living with their partners. They post photos of their family online and invite me for baby showers. My uncertain future is their present already.

Yeah. Those pictures really screw us up. It used to be nice when pregnancy news was discreet. Now it turns into a fucking biology lesson. But someone might be saying the same thing about our photos. You know when we went snowboarding, or our pictures from Vegas. They must be calling us fucking show offs.

Vegas was a really good time connasse. You almost killed me by making me laugh! That’s what I really like about you. You can really talk. Something I wish I could do. Maybe we could be roommates forever.

Yeah and maybe we could also do a sitcom! I think this is a pause in our playlist. This time in the United States. We are going to come back to this pause again and again. We are going to remember it fondly all the time.

Do you want to get a coffee and a bagel?

Yes! And shmear it with cream cheese!

                                                            III

So? What next?

I don’t know. I am kind of lost now.

No. I mean what you want to listen to.

You decide.

Okay. We will play some Louisiana. Kermit Ruffins! I still can’t get over Nawlins. If I really had to choose a city to spend the rest of my life in, I would choose New Orleans. I wish I could just set up an office there.

Ha! And do what?

That’s the problem. I have to invent or discover something I could do in New Orleans. Can you imagine how great it would be to walk those roads every, single, day? The food? The beer and the music?

Pff! No! I don’t like New Orleans. It is too loud for me. I like Chicago.

That’s where we’re headed. So I am sure it will cheer you up.

I am not sad. I am just French.

But look at it this way. We are so free. We can do anything in this world.

 I don’t think freedom is really helping me. You want dark chocolate. You go into the grocery and there are seventeen kinds of dark chocolates. There’s too much choice. If I go back to Europe, which country do I go to? If I stay here, where do you I move next? I meet men all the time. But I have this awesome ability to always choose the bad ones.

First world problems.

Eh come on! Don’t be like that with me. I will make you get out of the car. Then you will have to walk to Chicago like people in India do.

Hey! We have cars in India, bitch! Both of us are victims of the opposite kinds of syndromes. I love being directionless. When I was a little girl my mom always made me drink milk. I didn’t get any tea. And I used to imagine my life as an adult. In that daydream, I had twenty cups of tea in a day. That’s why I want more choice.

It is such a pain in the ass to choose. So these days, everybody is a kid. We have toys we put around ourselves. Phones, video games, video chat, online movies and shows, headphones. And we think we are cool. We think we have everything.

Yes Grandma.

No! Seriously! We are thirty! Our mothers were done having babies at our age. My mother already had three! And I don’t even have a stable boyfriend.

But maybe we’ll produce kids of better quality. So one would be enough! When you meet the right guy, you could even have a baby in a year.

When?

Why do we hanker for this milestone? Why is it so important? Is it because everybody does it at some point or is it because we really want to do it? What if we just decide to get over it? We settle down in life. We choose a permanent place to be, we buy a house, hell we even have babies but without a man. Why is it so hard to imagine?

But nobody does it that way unless they are really late at everything.

Elephants do it. Elephants are raised by females. The females stick together and look after all the kids. Maybe be we could follow elephants.

You’re crazy. But it would be great to have kids and live with each other. I will name mine Mirabelle. What would you name yours?

If it is a boy, I will call him Kabir. And if it is a girl, Ananya.

Wow! Such beautiful names! Actually Mirabelle is the name of our cat back in France.

You just picked your cat’s name for your child? You’re a monster!

Petit Conasse! In all my fear and confusion, I am just so glad I am with Someone Like You.

Me too!