I Did Not Ask For This Thank You

Two months of intermittent fasting, watching what I eat and getting the-best-blood-reports-of-the-decade later, it is Monday night. My body is a temple and tonight we drink.

This is my first beer in two months and oh, if I only had the words to describe how gloriously this cold, life-affirming liquid slides down into my interior.
My head spins and I want to giggle at everything and nothing. This. Is life.

Then the phone dings: Ma'am aap free ho? Call karoon?

It's a kid from the library where I work. I've known this boy - young man - since he was what, 12? He's 17 now and a musician. A rapper with his best friend. They whip out 'flows' at lightening speed, they flood social media with their 'Coming Soon', 'Coming Real Soon', 'It's Coming, We Promise' posts every second day. The boys are gifted, they 'spin rhymes' that make me cool by association. Their raps possess an ease that makes me both proud and jealous. No one would guess it but they record their tracks by scavenging for quiet nooks in the chaos of their locality.
Our library used to be that but then came the pandemic.

Ugh but I'm so happily inebriated. I don't want to talk to kids.

"Ma'am aapne Sidharth-Garima ka naam suna hai?"
Nope. I've not heard of Sidharth-Garima. Is that one person or two?
"Ma'am unhone Ramleela ke gaane likhe the."
Lyricists for a Sanjay Leela Bhansali film. Hm.
"Ma'am unka phone tha."

Ok ok, I'm up. I'm listening dammit.
The boys, whose work has spread wide enough for us to no longer have any kind of reliable contact-tracing, have been approached by famous Bollywood composers. The bigshots have lyrics that need to be transformed into a 'flow'. They've heard the boys' music (where? how? what is this miracle?) and would like them to try.

For some reason, the boys decide to call me - their only link to the glamorous world of cinema, I guess, myself having been a worldfamous screenwriter for documentary films that no one watches. "Kya karein ma'am?' What shall we do?

My buzz fizzles to piss. If the past twenty years have taught me anything, it's that young, hungry & talented artists without 'godfathers' rarely catch a break in show business. The boys tell me they've been promised 'credit' but no money. Of course, what a fucking cliche.
I'm paralysed. I don't know what to say. As an 'elder' who believes in their talent and is incapable of being objective about their work, I want to tell them to tell the Bollywood bigshots to fuck off if they can't pay. But I also know that calls like these don't come everyday. And as I struggle to give them the right advice I'm confronted by my past coming back at me in waves. It's as if the 20-year-old Me is standing in front of me, asking if she should take that unpaid internship to get a foot in the door or let it go because money matters and her work has value.
Both choices are wrong. Both choices are right. Especially when you're staring down the barrel of opportunity.

You only get one shot.
Or do you?
And my insides scream: THIS IS WHY I CHOSE NOT TO BE A PARENT!
It's too big. A young person handing me the reins of their life-changing decisions and saying: 'Tell us. We'll do what you say.'
I DON'T WANT THIS JOB.

I tell them to ask for more details (never be afraid to ask questions about a project, even if it's to Jesus himself) and get them to commit to 'credit' in writing on email. I tell them to walk that thin line between expressing keen interest in the job and holding firm for better terms. It took me decades to learn this. I know these boys will not be able to do it very deftly. They sound unsure on the other side, almost prepared to lose the job. Part of me wishes they'd ignore me. This could potentially be a huge opportunity (if it isn't a total scam), one that boys without studios don't often get. Will my advice steal their chance? Or will it remind them of their worth so that when success comes calling, it is real and rewarding.

I put the phone down wearily. My beer has made it to my kidneys and well past it.
Be grateful for that singular second when the chilled brew first hits your throat. No sip will ever taste the same. All I know is: Life is hard and I never want to be 17 again.

Baby Amte

"you are my baby amte."

This is the Skype message I get from my sister from halfway across the world, at 4 am. It makes me laugh at my situation for the first time in many days. After over a decade of dealing with bouts of excruciating pain in my lower back, I've finally been properly diagnosed with having a slipped disc - a scary sounding but way too common problem nowadays.

It comes in conjunction with other setbacks (ha ha - if only the back were set - ha ha) that have had me feeling most defeated. Unlike Baba Amte, I have not quite risen (ha ha - or laid down - ha ha) to the challenge and they will not be writing wikipedia pages about my courage in the face of adversity any time soon. I've spent most mornings weeping surreptitiously or watching episodes of Downton Abbey.

If there were a tagline to the epic sob story running in my mind, it would be: I am All Alone. Even as friends drop by in the middle of punishing schedules armed with truckloads of doughnuts & books on managing back pain, even if they send their drivers across town to deliver a pair of perfect walking shoes, even if people who barely know me send me messages inquiring how I am, even if loved ones take time out of their jobs to ferry me to doctors' offices, my standard refrain remains: I am All Alone.

This tragic heroine is a pain in my ass. (And it's not the kind of pain that my physiotherapist can banish with a round of delectable electric currents zipping across butt cheeks.) She's convinced that life is out to get her - an inconvenient fact since life is all around her and wherever she goes, she finds she can't avoid it. She is angry and thinks hateful thoughts. She feels sorry for herself constantly because everyone else always has it better. (Yeah, even that shivering kid that's approaching her car window, begging for a couple of rupees.)

She starts speaking of herself in third person and begins to realize the extent of her delusion.

Of all the stories I've told myself over the years the one that is least backed up by evidence is the idea that I lack support. Some books even suggest that my spine has given way precisely because of this belief (I think the terrifying speedboat ride I took a few months ago might also have something to with it but still...). Now lying here in bed, propped up on two pillows, I wonder if it's time to dismantle this thought once and for all. To question its logic every time it pops up and to blatantly mock it if it persists.

So last night, I tried with one hand to open a bottle of whiskey that I had a friend bring in. I was having a particularly tragic-heroine time and I kept thinking 'this bottle is going to break, this bottle is going to break' even as I dangled it over the bathroom sink (don't ask), trying to pry open the seal with my teeth, while hanging on to it for dear life.

this bottle is going to break this bottle is going to break this bottle is going to break this bottle is going to

*CRASH*

I stood there for what seemed like forever, staring at my-only-friend-whiskey quite literally go down the drain. The strong waft of alcohol rose up to my nose along with a militant 'poor me' thought. Then as the golden brew slipped away from me, I thought: What would baby amte do? She'd probably laugh. She might even call her friend up and ask for another bottle. Then she'd get to work.

Sunday Morning: A Short & Miserable Story

Last evening I went on a bender, which in old lady speak means I went to a nearly empty pub at 4 in the afternoon and after saying a couple of 'No no no, I can't drink - I have to drive. I can't drink - I've given up alcohol. I shouldn't drink because I'm trying to maintain my weight loss...', I gave in and had 6-8 pints of Budweiser.

Then I was punished for my lack of coolth by the stupidest hangover ever.

Of all the Sundays of the year, this had to be when my boss emo-blackmail-bullied me into attending a seminar that had nothing to do with work, just to suck up to the seminar organizer (who happens to a guy of immense coolth).

I'd been up for most of the night nursing my hangover (when you start drinking at 4 and end by 12, the hangover begins at 3am) and the head poundage and generally gross state of booze-sweatiness had succeeded in eliminating all traces of joie de vivre from my usually buoyant personality.

I staggered out of bed - not my bed, a friend's bed...I hadn't made it home (see I can still summon up some coolth) - at 7.30am, hoping to make a quick getaway and promptly bumped into friend's parents, who were happy to meet me after many months. Postponing plans of peeling off my grotty skin, I had to instead be nice & polite and talk to them. Meanwhile the humidity rose in proportion to the headache.

Made it out. Strapped into my vehicle, plugged in my ipod and Norah's promise of 'Happy Pills' helped me make it home in one piece. A quick shower & Ibuprofen and off I went to attend the lecture. At least the roads would be empty on a Sunday morning.

I got caught in the worst traffic jam ever. What kind of old lady hangover hell was this? Cars crawling like millipedes, creepy taxi-driver in the adjacent car trying to lean across and look down my shirt (for reals!), and the ever-exploding temples. By the power of Cumberbatch, I prayed, let me get out of here intact and un-hurled.

Intact is a relative term so let me just say, I reached, checked my pulse and was relieved to discover I was still alive. Onwards, warrior, onwards. And into a seminar hall with only 6 people in it! There would be no skulking to the back of the room and gently drifting off to sleep, while great science was discussed in the front of the class. Some pretense of attention-payment would have to be made. 

Luckily the speaker was the most boring sod in all the land. Not even my land, as it turned out. Japanese, with a thick Japanese accent and even thicker Japanese ppt slides ("I aporogize, I cannot make Engrish sride."). 

I tried valiantly to keep up - but not just in the interest of science. My boss, seated next to me, kept nodding off & sliding down his chair. Turns out there were two hangovers in the house and every so often, I would revenge-poke him awake with my pen. We strove on. The talk was all over the place but to my credit I managed to figure out its central theme of how mankind had smartypanted itself into hastening its own extinction and that if we were going down, we'd be taking everything else down with us.

As the clock ticked and the talk approached the 2 hr mark, I suddenly snapped awake and realised the purpose of this entire ordeal. This sequence of seemingly disconnected & pointlessly tortuous events was in fact leading up to a single moment of enlightenment. At first I thought it was God trying to show me to be stronger-willed, to push past the pain and emerge on the other side, having smashed through personal limits of endurance.

Turns out God just wanted me to know that when a Japanese person enunciates English words, chances are the Earth suddenly becomes the Arse.

It's On Amazon, Yo

Hic

...this girl's had a bit too much tonight...


(Trust me, if my life were indeed a highway, this is what it would look like after tonight. Amidst the shards of glass are shreds of my dignity and any chances of a bright romantic future...)