On being a woman

Womanhood. Such a loaded word. The moment we hear it, we are slotting people into gender-based ideas of what a woman should be, what she should stand for, what she can or cannot do. All of this, before we even begin to process, distil and look beyond our prejudices, leave alone looking beyond a woman's body.

In today's context, what does it mean to “identify as”, more than just to “be”, a woman? I can only talk from the cisgender perspective. And that is the one thing I can categorically adhere to. But everything else that is defined by our hugely patriarchal, vastly limiting and increasingly annoying perceptions of what entails a woman, is something that I have chosen to defy for most of my life. 

So, as a woman, who am I? A daughter? A wife? A mom? Are we defined merely by our relationships, because patriarchy says a woman's identity can only come from a man? Surely I am all of these, but I am also none of these.

I am a very grateful daughter to wonderful parents, who for the most part, let me be myself. But I don't feel so grateful when brahminical bullshit raises its ugly head to treat women as outcasts. I am a very happy partner in a relationship that has given us the freedom to evolve, without limiting each other because of our respective genders. But I am not so happy when others choose to look at me merely as someone's wife or a +1. I am a very fulfilled mother of six four-legged feline children (and many more that have come and gone). And I have chosen, with my own free will, to not have any human children. Because that kind of “mother” is simply not who I am.

Although my life and my choices come from privilege, there is everyday sexism, internalised misogyny and religious patriarchy that I continue to face. For instance, I am an introvert and I don't do very well in groups or group activities. But I was shunned in one of my jobs, by the women no less, because I wouldn't go out shopping or sit for hours shooting the breeze. For instance, every time a bunch of us go out for beers, the glasses are always placed in front of the men, whether they have ordered them or not. For instance, the time when my husband was offered to test drive our friend's car and it didn't even occur to the friend that I could drive it too. More so because I am a great driver and I have driven for way longer than my husband ever has. For instance, on multiple occasions when families met, women were asked to go mind the kitchen and the kids, while the men wanted to drink. I don't have kids, I don't like cooking, I want to drink too, so where do I fit in? For instance, when an aunt-in-law said “in our houses, we don't let the boys do any house work” and proceeded to clear their plates. The only way I could react was with a soiled facepalm. For instance, when my husband was asked very sympathetically how he lives with a wife who doesn't cook a smorgasbord of dishes. Just like how I live with a husband who doesn't cook at all? For instance, when an acquaintance constantly self-censors his words because women shouldn't hear them, and in the same breath sends Happy Women's Day wishes. For instance, the innumerable times I have been asked to not touch things when I am menstruating, or when I was asked to pray for my husband's long life. I don't follow religious practices simply because of how ridiculous they are. 

Every one of these instances may sound like I am making a mountain out of a molehill. That all they need is a “tsk tsk” before being permanently brushed under the carpet. The problem is, every one of these instances came from privileged circumstances – comments made or habits followed by high net-worth, modern, liberal individuals. And if we don't call them out for what they are, how do the marginalised even stand a chance in a fight for rights?

The problem is, we have all been indoctrinated into believing that our issues are so small that they don't deserve a voice, irrespective of their magnitude. But where does a mere offence cross the line into becoming oppressive? When do multiple happenstances suddenly start looking like harassment? When does a prank turn into a show of power? How long should we tolerate inequality, before we are obliterated into insignificance?

The problem is, quite often, a lot of us will turn defensive when we hear accusations. “It was not meant to be discriminatory”, “It just happened inadvertently”, “we were not aware that what we did was sexist”. In this world of information overload, what stops you from being aware? What stops you from questioning your upbringing/ your beliefs and changing them when necessary? What stops you from being mindful of every action, every day? Become aware. Act advertently (even if that word doesn't exist). Or take the accusations. 

Clearly our attitudes are not gender-based. There are female sexists, male feminists, women who objectify other women, men who believe that women's lib isn't subjective, women who alienate women for being different, men who alienate women for being themselves – the world has all kinds of everyone. Which is exactly the point. Why then, should our opinions, judgements, or our entire belief-systems be gender-based? Why can't the world see women for who they are – some who don't gossip, some who love idle chit-chat, some who cherish their femininity, some who relish their whiskeys and cigars, some who are great moms, some who are great bosses, some who swear by their cooking, some who love to swear, some who hate pink, some who like porn, and ALL of whom are never ever told to act like a lady? Because it's just a nicer world when individuality trumps gender.

Rhythm. Writing. And the blues.

I started talking really early. I went at a rapid pace from learning new words to building full sentences. By the time I was one-ish, I was speaking in capital letters, commas and italics. Then came the big full stop. I shut up. Completely.

I spent my entire childhood in silence. Silence that poured out of my ears like thick black goo and swallowed me whole. Silence that amputated my limbs and cut out any chances of a social life. Silence that did a massive memory-dump of everything I don’t remember doing between 2 and 20. I thought words were something I would never get along with. Until I chanced upon writing.

That’s when words became my best friends. They gave me a job and defined my career. They gave me a voice and lent me a ear. They coloured my thoughts, exemplified my experiences and made life more meaningful. They proffered a pun to play with, an idiom to iterate and an analogy to allude to alliteratively. They stood by me through fat and thin. They gave me strength to silence the world. Until I opened my mouth again.

I started talking, that too with great difficulty, to get a business going. Polite conversations with new clients. Banal banters with associates. Aggressive negotiations with suppliers. Academic deliberations with colleagues. Moronic debates with old clients. Blah blah blah. There were so many yakkity-yaks jumping the fence in my sleep that I neither had the time, nor the mindspace to write. So, when I decided to restructure my business to focus mainly on writing, the prospects looked frighteningly foreboding.

Perhaps I am not so big with multitasking. Perhaps speaking and writing couldn’t co-exist in my life, like two grumpy grandmas living together. Perhaps I needed all of 30 years to fine-tune both skills, before I could begin to process them simultaneously. But now that I have finally understood their mutual exclusivity, I intend to start chipping away at my future, letter by letter.

So here I am, on the threshold of new beginnings and old age, solemnly vowing that I will start scribbling again. And that’s something I can give you in writing.

Twit or Tweet.

There’s this thing doing the rounds on the Internet that is taunting me. Pussyfooting behind my derrière, pointing its inky fingers and cocking a snook at my fictional writing skills. It calls itself NovelRace and it tweets and superpokes writers into doing something monumental – authoring a 60,000-word novel! And here I am struggling to get a blog going from anywhere mundane to anything but.

How do you even start writing a novel? Or a short story? And why does every blogger and twitterer want, through some Satanic intervention, to morph into the love child of Salman Rushdie and Padma Lakhsmi? The only thing I have in common with said parents is - @mom: I am TamBram; @dad: my folks live in his short story. Almost. Surely, I have a long way to go from there.

Like the foxy wolf (or was he sheepish after all?) in the sour grapes story, I am going to indisputably ignore the race. Unfortunately, that makes me sound like someone who denounces change or admonishes adventure. (He might think he’s taking a stand by saying he doesn’t do stufflikethat. But, I think he’s just not capable of doing it in the first place.) Sheesh, what a dismally misleading place to be in.

So does that mean I’m going to write a book? Dunno yet. I’m not the one to go about spinning a yarn. I’ll get on to it when I know how to begin and when to finish. Or what to do during the interval. Right now, I’m happy Twittering.

Older. But none the wiser.

I’m racing into the last year of my 20s in my reborn scarlet scooter. And I plan to live it big. Big for me is not a big house, a big car, a big designation, a big bank balance and a big family. Them bigs are what oldies long for.

I, on the other hand, am doing the Benjamin Button thing. Regressing. I would know, ‘cos the first thing door-to-door salesmen ask is if my mom or dad is at home. And the first thing strangers ask is if I am studying. My life has become a Santoor Ad sans kid. I sure hope these questions are a reaction to my appearance and not my mental make-up.

Before I degenerate any further, and particularly before I turn 30, here are some of the things I want to do/get/achieve.

First: I want to be able to write. More often. More fluidly. More intelligently. More humourously. More better.

* I want a Yamaha RX-100. To own. To ride. To never have an accident on.

* I want one of those see-through abdomens. You know, where you can see the ripped muscles through your skin.

* I want to read more. Corollary: I want to make just enough money to buy more books.

* I want to grow my hair as long as it can grow before I shave it all off at 35.

* I want a pair of Ray-Ban Aviators. And I share this ambition with my husband and my brother. So, if either of you guys get it first, I steal!

* I DO NOT ever want to have children. At 30, at 40, at 50, at 60, or until I can’t anymore. Whichever comes first. I would do anything for the people I love. But I love my life too much to waste it on them little beings.

Last: I want to not be lazy anymore. But I doubt I can change that. It’s in my jeans, which incidentally, I’m too lazy to get out of. And although it’s two sizes too big and way too dirty, I still wear them. Or they wear me. My poor parents have had the misfortune of giving birth to two sloth bears. Sigh, and to think all we ever ask for is to sleep. For two more minutes.

So, there you have it. A wish list for the year. I am going to work very hard on the first and the last. The inbetweens will come and go.

Who knows, next year, I might want to start playing with toys or some such Freudian-childish thing.

Dhrishti suthifying (rolling eyes) in wonder.

Bah. Too much eyes I put on my ideal life the last time I broke my leg.

Just when I had sprung back to my feet and had gotten back to a healthy routine of work and workouts, I had another accident, went screeching in an auto to the hospital, wheel-chaired my way into the X-Ray room, discovered a lateral condyle tibia fracture, went into surgery, got two screws fixed below my knee, got a big fat iron brace to hold my leg straight and got sentenced to two months of bed rest. I know I have big-big eyes. But to cast evil sight on myself? Didn’t think I could do it.

Coming to think of it, I wonder how long I have been wallowing in self-contentment. The whole of this year, I have been mighty pleased about starting a moderately successful business venture, spending time the way I want, having enough money to do so, seeing a little of the outside world, building and strengthening friendships, losing weight and a lot of it at that. And every time I think life couldn’t get any better, I’ve been handed a double dose of misfortune – I broke my leg twice, my husband went through surgery twice, two other members of the family did time at the hospital, my company almost closed shop and I almost lost a good friend – the year 2008 couldn’t have been any better. Or any worse.

It’s sad to think that you can’t even feel good about what you have worked so hard to achieve. Sure, modesty is the way to live and all that. But it’s not like I thought I achieved Nirvana. Or that I thought other people still had many rebirths to live before getting to where I was. On second thoughts, maybe I did. Sigh.

Anyway, it’s a lesson learned the hard way. So, no puffing belly and thumping chest this time. And no feeling oh-so-proud about my laziness and finding excuses to encourage it. The fact that the injury has been extremely painful is also keeping my emotions in check. Nevertheless, it doesn’t mean I want people to know I am hurting.

For I’ve begun to realise that underplaying life is the best way to live it. Don’t feel too happy. Don’t feel too sad. Nothing is permanent. And modesty IS really the way to live.

Big foot blues.

I am the laziest person I know. And thanks to life’s little joys, I got a chance to practise lethargy by getting a doctor-endorsed excuse for it. I gave me a broken bone, a baby blue cast and a brilliant way to spend 5 weeks in blissful indolence.

It happened one rainy night when I tried to walk too fast. I lost footing, my ankle twisted, the ligaments tore away a part of the bone and I got a fracture. It doesn’t say much about someone who’s been sacrificing a non-existent social life to 270 evenings in a gym, running away from horrific mirror images, photographic proof and crystal ball visions of corpulence popping out of my ears. Coming to think of it, the 270ish days of strength training could in fact redeem itself by explaining the fact that I endured 7 hours of bus travel, to realise the next morning that I walked home with a fracture after my long weekend holiday at mom-town. The next thing I knew, I was clicking pictures of myself coming out of the hospital on a wheelchair. ‘Cos I was bringing home the biggest reason that I needed to stay home.

And so, without wasting a moment’s time of wastefulness, I shed my gym skin to bare my true sloth bear self. I had make-shift arrangements made to watch endless episodes of downloaded serials, channel surf on the new cable TV set-top box, web surf, charge laptops and phone, eat and drink and L-A-Z-E with a capital hurrah, all without moving an inch!

And whaddya know, I am finally living the life I’ve always dreamed of. My friends come home every day to entertain me. Every visitor wants to do his good deed for the day by helping the poor and needy. (Me being the one coming closest to the aforementioned adjectives.) I get excused from all the tedious relatives’ house-hopping to exchange leaves, nuts and cut-pieces of cheap cloth during festival time because I cannot walk. (I haven’t told them that I can hop). I get to holler for what I want, when I want it. Even if it means making people walk up and down and back and forth to bring stuff, when one trip could’ve fetched everything. (My excuse – I see other people doing what I cannot do and I am gratified by living my life through theirs.) Is that too much for a sick patient to ask? Sympathy votes in favour of a resounding NO.

Before I cast my own evil eyes on my hard-earned nirvana, I should warn myself that it’s all going to come crashing down just like I heard my bone go crack, pop and weasel. That the day I start walking again, all my friends will walk out on me. My well-wishers will shift loyalties to endorsing more pressing social issues. Like preventing domestic wars breaking out over why a certain daughter-in-law didn’t go house-visiting. I will run out of reasons to ask people to do things for me. And I will have to start running doubly fast on the treadmill to undo what 37 days would do to 9 months of sweat and BO.

So when it’s time to wake up and smell the coffee (that I would have to make for myself), I am going to need a better excuse to wear those gym shoes that I am not going to get my lazy ass into. In the meanwhile, I am resorting to cheap tricks like getting a nail-round in my thumb (loose translation for "naga-chuthu" a.k.a. bad-ass pus-forming boil) and getting my tooth pulled out to give my vegetative brain more time to think of sympathy-votes-winning, work-avoiding, timepass-encouraging excuses.

Men are from Mars. Women are from Venus.I am from the dark side of the moon.

Everything about me is irregular. From an asymmetric anatomy to fleeting moments of consciousness, I have the body and mind of a regular schizophrenic. There is no order in my life either. No habits. No clockwork oranges. No daily dosages. No morning potties. No monthly salaries. No 9-5 work days. No summer holidays. No weekend parties. No Monday morning blues. No Saturday night fevers. No Sunday brunches. No vegetarian days. No bad hair days (it’s just generally bad). No girls' night outs. No lady-like behaviour patterns. No motherly instincts. Other than my period, practically everything else in my life comes and goes as and when it pleases.

For the considerably a-for-mango life that I live, I'm not surprised my blog is just as irregular. So what do people like me do to make a habit out of something? More importantly can someone like me even carry on something for long enough to make it a habit in the first place? Not when I like my random lifestyle, I suppose.

Really. Who wants to wake up in the morning knowing exactly what is going to happen every hour, on the hour? Who wants to live a life dictated by calendars, alarm clocks, to-do lists and threaded fingers? If people around you set their clocks according to your do or die “bath at 7:10, office at 9:22, coffee at 10:16, boss-bitching at 11:33, lunch at 1:05, post-lunch gossip till 2:02, catch 40 winks at 3:00 and the 40-B at 5:00, quality family time at 6:35, brush-gargle-floss at 10:15 and kiss husband goodnight at 10:20” schedule, surely, there isn’t any life left to live after the first day, is there?

Compare that to getting up when you want. Not having to fight the 9 am traffic to reach office at 9:31 to find a red mark on the attendance register. Working for a few hours every day and making enough money to sleep off the rest of the month. Or to sponsor phoren holidays once in a while. Not having to minimise that interesting website when the boss does the rounds. Not worrying about that jealous colleague scoring brownie points with the boss by telling him you surf when you should be contributing to the company’s balance sheets. Having foreign films appreciation sessions – oh, who am I kidding – watching movies during weekdays when there is no work. Not knowing when the week ends and the weekend begins. Not knowing when the weekend ends or if it does end at all. Having enough and more time to catch up on all the books you’ve ever wanted to read. Having enough and more time to do nothing.

Hardly as interesting as many people’s lifestyles, I am sure. But at least it’s not half as ridiculous as a work-your-life-off-to-retire-penniless middle class existence. I am happy living an irregular life. At least it means I am doing it in my own terms. Maybe I should just write about it more often.

Rhetoric has answers if you write them yourself.

I contemplated destiny a few months ago. I tore my hair apart with existential angst. I threw some questions out in the open. I thought their characteristic rhetoric will prevent me from finding answers. I thought I’ll never see the light at the end of the tunnel. Who knew someone had switched it off to save the world from global warming?

But seriously, when you think you are waiting for Godot, you know it’s an eternal wait and you habitually suppress all expressions of hope to go on with the life you hate. I did that for a long time. Until I was pushed to the very depths of depression. Until I realised that Godot was actually Mohammed in religious disguise. So I stopped waiting. And I went to Mohammed to find Godot hiding inside a coffee cup.

It was one end-of-the-road afternoon in a backyard coffee shop when a colleague and I looked into each other’s eyes and instinctively said yes. Yes to pulling all stops and beginning life anew. Yes to saying no to everything we had begun to loathe about the industry that employed us. Yes to continue giving it all to the profession we loved. But by stepping out of the confines of orthodoxy and mediocrity. By running away from bonded labour to start a veritable sweatshop of our own.

We began by defining our own rules. By waking up and promising ourselves we’d live our dreams. By swearing we’d find those darned answers ourselves. So we answered our “Then What” by letting go of a seemingly comfortable escapist existence and grabbing hold of a high risk low investment venture; our “Where Do We Go From Here” by going to all our friends and sharing our plans with them; and our “What Do We Do For Money” by crossing our fingers and hoping like hell that this would make us rich.

It’s been a ride through Hurricane Katrina and Tsunami Sunitha ever since. A race against time to learn new skills and refine old ones. An enormous shoechange from the hushed Havaiannas of an introspective writer to the modish Manolos of an aggressive entrepreneur. And a psychic peep through the eye of the storm shows our future smiling back at us.

I wouldn’t say it is something I should have done ages ago. But it sure is the best thing I’ve ever done for myself. Well, what else can I tell you? 1 month. 10 clients. No monies (yet). But all the peace in the world. I think I can safely say I’ve finally found the means to buy my soul back.

It's a black hole at the end of the rainbow.

I am rapidly scanning a friend's friend's website with photographs of famous Bangaloreans. And suddenly life is as clear as black and white. I am never going to grow up to be one of them. My name is not going to go up on that wall. And my mug shot is not going to sit on that table.

Surprisingly, I am not too disturbed by that thought. Is it supposed to be abnormal? Not for me, it's not. I know fame doesn't come from a burning desire to become famous. Or from focussing all of life's energies into doing something just to top all of shallow society’s over-the-top popularity charts. All I am interested in is doing what I do best and doing it better than anyone else.

Now that's something I could grow up to be good at. Sure enough, it’s a long way from here. Knowing that I don't know enough makes it even longer. But it's a start nevertheless. I don’t really know if that will make me famous. And when I see the number of big blokes next to me who fart through their eyes, eat with 10 fingers and stick ‘em all up their nostrils, talk pretty to dumb blondes and dirty behind everyone’s backs and get backpatted all the way to the top, I don’t even know if I want to be famous.

I’d rather sit on a random table in an obscure corner and watch the world stage the biggest and longest running show that can send Broadway and Nukkad to the back alley. With scripts more complicated than a coffee-table conversation with all the saas-bahus in the world, plots more twisted than intertwined Mobius strips, people outperforming themselves to outcast others and decibel levels beating on eardrums, what with the whole world rehearsing acceptance speeches, surely such exhibitionism needs an audience. And it's one role that would fit me like a red satin glove.

So while I am at it, I might even end up in Raghav Sreyas’s Table by the Window. The next time you race a speeding yellow auto to meet the old and the new and old and young Bangaloreans at Koshy’s, you can see my ghost-like image hiding behind the shadows, in the out-of-focus background on the right-hand corner that forms a blind spot in most photographs. Just so you don’t miss me, I’ll be wearing Prada.

The end is the beginning of the end.

I don't like watching movie trailers. Or reading book reviews.

Because I start seeing things in my head. I see an off-white mongrel with a black eye-patch and a muddied tan, sunbathing atop an antique wooden recliner in the red-cemented front yard on a hot, dusty afternoon; the languid and chronic creaking of the punkha 20 feet above ground level, blowing warm wafts of air in 5.65-minute intervals; the hard-boiled heat piercing through sloping asbestos sheets that paint the white, dog-paw stained walls with a golden glow; the monotonous hiss of the broom sweeping away the sand, the leaves and all the ill will out of gigantic gates that temporarily enclose the free, innocent minds of the little imps who just arrived on ship from England and who dot the summer skyline of every home in Mount Lavinia. All this, the moment I read "Ceylon, 1942" at the backside of a book.

I begin to hear voices that tell me that Jason Raj Malhotra Bourne does not die in the movie. So when I see him exposing his macho, hairy chest with the tattoo of his mother’s name on it, and supposedly dying after the attack of a dozen baddies and their clones wielding AK-47s and shaking with evil laughter to aid the trajectory of the aimless bullets, I know that in the end, he will come out of a hole at the other end of the world, change his identity with a thick, bushy, curled-up moustache so that even his Siamese twin won’t recognise him and will round up the said baddies and their clones who were happily celebrating his death by chewing on groundnuts and with deft dishoom-dishooms, will drag them to their graves after mouthing vengeance-for-past-atrocities-induced blood-curdling soliloquies.

And so, I shut my eyes tight and stick my fingers in my ear and mumble prayer-like mutterings to drown out the majestic baritone that has made many a voice over artist rich by simply uttering inconsequential inanities like "Before the end of the world, there will rise a hero who will save mankind from doom" (and womankind from Paris Hilton's unreal reality shows), the whip-whoosh of graphic supers appearing faster than the speed of light and disappearing behind your ears, and the fast-paced theme song of the flick that gets faster and faster as it progresses from title sequence to background music for racy car chases that are scripted with the sole intention of being ranked the fastest car chase in Anyletter+ollywood history. Similarly, I shut my eyes and flip a book that’s lying face down.

More than anything, I hate the fact that a 3-hour or a 300-page work of art can be stripped naked and made to stand in front of a highly opinionated audience who will waste no time in making judgements from what they can see or read in 3 seconds. It's an insult to the art form and the artists. To the author and his imagination.

If life can be surmised with a mere Veni, Vidi, Vici, why would we spend hours in a queue before the opening of a big show? Or wait a year in advance for a popular book to release. And if we really do all that, why take the life out of it by knowing well in advance who dies on Page 436?

Contemplating destiny

I’m stuck in limbo. All I can see are questions. I know the answers to some but they don’t exactly solve anything for me. And when I find answers to the others, I know I’ll be hit by more questions. It’s a worrisome state this. When you begin to question your own existence.

After years of selling my soul to a profession that hasn’t given me anything in return, I’m beginning to wonder if I should pull all stops and begin life anew. ‘Yes’ would be an answer I could start with. But it’s not that simple, is it? A ‘Yes’ leads to a blatant “Then what?”, an existential “Where do I go from here and what do I do with my experience, my supposed expertise?”, a discarnate “What then of finding a deeper purpose, a meaning to life?” and a more pragmatic “What do I do for money?”. In the end, it takes me back to square one. A potential nowhere. A place I’d rather leave a.s.a.p. But for those darned answers.

Tongue-tied and Text-twisted

I have a blog site. I should be blogging at least once a day, if not every 22nd minute like most bloggers do. But I’d rather play Text Twist than think of something to blog about. As I write this, I can see precious seconds eroding in front of my eyes. Seconds that I can spend scoring another round at the endless game that I am hopelessly addicted to.

I’m so addicted, I open the page almost as soon as I walk into office every morning. It’s what I am seen doing when anyone walks over to my table at any time of the day. I’m so addicted, I’ve even gone beyond trying to minimise the window when someone walks past. Even if it's the CD. Or the MD. I’m so addicted, I can't keep my hands off it even as I am trying to type this piece. I’m so addicted I hear letters when people speak. I’m so addicted, I can spell add, aid, ace, aced, ate, eat, tea, ted, tie, tied, die, did, dad, died, diet, edit, date, dated, dead, dice, diced, ice, iced, cad, cat, cite, cited, ade and addict from ADDICTED. All in less than 10 secs.

So, why do I do it? 'Cos I don't have anything better to do. Rather I don't think there's anything better than mindlessly spelling out words from the same sets of letters. I have done it so many times that I know the exact combinations I need to type, to fill in all the empty squares. And I can do it with my eyes closed. Yes, I’ve tried that as well.

I genuinely think it’s a psycho-something problem. And like all psycho-anything-osis date back to intense childhood trauma, I am self-diagnosing that deep down somewhere, I still haven’t gotten over my parents whispering in letters when they didn’t want me figuring out what they were saying. And so I resort to Text Twist as a way of getting back at them.

So now, if you'll excuse me, I have a lot of getting back to do. About the blog, it’s just too bad I can spell only bog and log from it.

The inadequacy of feeling Less.

The world is less than perfect. I can live with that. But what I cannot come to terms with, is feeling less than comfortable with myself. And somehow, that’s how I feel right now.

The Lessness of being has come to haunt me increasingly in my waking hours. The pointLess pursuit of satisfaction in a job. The meaningLess much ado about everything material. The useLess universal truth that urges us not to think beyond ourselves. The senseLess stupidity in expecting others to understand that this the way I am. The ruthLessly rising ratio of people and circumstances that make me feel totally worthLess and utterly ridicuLess in front of the world.

They say that in order for me to feel less Less, I need focus. That I cannot walk around without a clue in my head about what to do with my life. That I need to set targets, aims, goalposts, milestones, deadlines, ends of the road, destinations. And move towards one of the above, before it leaves me thoroughly confused about which road to take.

They say I need purpose. That everything I do must have some meaning to it. That the world has meaning. That nature, nations, nincompoops, love, laughter, leeches, armenians, art, arteriosclerosis, science, sledgehammers, sycophants, serial killers, even the birds and the bees, they all have meaning. And that I just cannot spend six and a half hours on getting a painfully beautiful tattoo that doesn’t say anything about me.

They say I need money. That I cannot spend long hours at work, doing what I like best and be satisfied with what I get. That it’s the age of asking for and even demanding more than what I deserve just because innumerable incompetent imbeciles are drawing more salaries than I’d ever earn in a lifetime. That it’s not about survival anymore, but about acquiring apartments, cars, expensive holidays, wealth and the wrath of our neighbours. That if I am not rich and famous by the time I am thirty, I should either resort to pretending that I am rich and famous or that I ain’t thirty yet.

They say I am not aggressive enough. That doing my work quietly is not sufficient until I shout out from leaking rooftops that I am doing my work. That humility and silence mean stupidity and snobbery, in that order. That I should have been born in the 70s and that I am just not smart enough to keep up with this speedy world.

They say I am not good enough. All the time. Always making me feel Less and Less good about myself.

And when they’ve said it all, they say I need a baby.

But they just don’t let me be. And what I am is a drifter. A nomad. A bohemian. A rolling stone. An offbeat tune. With no ambitions. No aim. No meaning. No purpose. No passions. No opinions. No biases. No qualms. No hassles. No greed. No hatred. And no intentions of making babies.

All I really have is a mind that is open to anything the world throws at me. And a heart that is a sucker for the people I love and the profession I love. But it seems that's not enough. It seems there’s more to life than just giving.

So while I blindly listen to everyone around me, I begin to live their lives too. Because that’s what they want. They want me to see what they see, taste what they taste, feel what they feel, live the way they do.

Perhaps that’s why I feel so inadequate. In this tug-of-war with the world, I have become so elastic, that I’ve forgotten the touch of my own skin. I’ve lost my sense of self. I’ve lost my spirit. I’ve lost my innocence. I’ve lost hope. I feel like I am living with something missing. In a vacuum. Somewhere between the stranglehold of suppression and the open arms of expression. It’s leaving me so empty, I’ve forgotten about the part of me that makes me me.

But I know it’s only a matter of time before I get back on track. Before I turn a deaf ear to the world, turn over and go to sleep. Before I go back to being myself again.

And when I do, I will know that the more we long for, the Less we live.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet

There used to be a time when that was the best line we copywriters could come up with. Probably because no one really knew what it meant.

This is dummy copy. That’s the closest we got to saying it in the language we knew. Layout after layouts came and went, with beautifully set text in just the right amount of space required of the body copy. Which had only one thing to say. This is dummy copy.

But we didn’t stop there. We wrote good dummy copy. We filled ads and brochures and annual reports with inane gobbledygook. Absolute mumbo jumbo that alternated between erudite prose and dreamy poetry. Before it staggered back to drivel that could drive any Copy Supe up the wall.

The good thing about putting our hearts (Not our souls. We had cut them into little pieces and sold it to the group head, the creative director, the account executive, the client servicing director, the media executive, the branch head, the research agency, the hundreds of housewives in fake focus groups, the brand manager, the big client and the big client’s wife who has the final word.) into writing nonsense was, that no one read it. It was a secret that only copywriters shared, while exchanging silent smiles when we bumped into each other on our way in and out of the creative know-it-all director’s cabin.

Besides, it acted as a secret weapon in our endless battle against the suits. So that when they insisted on telling us what to write, we could thrust our personal masterpieces in front of their eyes and mumble meekly (when we were actually dancing the tappankoothu), “You turned a blind eye to this. Smirk. So why should it matter what goes into the ad? Smirk. Smirk.”

But at the end of the day, we wrote so much dummy copy that we finally figured how to write. It was the one thing that kept us living. When as trainees, we weren’t supposed to have lives. ‘Cos we were scummier than the black muck stuck between the nail on the little toe on the left foot of anyone else in the agency. When after hours and hours of proof checking actual ads and brochures and annual reports, our sight went so wonky, that the only way to get it back on track was by staring at the black muck stuck between the nail on the little toe on the left foot of anyone else in the agency.

I chanced upon “lorem ipsum dolor sit amet” after many moons and I almost began to think the art of writing dummy copy has died. But on second thoughts, methinks it’s in fact a thriving business.

It's called blogging.

To blog or not to blog.

My answer was no. For a long time. And I found plenty of reasons to keep away.

Blog? Nah. I don’t blog.

In a very nose-up-in-the-air, I-don’t-believe-in-doing-what-everyone-does sort of way. Or like it was something my mom did and I didn’t want to be thought of as oh-so-last-generation. And so dissent met commentary and I resorted to violent dysentery every time someone even whispered blog.

Blogism. Solipsism. Not my cuppa teaism.

I believed blogging was a self-induced need in everyone to satisfy one’s self-indulgence. A “read-me, read-me” phenomenon, which I didn’t want no part of. I was not pro-publicity. I never was. And I wasn’t going to turn into some extroverted over-the-top self-obsessed pseudo-significant egotist all of a sudden.

Anyone with any sense in their heads doesn’t blog.

The pages and pages of limitless word-spewing. The hours and hours of mind-speaking. The raving. The ranting. The mind-numbing. The mind-fucking. Why would a sensible bloke waste so much energy? And where does he find so much time to waste?

Me? I am too passive. Dispassionate. I read. But I don’t have a Catcher in the Rye to swear by. I watch plenty of movies. But frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn. I couldn’t be bothered about what ate Gilbert’s grape, who framed Roger rabbit and where all the copywriters have gone. And I wasn’t going to pretend it mattered.

But that’s only what it all sounded like. Truth be told, it was the exact opposite. I didn’t think I was too big for a blogger’s shoes. No. In fact, I thought I was micro-tiny. Too insignificant. A mini maggot in blogmire. Such a small speck, I might as well not exist.

More than anything, I was too shy to speak my mind. What if no one liked what I wrote? What if people thought I couldn’t write? What if I begin to question my living as a writer? What if? What if? There were too many self-denying what ifs, Goliaths and holy cows out there. And they scared the shit out of me.

Then it struck me. I am not here to make a point. I am not here to be read. And I have no intention to make this public. At least, not yet.

So, I choose to remain a small speck. Like that tree in the forest that fell when no one heard it, I am here to write about nothing. And for no one. So do I exist at all?

That’s for me to decide. But now, I have a new fear to face every day. And a new face to fear when I look at the blog-me in the mirror.