the birthday post - 37

37!

My favourite number. 

In school I liked the numbers 3 and 7. So 37 feels like a double bonanza. 

Seventeen years of writing my birthday post! I started when I was 21. 

I deserve an award. Give, give. 

I am becoming extremely self-congratulatory as I become older. 

I pat myself on the back for every little thing.  

I’m learning to provide for myself things that I would like from others. 

I had an epiphany recently when I realised that I could simply just enjoy life. 

I always thought I had to work hard and have something to show for my existence. You know, do something incredible, something that will reinforce my worth, something to display as my justification for taking up space on this planet. I felt this gnawing, urgent compulsion to create a grand piece of work…

But now I’ve concluded that the work is me. I’m the grand piece. 

I can treat myself like a work of art and keep sculpting, painting, cleaning, remodelling. 

What an idea sirji. Give me another award I say. 

After an abysmal dip a couple of years ago, my self-esteem has now rocketed back up, as is evident.

I’ve revised narratives of the past and changed them to better suit a higher level of self-confidence. 

Isn’t it amazing that we can look back on the past and change the bits we don’t like?

Gatekeepers of culture, religion and history have been doing that for years. 

I have frequently been told to live in the real world. 

I’ve realised that there is nothing called reality. 

Or maybe there is, but it’s outside of what our brains can construct. 

Reality is all fabricated, isn’t it? 

Your reality is not mine. And that’s why it’s incredible that we can actually relate to each other and connect with each other at all.

Do you think there are a finite number of feelings which keep getting recycled? If we curated every feeling that has been ever been felt, will there be only those to pick from going forward? Or are there new ones being constantly added to an endless catalogue?

I took a break for five months this year. 

I have nothing to show for it except (what I hope is) a new and improved version of me. 

But then again, that goes back to the narrative that time must be used usefully, productively. 

If I didn’t use that time to write a book or change the world, surely I should have at least worked on myself. 

What pressure, I say, so much self-created pressure. 

During the break, I did whatever I felt like. 

And that was perhaps the best use of my time. 

Embracing spontaneity, that long-lost friend, was a reminder of an alternative, less stressful way to live.

I don’t feel 37 at all. 

I don’t know what it means to feel like a number.

I still feel like I’m in my twenties. 

But I don’t really feel like I’m in my twenties, if you know what I mean. 

I’ve amassed the wealth of so many more experiences, feelings, relationships, conversations.

Interesting things that I heard this year: 

From a taxi driver in India: 

“I came up on my own, nobody helped me. You know, I’ve realised that you need people to tell you to be fearless, to be courageous. You need someone who can backpush (sic).” 

A travel guide in India, who insisted we take a picture on the beach – I couldn’t tell if he was sarcastic or not: 

“Ghumne ka matlab kya hi hai? Photo le lijiye, apne digital friends ko dikhane ke liye.” 

A tour operator in Andamans while describing the tribal people on the islands, whom most people otherize: 

“Same, hamare jaise hain. Ditto.”  It warmed my heart. 

From a friend, as part of an impassioned speech: 

“Grow. GLOW! Let others feel your radiance. How long will you hide under the shelter of safety? You have the ability to create magic. Be a magician!” 

My dad, while he was watching a movie and eating ice-cream: 

“You should know how to enjoy life.”

​Being in the UK makes me feel calm and collected; being in India makes me feel like a wild child, happy, laughing, bubbling over with energy.

I gave up music at age 15 to focus on academics, it was my own decision. 

While speaking about my journey at a school recently, a 15-year-old asked me if I regretted giving up music when I was 15 (my unwise choice to trade it for focusing on academics).

Unexpectedly, I felt my eyes swell. “Yes,” I said. 

It felt good to say it out loud. 

You keep hearing people saying they have no regrets blah blah. But it’s okay to have regrets. It’s okay to dream of what-ifs. But only in little doses okay? 

If I could do it all over again, I would devote my life to music. 

Then again, I still can. 

I can be really defensive sometimes. 

When someone tries to categorise me, I am quick to resist.  

If someone calls me an airy-fairy dreamer, I want to pull out something they don’t expect: I want to say hey look, I’m actually a grounded, practical data analyst. 

And anyway, why can’t I be both, huh? 

Recently someone asked if I play tennis, I said, “No, but I swim.” 

It was unnecessary. 

I want to let go of the need to prove, to justify, to compensate.  

I want to be OK with the idea of letting people form whatever opinion they want to about me.

I need not have everyone know all of me. 

There’s no hurry to expose myself. 

It’s nice to let something brew. 

Slowly. 

A nice, strong potion.

I have many triggers. 

Sometimes when men in tech explain what they do at work, they look only at my techie husband. It makes me bristle. 

I used to get annoyed when people made assumptions about me. ​

But now I've started​ to find it amusing,​ and I grin to myself ​l​ike I've got a precious secret. They have no clue. Ha!

I’m incredibly lucky to receive the love of so many people who simply give without expecting anything in return. 

I used to feel slightly guilty, but now I accept it with gratitude. 

No time for guilt, no.

I’ve known love. And how! 

I’ve been lucky to have experienced being in love. 

The relationships I’ve had have had a profound impact on who I am. 

I’m lucky to have intimately known some extraordinarily kind, intelligent, weird and wonderful people. 

I’m lucky to have friends. 

As I grow older, I realise and acknowledge that friends choosing to stay in your life is a blessing. 

I’m indebted to those who choose to stay – including my family. 

I crave intimacy as much as I fear it.

I’ve changed so much.

 

I'm a great target for marketing campaigns and pretty packaging.  

I​nstead of salted crisps, if you say ​hand-cooked sea salt crisps made from gently roasted potatoes​ harvested in our small farm​ in a nice handwriting font, I’ll buy it.

​Product design excites me.

I am content. 

But I want more. 

More variety. More depth. 

Those two needs often conflict.

My heart aches for more: new experiences, new feelings. 

A deep connection with a place. 

I’ve always been a person of diverse interests. 

Sometimes I think I broaden my interests because depth can be daunting.

I’m running from the intensity of diving deep into something and finding it’s an endless world to explore. The thought of it is daunting enough to keep me from chasing it. 

I want to be braver going forward. 

I want the thrill of the unfamiliar.

I can be a cynic as much as an optimist.

I enjoy being cynical sometimes. It feels out of character. 

I love out-of-character experiences, because it makes me wonder if the outliers are actually normal. 

The problem with life is that it’s so short. 

By the time we figure out who we are, half our lives are over. And that’s if we’re lucky. 

Maybe that’s the joy of it. 

Maybe not knowing who we are and what we want is what keeps us alive. 

I hate when people associate age with some degree of having “figured it out”. 

Comments like, “Well he’s 35, he’d better have figured out what he wants from life by now” really really annoy me. 

What you want from life is at best a moving target; a something that keeps evolving and renewing itself.  

And that's not a bad thing. 

Things that are slightly out of reach make you stretch a bit more.

Stretching can be good. 

Weirdly, stretching makes relaxing easier. 

I can be damn good at something if I try.

But I want the magic without the hard work. 

I feel uplifted easily. 

Buoyancy is a feeling worth chasing.

I have the power to slow down time. 

Slowing down time... a phrase I used in a poem years ago. While waiting for sunrise after a sleepless night.

I remember it like it was yesterday.

Memory, how grateful I am for you.

​​I hope I never lose the ability to be amused.

I hope I never lose the ability to put into words and pictures how I feel. 

I hope I never lose the ability to feel. 

Here’s to another year of living and loving and being loved. 

Next year, my double bonanza 37,

all I can ask is for you 

to be kind.

the birthday post - 36

36! 

The years are going by so fast, I’m trying to keep up. 

I hope the years go slower and slower from now on. 

I want to craft and live a life that is rich, authentic and abundant. 

But most importantly I want to craft my life with clarity, intent and fearlessness. 

I hope I feel triumphant every November, rather than wondering what on earth I did all year.  

This year I spent over 6 months nursing a broken thumb – months that kept me off drawing, writing and playing the piano – things I loved doing most. 

It was an interesting lesson in patience.

It was my first (and fascinating) experience of watching a piece of my body crack and magically self-heal.

How powerful, our bodies. 

 

It was during this time that I turned to the “do the bare minimum” phenomenon. 

You know, those “just get work done, just get through the day” kind of days. 

I’ve had plenty of days like those this year. 

Initially I felt pretty good. Watching mindless TV was just that – mindless – a relief from having to work my brain. 

But soon I didn’t really like it.

I like doing stuff. 

I like doing things that give my life meaning. Writing, drawing, music, reading, swimming, walking. 

Of course, you can choose anything and declare that it will give your life meaning. Free for all. Pick anything and hang on to it for dear life. 

But not just one, choose 2 or 3 things you think will give your life meaning.

One needs options.

I’ve decided that volunteering to make the world a better place isn’t necessarily superior to watching a movie in your free time. 

Because in the end it’s about what makes YOU feel sane and happy and that’s the only thing that matters, the only thing within your control, the only thing that will make a difference to people around you. 

So how does it matter whether you get there by watching mindless TV or by swimming or by producing a piece of art? 

Plus, you know: In the end, nothing matters. 

When I say “the end” I mean not just the end of the world, but that of many worlds, of many universes, the length of time the human brain can barely conjure up. 

That’s what I think anyway. How can anyone prove otherwise? Who knows what will happen in the future and if even human existence is of any consequence in the large (very large) picture? 

That's why it's important to identify things that will give our lives meaning. 

Isn’t it amazing that the whole world is just a product of our brains? 

The biggest gift a human being can have is the gift of cognition, this beautiful, beautiful gift of being able to think, remember, perceive. 

I’m baffled by the number of pictures people take of themselves taking pictures of themselves. Why are there so many pics of people taking their own selfies? 

A highlight of this year was watching lugworm squiggles on the beach (look it up if you don’t know what it is! Amazing stuff.). 

Other highlights were walking through wildflower meadows, taking a dip in a very cold waterfall, and watching a glacier from a train through Norwegian mountains. 

I hope I’m always excited by natural wonders, wherever I am.  

I hope I never lose enthusiasm for the smallest of things. 

This year, I got to connect with a lovely person online who’s translating my work into French. 

A serendipitous meeting! Who knows where this will go? I'm just going to enjoy the journey! 

I’m grateful that my work has brought me in contact with so many incredible people all over the world who’ve connected with me both online and offline. 

Human connections matter.

What are we here for if not for each other? 

Funny/interesting things I heard this year: 

“Oh you are married?! Oh your husband is at work now? That’s great. Men should work. Women should go on holiday. Hahaha.”  - Bulgarian cab guy who was driving me to the airport.

"One version we project at one point cannot be a constant… we keep growing and changing with different experiences." – Friend, about me worrying what someone at work thought of me.

"That’s okay, our interests and ideas evolve..." – Mother-in-law, when I said I’m no longer sure I like drawing comics.

"There are lots of people who have kids and are happy. There are lots of people who have kids and are unhappy. And vice versa. Your happiness doesn't depend on whether you have kids." – my mom.

"We will start a family fund for your creative business." – my incredibly supportive dad.

"I think you should become a full-time travel writer." – my long-suffering partner who has trudged along on many of my sudden trips.

This year, I’ve had people visit me with no agenda but to simply spend time with me. It was the most flattering, most amazing feeling in the world! How lucky am I!  

I got to reconnect with a lot of old friends this year, and I am so bloody grateful for that.  

Given a few hours to myself in a new city, I am likely to: go for a hike, watch sunrise/sunset, go to a bookshop/library, find a park/zoo/botanic garden. Highly unlikely to visit a museum or historical buildings or do any kind of audio tour (I am terrified of them!).  

To be in the company of living things makes me feel peaceful. 

I miss India more and more by the day. 

I’d love to see and know more of India – from Zuari to Zanskar. 

One day I want to travel across India and write a comic book about its beautiful people and places. 

I am so proud to have had the unique and diverse range of influences I’ve had through my 35 years of life so far – musically, literary, artistically, linguistically, visually... all the allys.

I used to feel really embarrassed as a kid that I couldn’t converse on politics and cricket – two topics that seemed to dominate most adult conversations. 

But today I’m so proud of having been different, that I know exactly what a min7add9 chord sounds like or how to use salt in watercolours.

It’s time we stopped feeling guilty for who we are. 

It’s time we stopped overcompensating for who we are or who we’re not. (#notetoself)

My favourite lyrics in the world are Seek Up by the Dave Matthews Band. 

“Forget about being guilty we are innocent instead. For soon we will all find our lives swept away…” 

I love dragonflies. 

I love swimming. Oh, I do love swimming. It makes me feel relieved, confident, at home. 

I love Punjabi food. 

I love spending time with kids.

I've started to really love cooking. A highlight of this year has been regularly making my mom's melt-in-mouth rotis. 

Nice to have many things to love.

One needs options.

I regret that I’ve become a more closed person. 

I’m cautious about what I say and to whom. 

I don’t really like this person that much.  

I was happier when I was saying and doing things without thinking much, even though it led to much judgement and led to my cautiousness in the first place. 

I was often called fickle and indecisive due to my frequently changing career choices. 

But I think I had enormous amounts of strength to make decisions, to identify and eliminate what wasn’t a good choice for me. Way better than sticking to a bad option knowing it was a bad option and being miserable.  

I think we unnecessarily revere the idea of stability and steadfastness. 

Things need to be fluid, there needs to be space to evolve, the boat needs to be rocked.  

One needs options. 

I dread being static, fixed, tied down. 

I don’t want to ever be in a place where I feel life is just about work and watching some stuff on TV after.

I want to be like a river, meandering, finding new ground, creating patterns, ready to do anything. 

I don’t really like my comics.

I’ve always thought of myself as a writer. 

Comics still feel like a medium where I’m struggling to match what I envision to what I end up producing.

I would like to think and draw stuff beyond stick figures.

I’m really keen to explore what my style as an illustrator is – beyond the minimalism and line drawings. Will I make pretty dainty watercolours? Will I paint large dramatic art canvases? Will I used mixed media or gouache? Who knows. I’m going to find out next year. 

I’d like to be an illustrator. That’s a good option. 

I started to play the bass guitar this year. 

A complete lack of discipline prevents me from doing anything real with it, but hey, it’s good to have the option to be a bassist one day. 

We’ve had friends and family over every month this year. It’s been all kinds of delightful to cook up warm meals and have all these happy laughing faces at home. 

I think I'm getting closer to my dream of being a Great Indian Aunty. 

I like being myself in these posts.

I wonder if people judge me after reading these posts. 

But then I remember, everyone’s too busy getting photographed while taking selfies.  

Somedays I feel like the relentless positivity I had in my twenties has been replaced by a sharp cynicism. 

But thankfully those moments are short-lived. 

I have to say that I have a deep rooted fear of cynicism. I indulge it whole-heartedly once in a while, but I would hate to turn permanently to the Dark Side.

So I try to keep myself in check. 

 

This year I've learned to accept myself, even the bits of me that I dislike.

When I look in the mirror I find that I'm decidedly a big fat NOT BAD.

I will say goodbye to guilt and hello to self-appreciation.

When you can be who you truly are, you can do anything.

There are so many options.

And one always needs options.

With that, I conclude my wise words and get busy being 36.

the birthday post - 35

35!

What a nice number. Feels like a destination. 

I’ve been warned that this is when I’m going to have a midlife crisis. 

That’s funny because I’ve already finished having my midlife crisis. 

In fact, I seem to have a life crisis every year. 

I quite enjoy having them – I’d be alarmed if I didn’t.  

All my life I’ve been an explorer. 

I’ve been lucky enough to explore mountains and forests and waterfalls and fields. 

But what has always thrilled me is exploring how people think, what goes on in their heads, how they interpret life and love and purpose and meaning.  

I get a kick out of having the smallest opportunity to look into someone’s mind. 

It’s a real privilege. 

This year, I had the opportunity to explore my own head. 

It was a terrifying and rewarding experience. 

I’ve always thought that you can’t possibly know someone else entirely. 

But now I think that there’s no way I will know myself entirely. 

I’m barely scratching the surface. 

I’ve undergone possibly the biggest revamp of my personality since I was 19. 

I feel like someone’s reached inside me and pulled out my guts and soul and heart and mind and prodded them, squeezed them, juggled with them, tap-danced on them, then arranged them differently, and put them all back in with an evil laugh.   

What fun. 

I don’t know if the new configuration will work yet but I’ll find out soon. 

I did eight months of therapy this year: the greatest gift I've given to myself.   

I started the year by quitting everything: my full-time job, my part-time job, a contract job. 

Clearly those were too many jobs to handle. 

Human capacity is unfortunately finite. 

But I’ve realized over time that quitting is an art too.

It’s not a sign of failure. 

On the contrary, quitting something has always spelled victory for me. 

Knowing when to stop is an art. 

Just like you ideally don’t want to overcook a dish or overwater a garden or overstuff a piece of music, you ideally don’t want to stick around in a situation that no longer serves you. 

You don’t have to kill yourself to get to the top of a mountain when you could be enjoying a packet of crisps sitting on a rock by a waterfall halfway up. 

I’ve tried and tested that. 

As I grow older, I increasingly feel like there are some important things we don’t learn as kids, which we should. 

One of the glaring gaps is life skill lessons is “How to Think”. 

I think this should be a special subject in itself. 

How to Think: a mandatory module taught by scientists, artists, writers, engineers, entrepreneurs, innovators, problem-solvers, roadside vendors, working parents, stay at home parents, believers, non-believers, etc.

 

And what about How to Deal with Conflict? That stuff really matters. 

And survival books? 

More than how to survive on an island, I think we need material on How to Survive in Society. 

How to survive right here, right now, not just in some far-fetched situation. 

Or maybe everyone’s cracked this and it’s just me! 

Anyway. The whole series of books will be packaged nicely and called How to Life. 

Yes, How to Life not how to live.

Life. A How-to. I wish I had had this manual while growing up.

Like millions of women in India and across the world, I have been inappropriately groped in public (and private) spaces as a child, a teenager, and an adult. 

A friend of mine from another country who lived in India for a long time remarked, “If you accumulate bad karma over and over and over again, you know what happens?” I asked what, and he said, “You’ll be born as a woman in India.” 

It made me cry. 

 

I realised what it meant to be a fearless woman when I walked on an empty street in Oslo and swam by myself in a lake in the middle of a forest.

I’ve travelled alone plenty of times but for some reason, this was so special. 

It was just me and the lake and the trees and the sky. Highlight of the year. 

I think I’m a closet hippie and a wild rebel trapped in a mind that often, much to my annoyance, seeks social acceptance.

Such conflict.  

Wow, the things I’ve started to reveal in these posts. 

People keep telling me that I’m brave to share so much of my personal stuff online.

But to be honest I don’t feel brave at all. 

I don’t fear it so it doesn’t make me brave to do it. 

I find myself being a misfit in society more often than I’d like to admit. 

How to Survive as a Misfit in Society. Special edition.  

I don’t care what people think about my comics, which often reflect my deepest thoughts, but I agonize over how many exclamation marks I use in work emails, whether I’ve talked too much in my first meeting with a potential friend, whether I’ve been rude in a Whatsapp message without intending to. 

I seem to be anxious about the small stuff and reasonably chilled out about the big stuff. 

Swimming helps immensely with anxiety. 

Ah, swimming. It saved me this year. 

Just that movement. Gliding, pulling, gliding, pulling. 

This year I swam in open waters. 

What a feeling to float on your back under a great big sky! 

Interesting things I heard this year:

“You’ll get there faster by going slower.” – a woman I met during a solo trip to Cornwall. 

“I’d like to be as self-unaware as possible.” – a friend, after therapy. 

“I want to go to London one day just to see how there are so many people in one place, like people go to zoos to see animals.” – a girl from Lapland, who’d grown up in the forest, with reindeer and pine trees for friends.  

“It’s always worth spending money for mental peace.” – my wise partner. 

“I’m so proud of you.” – my mom, on a couple of occasions this year. 

“Don’t worryyyyy! You can practise and get better.” – a friend’s 4 year old daughter, who was trying to be kind about my bad dancing to her fav Frozen songs.

“Even though I didn’t understand it, I had faith in us and knew that we would figure it out.” – a friend, after we had to Deal with Conflict. 

“It's not your fault. The brain will always want to protect you and keep you safe.” – my therapist.

Nowadays I’m much more guarded, less willing to trust, and more careful about my Resource Usage. 

I told a friend very proudly about my progress on this front. 

I declared that I was going to be cherry-picky about what I gave to whom. 

He looked at me and said, “But you’re you. You love and trust without boundaries. That’s who you are.” 

Hmmmm. That struck a chord. 

One of my favourite movies is Kiki’s Delivery Service, which I’ve watched many many times.  

I used to think it’s about growing up. 

I rewatched it and realized that it’s about independence.

Then I rewatched it and figured that it’s actually about loneliness. 

Then I saw it again and realized that it’s about burnout! 

You know that moment when Jiji stops talking to Kiki? 

That moment has been this full year for me. 

But, like Kiki, I managed to sit my butt on my broom and make it work. 

Cheers to the unbearable lightness of inescapable adulthood.

The greatest lesson I've learned in my 35 years of life is that Stuff Has To Get Done. 

This year has been all about Setting Boundaries. 

I went to my therapist with a very well-thought out list of all the things I didn't want to be. 

I wanted to be a New Person. 

Example: 

Does not want to be: people pleaser, second guesser, averse to change

Wants to be: uninhibited, self-assured, fearless, free 

I was so silly, I thought I could become a whole new person just by ticking boxes off a list. 

Oh well, we live and learn. 

35 years of living and learning!! 

I don’t feel bad at all about growing old. 

I feel quite good actually.

I understand things better, I have met more non-like-minded people, I have listened to more amazing music, read amazing writing, had even more good food, had more interesting conversations, deepened some relationships, let go of some, been anchored by the people who matter most, and have hopefully served as an anchor too.

That's a lot in a short period of time.

Ha. A bargain! 

The biggest victory this year has been that I like myself. 

Like, I really like myself – the full package – insecurities and cellulite and greying hair and pre-coffee grumpiness... even a little bit of the people-pleasing and second-guessing.

Why, I might even say that I'm beautiful.

Here’s to another year of living and learning and having my guts and heart and soul and mind rearranged in a new configuration. 

I’ll find ways to love that person, whoever she turns out to be. 

Happy next year to me.