Wednesday, November 18, 2020

the birthday post - 33

 33! 

The age at which you really really stop caring about what people think about you. 

This is me, crazy thoughts, wobbly bits and all. 

If you don’t like what you’re seeing... well, too bad. 


This year has been all about self care. 

The most profitable investment you can make is in yourself.  

Property is also v. good they say. 

I am amazed by people my age who own multiple houses. 

I am also amazed by people my age who are semi-retired/thinking of retirement in the next few years. Planning goals! 

I’m not far behind on the planning trend though. I do meal prep and have elaborate to-do lists. 

It only seems fitting for this middle-age transition. 


Life is a looooooongggg sprint. Priority items. Unresolved tickets. Backlog grooming. Resource allocation.

Life is a looooooonggg meeting. Agendas. Discussion points. Next steps. Quick breaks.  

Life is like a looooooongggg document constantly being edited. A few tweaks. Some major rewriting. Some skippable chapters. Refine, refine. Revamp the design.

Life is like a looooooongggg…. you get the picture. 

Life is like a long holiday at times, which I can safely say are the best times.


Happiness is an umbrella term for all kinds of complex emotions that we feel. 

It’s like our safe zone. We all want to be happy. It’s like we resort to it to escape from all other emotions. Happiness is the sitcom we want to rewatch and rewatch because it’s comfortable and familiar.  

But the things that truly change us are way more than just ‘happy’: frustration, grief, exhilaration, passion, desire, guilt.  

I have a feeling I might have said something similar in an earlier birthday post. 

But I’m 33: I’m allowed to repeat myself. 


Two things I am constantly running out of: socks and spoons. 


I sent myself flowers this year. 

It came with a card that said from Ramya, to Ramya. 

A very special kind of gift. 

I scorned flowers until a few years ago: I thought it was an extremely uncool thing to gift someone: these plucked and dead things that attracted scary bugs. 

A guy getting me flowers would not be appreciated. Roadside pani puri would do the trick.  

But now I think flowers are rather pretty. And the bugs less scary. 

Ah, how we change and evolve.
I like that word: evolve.

Some wonderful/interesting things I heard this year:
“Always remember: you are not your job. You are bigger and better than what you are at work.” --from an ex-colleague

“Isn’t it just easier to believe that people can be genuinely nice?” --My mom after I told her I couldn’t figure out whether someone was complimenting me or being nasty in some twisted way. 

“You keep comparing that to this. Why compare? It's beautiful on its own. Like you’re comparing Scotland to Lakadah. Two different things. Beautiful in their own ways.” --From a friend. 

“But wouldn’t it be nice for it to have a little rest?” -- My nephew after I told him that the heart is continuously working/pumping blood. 


Some of the best moments from this year was reading to my 5-year old nephew and listening to his questions. What a beautiful mind. And a heart to match! 

We played the game of who can make a longer word until we settled on the variations of discombobulator: biscombobulator, kiscombobulator etc. Good times. 


Friendships are the most curious of all relationships: there are no rules, no obligations, no templates to follow. Yet the loss of a friendship can be as or more heart-breaking than what society defines as a “break-up”. 

Sometimes the damage is just irreparable.
And accepting that is really, really hard. 

But, as adults, we will shrug and move on. 

We have been around for 3 decades, and that has equipped us to deal with these kinds of situations. 

To shrug and move on seems like a widely-accepted solution.


When you're in love it feels like two people are part of the story. When you break up, it feels like the pain is yours alone.

It’s incredible how much of this journey we’re doing in solitude even if we’re surrounded by friends and family. 

How much we live in our own individual heads. 

How many thoughts we think that nobody else has access to.
Everything is ultimately all about us. 

Saved whatsapp messages, starred emails, experiences that are ours and ours alone, stories that only we know, memories that only we recognize.
Nobody else can really know what it’s like to be you. 

That should make each one of us feel really powerful. 

Or very lonely. However your brain is wired. 

(You’re entirely in control of the choice though. Just FYI.)


I’ve heard people say that Vipassanna is well worth the investment. But 10 days of not being able to draw or write or play music sounds really intimidating to me.
I need to find other workarounds to find some inner peace and that. 

A good swim and long walks work very well. The occasional cake. Throw in a gobi 65. 


I struggle with high expectations. From life, from myself, from people around me. I expect to be amazed. I expect myself to do something amazing. 

Next year I will lower my expectations a lot so that I can be amazed without even trying. 


People who say they aren’t chasing money are likely to have a reasonable amount already.  I might draw comics for the rest of my life. Or write. Or keep creating in some form. Even if nobody reads or cares. I think this irrepressible urge to create and share and having that outlet is what keeps me functioning 'normally'. Space fascinates me, and I think it will be a bit disappointing once we know what’s out there. What’s out there might be really exciting but knowing makes it less exciting.


This year, success has taken on a new definition for me. 

I think it’s about loving yourself truly madly deeply.

It’s not at all an easy thing to do. 

I’ve always thought acceptance from others was important, but I suppose we should also accept ourselves.   

When I was a little kid, a nun/teacher in my convent school asked me: Do you love yourself?
Of course not! I declared, appalled. 

I loved my family, my friends, and also Leonardo DiCaprio but surely it was wrong to love yourself. 

I had no idea what it meant back then.
To love yourself wholly, complete with your insecurities, fears and safely-kept secrets, is quite an achievement. 


When you actually examine the dark recesses of your mind, you wonder how you stay sane. 

Staying sane is not entirely without effort. 

For some people, it can take an excruciating amount of effort on a daily basis. 


I sometimes feel like life is so very limiting. But it’s also so very expansive and limitless. 

I think it being content means you’re happy with the little things but not to the extent at which you start being complacent. 


A sentence that I think makes you sound like an adult more than any other: “It is what it is.” Shrug and say it in response to most anything and you’ll sound serious and enlightened. 

You’ll sound mature. Fully in control. I’ve carefully observed my friends over the last couple of years and I conclude this from my very reliable research. 

I urge you all to try it. 


I spent most of my twenties trying to figure life out. 

I’ve spent a lot of the last few years overthinking and overanalyzing and trying to unravel the mysteries of the universe. 

I still struggle to find my purpose.
I’ve always assumed that I’d eventually figure it out. 

But I am now starting to suspect that there’s not much to figure out. There is no mystery waiting to be answered, no big secret waiting to be discovered. 

I’m not sure whether that’s disappointing or elating. 

Oh well. 

It is what it is. 


So this is me, crazy thoughts, wobbly bits and all. 

Off to welcome 33, and another year of surprises and Great Big Unknowns.  

Tune in same time, next year! 


Friday, January 03, 2020

Vision 2020

It's 2020 and I'm thinking maybe it's a good idea to revive this space. Not that it ever died really, I just became awfully conscious as an adult of airing my views in public. Omg the whole world is going to read my personal thoughts and make all these judgements about me! How can I put on public display my innermost thoughts? Well, it turns out that I've got enough innermost thoughts to last a lifetime so there's no risk of exposing myself that much also. Everyone's only getting the tip of the ice berg! Ha!

So much noise online nowadays, no? I think I also contribute to it with my incessant social media presence and comics and ramblings. But maybe this white box can be my relief, a space for me to declutter. All this output is essential for mental hygiene I think. Cleanses the system. Maybe the Internet is one big garbage dump, a place for everyone's crumpled paperballs.

Anyway, so the existential crisis has struck again, this time at 32. Funnily I felt the same angst at 23. I feel the same inadequacy, the same passion, the same desperation, the same burning desire to make some kind of positive change. I've been sitting with my notes and chewing my pen thinking about everything I'd like to do this year. I've had a very blessed life so far. And now it's time to give back. Do something grand. On a large scale. Life-changing. World-changing. VISION 2020.

I think wanting to do good stems from the desire to be liked. Apparently there exists no charity in the world without some sort of selfish interest (source to be verified, I read this somewhere). Recently, on a flight, I was working my way towards my window seat, when I saw that a kid was already sitting there with his nose glued to the window. I apologetically told his mum that was my seat and then in an impulsive grand gesture I said no no, he can just keep sitting there. And for the rest of the flight the kid was literally singing "Amma look the sun!! It's heeereee! Amma the sky is sooo blueeee! Look look, the sun is here onlyyyy!" And I grinned from ear to ear to myself. I could even picture the halo around my head.

Anyway coming back to the point of burning desire. I think some amount of dissatisfaction is necessary in life. And I don't mean the kind of dissatisfaction which is solved by going on a trip to Croatia (though I imagine that must be very therapeutic) or binge-watching a show on Netflix. It's a dissatisfaction that comes from some kind of "not-okay-ness". And the funny thing is this "not-okay-ness" is always there, even if we are super content with our personal lives. We live in a world which always needs some kind of fixing. Nothing is ever OK, and nothing ever will be.

Our own daily lives seem (or mine, at least, seems) fairly selfish. Will we ever be more than what we share? More than our jobs, our daily chores, conversations with the tiny percentage of people we meet? Can we ever really make a massive difference? Is our worth defined by the number of people we are able to impact positively? I think the answer is yes. I sway between wanting to achieve some sort of sainthood status which will make me gloriously immortal (see what I mean by selfishness) and being a sour cynic, grunting about how everything is ultimately futile. I'm yet to reach some sort of midway mark or some satisfactory resolution.

On the whole, I think it's time to pay it forward. Time to give more, create more, share more. Care more! As I chew on my pen and chart out the plan for the next year, I hope to take small steps towards doing something bigger than my limited everyday life, and grunt less about the pathetic insignificance of it all. All I need to do is make sure that the list doesn't end up as another crumpled paper ball in the World Wide Wastepaperbasket.