Eight

865 words

After the incident on the railway station (Day Seven) and being part of the every day rush, I kept thinking how privilege shields you from thinking of yourself as a part of the milling, working class crowd. This is why our public infrastructure is in disrepair; because the privileged don’t use it, and of course, because the ones in-charge are privileged and evil minions. Some people can be many horrible things at the same time, no really, the sky is the limit for them. This is also why the divide between people is so huge and is growing larger every day. Of course, if there were a divine-ordained plan, the storyline would mean that this is all just a blip in what’s to come. And what should come, is chaos.

The long Diwali weekend has come to an end, and tomorrow it is time to go back to being a corporate doll. However, a high point in the coming week is also that I am about to discover a new tailor, get into the groove of rituals past where one could have something made for their own body type instead of having to fit into something made by modern day slave labour. Fast fashion, as we all know, is another example of how we tend to overlook the working conditions of those who make these clothes, insulating us from the need to introspect why we buy the things we do. Insulation is fast and thick, these days. They say we live in a low-trust society. We can’t trust each other, can’t trust the justice system, the food we ingest, the medication we receive, yada yada.

I do think this is largely true. However, I don’t want to go as far as trusting the justice system, like most Indians, I have given up on the idea of our social institutions. It’s as if our institutions are that busy road on the main junction, always being used, always full of potholes, and we all know it will never be fixed. No, I don’t care for that. I do care for, however, the need to trust the people in my life. One day, I was having a particularly bad day and I wanted to talk to someone. I called a close friend in desperate need for a listening ear. They spoke to me about this, that, how busy they had been; and when I said I was having a rough time and wanted to talk, they said they’d call back in 15 mins to listen to me. The call never came. They called me back after 2 months, and asked if I was okay now, as I was having a bad day when we last spoke. I suppose if one can’t trust what we ones we love, and the ones who love us, what else can we trust, really?

Turns out what you can trust, though, is a pizza base recipe. We made a pizza from scratch two days ago, activated yeast, fresh tomato sauce, chopped veggies, and a baking setting as seen on a YouTube short. Baking, they say, is a science, so we followed the recipe down to the T because we weren’t about to get this wrong; and we didn’t. This success has opened up a new portal for me, a new pathway has been created on my brain, a new appliance that can do magical things; but I don’t see myself experimenting more because the effort involved in making sure the dough is kneaded over and over is a lot. I am not ready for the kind of labour it needs.

I’ve also decided to end emotional labour needed to explain things to people who are not at the same wavelength as me. I am unable, dear readers. Growing up with the internet taught us millennials one thing, that if you can’t find a conversationalist / opponent at the same level of awareness as you, you cannot be doing the work of educating them, and then continuing the interaction. It is a big no. And I am tired. I don’t want to do the labour of explaining things to people. The internet is free, and books are easy to come by. Don’t make me.

What I am going to do, though, is bring back consistency in one area of life. I will call only family and close friends on their birthday like I used to, like we used to. I realised this when an uncle communicated that I don’t keep in touch anymore, and it broke my heart a little because yeah, what the hell is up with that? I don’t care that 100 messaging apps exist. I want my people to have the comfort of knowing that every year, I will call them for their birthday without fail, no matter who else does or doesn’t. For last one year, I have been religiously logging down family and close friends’ birthdays in my phone’s Contact app. I have them all written down, and I will follow through. Some things must remain the same. Some things should be trustworthy.

Previous Posts
Day Seven
Day Six
Day Five
Day Four
Day Three
Day Two
Day One