December

 It's December. The end of 2022 signifies the end of the artifice and misstep I created for myself. I have no doubts about my future. It's clear. I will have to be an engineer who writes rather than an artist who is an engineer. It works almost to comic tones without any such efforts. I first realized this when I sat with my parents in Karjat and they asked me when I would develop a flying car. To which I said something to the effect of 'No.' Playing to my sharp senses of being observant I realized that my father's behavior has changed in certain retrospect regarding planning. Everything at one time had to be laid out in front of him before any decisions were made. Now he requires just the message of confidence in his ability to get us what we want and he'll try to deliver. I saw his skill in negotiations and asked about his job while he was at Pfizer, asking him how he remained at the top of his department for over 22 years before he left it. To which he replied in a generic matter-of-fact sort of way going out saying, 'You have to know the needs of the doctor and then form your story in such a way that you can sell your product without making them feel like you're forcing it on them.' Making them see that they're the ones who selected the products themselves and that you just made a mere suggestion to the nature of the product that they required to prescribe to their patients in the first place. I love my father and how successful he is. But I wish he was as perceptive of the needs of his family emotionally as he is of doctors that would prescribe the drugs he's made to sell.

In recent years I saw him uproot from his usual stance on academics being a top priority. It is a top priority still but not as important as family and family time now apparently. This theory is still defeated in midst of chaotic situations like the death of my grandfather. I forgot to highlight like my mother did, the behavior of my father on the day of my nanu's death was insufferable. He sat in a corner watching videos on his phone while my mother cried. He kept leaving the home and going outside for long bits leaving my mother's side. This annoyed her quite a bit. It's unforgivable to me. A man you loved dies and all you do is walk about and mope about your back hurting when it's time to carry his coffin to the burial grounds? It has more context than I'm able to provide but my father isn't supposed to carry heavy objects anyway. Comes in Shanks Uncle. I don't know. He's a good person. There's a lot I can write about him to paint a grave portrait of who he really is as a person and I don't know which would be more moving. The reality or the subjective normalcy and care with which he dealt with me when I was three. I remember him carrying me up to the room (the one Johnny uncle resided in, 10 years later) and he told me how when he was my age he stayed up late and met Santa. The old man asked him to be a good boy and he'd give him a lot of chocolates. This story ended up being such a core memory to me that till about eight years after it was told, I'd repeat it and fight those who argued Santa wasn't real. How come Santa isn't real, my Shanks Uncle's met him. He's big, burly and gray-haired, and nice.

I spent the first 2 days of the month panicking and not performing in my last exam. After which I went out to Churchgate and Marine Lines where I spent the evening looking at the waves and listening to Kevin make the same joke about jumping onto the rocks if Sachi gave him the eight thousand rupees he'd bought to Mumbai. Shweta also joined us on the trip. Whenever I'm with her, I'm usually reminded about her fight with Siddhi and the nature of their relationship. How it could've been avoided by just being considerate of each others' time and space. How things could be different in college if they weren't spending so much of their energies ignoring each other and back-biting one another for no reason. I don't know how things function. All I know is I'm in the middle of a cold war between two friends who've left for Rhode Island and neither of them came back. 

I spent the next two days traveling in my dad's car as he drove us to Karjat. I spent the day in the room without going out much except to talk to my Jaan. Because network reception in the room sucked and there were bugs in the balcony carpet that jumped me every time I sat in the chair. My parents watched a couple of terrible old Bollywood 2010's films and the Kapil Sharma show re-runs for the remainder of the trip. I missed Tanushi terribly, I wished that she was there, things would be better. On the day I came back, we took a detour to Powai and visited higher Bombay where the Richie Riches of the city resided. Besides being Rich, the only thing I thought of them was being incredibly vain and judgemental as I was being as I thought of them. My sister joined us for donuts. After which she sent us to see an exhibition. I bought a bunch of cool books that I liked. A little girl selling trash bin bags stalked my parents to the car. I found it funny because my mother was terrible at saying no and I wished for her to grow and mature by telling the little girl off. Instead of which she handed her a hundred rupee note for 4 binbag bags??? It caught me by surprise how bad she was at saying no. She said she's not good at neglecting little kids and how she feels pity for them, poor things but honestly I know it's because she doesn't know how to say no to anyone.

The next day I went out with Chinmay. Sleep-deprived and annoyed. He accompanies me as the only feature of me being at the museum was taking pictures of things that looked visually pleasing and cinematic. Every little visitor's notebook I found had the word 'cinematic' inscribed in it next 05/12/22 - Vallance Alvares. We then ate sandwiches and went to Kitab Khaana. I sat explaining to him the structure of films and stories by Flora Fountain and it remains one of the highlights of my day. 

As I reached closer to home, I gave Ruth a call and asked her to meet me. She acknowledged and joined me, and we walked around the block. Went to Hasbulla I forget the place's name. And got shawarma. She paid for it. She asked me if I'd like to get ice cream at Naturals but we couldn't go to the one in Dahisar because we'd get beaten up by either of our families finding us there together. So we agreed to go to the one in Borivali. She got choco chips and I got roasted almonds. I keep meeting her year after year forgetting how similar we are, I keep thinking that we don't have much in common except that we do, we're both products of the same situations we grew up in with almost the same people around us, either pairing us or bidding us trouble. She recounted the incidents with Hitika in church and I almost blew up spit in her face laughing. We hugged. That is weird because we've never hugged. Always sort of kept this distance. Keeping away from each other, maybe it was because of how we met and became friends but those formalities should've died a long while back to be perfectly clear. I think she and I make good friends after all. (Note: I also told her she's turning into my sister. Which makes me laugh so much every time I think about it. She's cool.)

Hi Chinmay. I love you. I don't mind you whining. You're cool too.