Personal
Restlessness…
Sometimes I wonder what happened to me. I wonder where that fearless, outspoken accidental writer of the past disappeared. I wonder why I don’t write as frequently as before. In fact, if I were honest with myself, I would also acknowledge that I don’t write as honestly as before either. While I am still quite outspoken about things that do not directly concern me (politics and social mores for example), I find myself quite reticent when it comes to things that intimately concern me. I find myself often wondering how my family will react and what they will think about certain things that I write about. I find that this is a fairly recent occurrence. Every time I put words on screen, I find myself wondering if I should publish it. If I do publish it, I find myself wondering what people will think about it.
To be brutally frank, I hate the new me. I hate the fact that I have begun to obsessively look over my shoulder, trying to figure out what people think and what they will say. I am beginning to get restless. This is a restlessness that comes of having too many things to say and no-one to say it to. No. Scratch that. It’s a restlessness that comes of having too many things to say and not knowing how to say it. The mind is so full of things that I am forgetting how it is to let my hair down and have some fun. I am desperately waiting for the old me to resurface. God alone knows how long that’s going to take.
Dark is beautiful…
When I first received an invitation to like the page Dark is Beautiful from a Facebook friend, I didn’t think much of it. I ignored it as just another spam message. But, something led me check it out one day when randomly surfing the net. Perhaps it’s the involvement of celebrities like Nandita Das or perhaps the manner in which the message was conveyed. The campaign instantly appealed to me.
I have for many years now tried to avoid using any products that promise to make me fairer, sometimes illogically shunning even sunscreen just because of the message it conveys. But, the campaign for non-discrimination on the basis of skin colour hits a raw nerve. It is not very long ago that I was considered dark. Growing up, relatives often commented that with this skin time I would never find a suitable boy. A cousin once put her hand against mine and said, “See? Your skin is black. Mine is white. It basically just means you’re not scrubbing hard enough when you bathe. Scrub nicely and you will also become white and pretty like me.” For a 12-year old me, this statement was heartbreaking. The cousin in question was six years older and considered very pretty by my extended family. From then, the concept of fair is beautiful stuck on, much like the grease from a badly-baked cake, that refuses to wash no matter how hard you try.
It took me nearly a decade to get over my complex of being dark-skinned. A decade of feeling inferior and trying to tide over that complex by doing things that my fair-skinned cousins would have never dreamt of doing. A decade of trying to be the best in what I did in an effort to prove that my dark skin was not a handicap.
Nearly twenty years after that incident, I realize that I am worth much more than the colour of my skin. I realize that dark is not ugly and will never be. I realize I was perhaps foolish in trying to overcome what was never a handicap in the first place. But, the memories linger. Today, when I tell people that dark is beautiful, that being dark is nothing to be ashamed of, I am often greeted with the retort, “It’s easy for you to say because you are not dark.” No, I am not dark. I realize that now. But, there was a time, over a decade of my relatively short life, when I spent hours in front of the mirror agonizing about the pigmentation on my neck and the blemishes on my face.
It has not been easy for me to say this aloud. I do understand how people feel when they are called dark and ugly. But, it’s time we stop obsessing about fair skin. It is time we stop linking success and beauty to complexion. It is also time we stop relying of chemical cocktails that promise to make us fairer and lovelier. Fair is not always lovely. And dark is indeed very beautiful.Age is just a number…
It’s not every day that you reach a landmark age of 31. While just yesterday I felt like I was finally going to be over-the-hill, today is an entirely different feeling. Perhaps, it’s because today was such a fun day, or because I like that people made the effort to call me and wish me happy birthday. Or simply because I realized that we live for the little things that make us happy. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how many years you’ve walked this earth. What matters is how you live each minute, here and now.
Ten years ago when I turned 21, I felt like an adult. Finally, I would be on my own, independent and capable of making my own decisions. To put it simply, I felt like a big girl. A decade later, as I step well and truly into the 30s, I find that I am not as thrilled as I was at 21. What changes? Is it real? Or is it, like so many other feelings, a figment of my overactive imagination. Where did this decade disappear? In these 10 years, I have gone abroad, come back, got a job, changed careers, made difficult decisions, got married and lost several loved ones and even coped with this loss. While that seems like a lot of work, these years have simply melted away leaving nothing but memories. At times, these memories are vivid and clear. At other times, I can barely remember. But one thing remains: time is a healer, it moves on and people do as well, along with it.
With this realization comes another: age is just a number. I could spend the next ten years regretting all that I couldn’t do. Or I could seize the day and live it to the fullest. The choice now is mine. And my choice is to seize the day. As Ronsard said, “Cueillez dès aujourd’hui, les roses de la vie.” Because you never know what life has in store for you.
Resurrecting a blog
This day, seven years ago, I began to put down my words on paper (or screen). As this blog turns 7, I begin to wonder when and why I simply stopped writing. Was it when I ran out of things to say? Or was it when I simply found other means of expressing myself? Was it, as some of my friends say, when I found other things to do with my life and my time? Today is as good a day as any other to reflect on these questions in the hope that discovering answers to them will spur me on to becoming a better and more prolific writer.
This blog has surely seen better days, with opinions expressed, debates raging on in the comments columns and interaction being a given, rather than a possibility. But somewhere along the way, I lost track. I stopped writing as frequently as I used to and my readers lost patience with me and gave up on my ability to turn out posts worth reading. There was a time when I obsessed about page views, visitor stats and the like. Today, I find that none of these actually matter. It no longer matters to me if someone is reading what I write, although I do appreciate the odd comment that comes my way.
Much reflection and analysis later, I also discovered that I had stopped writing precisely because this blog was acquiring more and more readers. While it remains a pleasure to know that people are reading and appreciating what I write, I began to get more conscious of my writing when I met people in real life who began to discuss my blog. Ok. Let me get this out! I simply don’t like discussing the contents of my blog in real life. I am fine with interactions through comments and email, but confront me in person on something I have said on my blog and I get uncomfortable. Not that I am a shy person, far from it. But, there seems to be some kind of mental block in mixing my online life with my offline one. I certainly have friends who belong to both worlds, but not everyone makes that crossover as easily. In addition, I often find myself hesitating about posting something on my blog because I am concerned about the reaction of those on Facebook who might come across the post and have something to say. It didn’t help that my blog feeds were automatically synchronised with my Facebook timeline.
And then, one day, it came to me completely out of the blue. It was now time for me dissociate my personal identity from that of my blog. While this was in no way an attempt to become anonymous, it was an important step in my evolution as a blogger. So, with renewed determination, I set about the task of giving this blog a new identity distinct from that of it’s owner. I created a Facebook page for the Accidental Writer. I stopped the synchronisation of my blog with my FB profile. I decided to take it slowly and publish manual updates rather than allow automated feeds. It already feels better to know that my blogposts will be judged on their merit and not as something written by Amrutha. I don’t know if this experiment will succeed. But, whatever it is, the deed is done.
Now, the Accidental Writer has been officially resurrected. As they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. This is the second post in 10 days, which is more than I can claim to have done in the last two years. I am crossing my fingers and hoping this trend continues. And that one day, my readers come back to this blog knowing that it offers them something worth their while. Until then, I will continue to write. Because that’s what I know to do best!
Discovering a new city
Born and raised in Chennai as I am, I have always looked down a bit on other cities, especially what we may call Tier 2 cities within the state. The only exceptions to this rule were Mumbai and Delhi by virtue of being the biggest metros in the country. Even Kolkata, while being somewhat bigger than Chennai, still retained the characteristics of a small town and was a city I didn’t really consider on par with my beloved Chennai.
Growing up into adolescence, I often wondered why affluent uncles returning to India from,overseas chose to invest in property in Coimbatore as opposed to Chennai, which would have the obvious, and perhaps only choice for me had I been in their place. In my ignorance, I remember asking my mother if Coimbatore had restaurants and places to see that way Chennai did.
This image of Coimbatore as a small town lingered on in my memory into adulthood despite several short-duration visits to visit assorted relatives. When I met S, I realised that I was going to have to adopt Coimbatore as a hometown sooner or later. So attached was he to the place of his birth and childhood that he harboured (still harbours) dreams of going back to Coimbatore in a few years and settling down there.
As our courtship matured into marriage, I began to hear more and more about Coimbatore. During our visits, he would drive around the city showing me all these places he associated with his childhood. The schools in which he studied, PSGCAS, the ubiquitous Annapoorna, the parks, the roads and the roadside bhel puri shop became part of my life too. I slowly, but surely warmed to the idea of Coimbatore and began to consider it a second home. Second. To Chennai.
Circumstances forced me to spend 17 days of August in Coimbatore. Although I found it hard to adjust initially, I began to enjoy the feel of living in the city. I rediscovered the joys of living in an independent house, one that I had forgotten since we moved out of my grandparents’ home in 2002. I enjoyed the morning chores and the chirping of birds. I relished the possibility of picking fresh curry leaves from the plant for my rasam, and picking guavas off the tree for a snack.
In these three week, I find that I am no longer averse to the idea of settling down in Coimbatore. What seemed like a punishment when S first mentioned it two years ago now seems a pleasant thought. Is this what discovering a new city feels like?