Hello there,

I write to you here with no motivation to write, whatsoever. Everytime I open my laptop, I just stare at a white box - my cursor blinking; no words to flow to my keypad. The thought of putting my words out into the world has been something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. It's a very primitive human need to be understood. There's things I must talk about; things I must stand for. Things that I need to try to talk to this world about - things that I'm most certain the world won't take to kindly.  But you see, I also have this constant fear of being perceived.

So when Keyan told me about this newsletter that we’ll be sending out bi-monthly, I thought ‘that's a perfect way to take up another task that scares the shit out of me and that I will procrastinate till the very last minute until I have no choice but to finish it to avoid the disappointment I might cause to people who have no idea I exist; so obviously I must do it!’

And here we are…

This isn’t my preferred mode of existence, but somehow, it's the form my existence has decided to take regardless of my choice.

Unlike the other potato, I’m not a writer. Funnily enough, all my heroes are writers, but we’ll go on that train of thought at some other time.

As for me, I’d call myself a reader. Similar to Keyan’s love for writing letters,  if I could make a career out of reading books, I would. Calling myself a reader with such confidence is a rarity. I usually struggle a lot to define what I do.

Every time someone asks me what I do during small talk, there’s always this pause I take and contemplate whether to follow the urge to answer with “oh I draw, read, think, dance, look for mushrooms in the monsoons, take really slow videos of really slow snails in the grass, stick things on my bedroom walls, get obsessed with color palettes, get into a staring contest with cats on the street, collect trinkets like a crow from the forest floor to take and keep safely in my room, I start up a million projects and leave them unfinished just enough to make me want to get back to them when I wish to..” but eventually settle for “oh, I’m an architect and designer”. Ugh, my existence is now limited.

I feel this constant need to categorize myself with any kind of label causes me great anxiety. A definition excludes the possibility of change and multiplicity.

I recently read ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ by Oscar Wilde. I loved that book with all my heart. I don’t think I’ve giggled and thrown back my head wondering “What is this man?” (both in awe and confusion) as many times ever before while reading a book. It was my introduction to classic literature, and what an introduction, truly!

It is a complex, yet truly beautiful read that would make you struggle with your own ideas of morality, intellect and beauty. Its paradoxical, witty, charming, scandalous, much like Oscar Wilde himself. I can imagine him smirking at the relevance his book holds in this age of social media, as if he already knew the fate of our society. I’d recommend this book to everyone I meet, and I won’t say anymore because I want you to go in as blindly into this as I did and marvel in the fun and fascination that the act of reading it ensues in you.

Fun fact: I spent 2 days and roamed 3 bookstores to find the English library edition of this book because I'm a slave to the aesthetics and that's exactly the kind of motive the ghost of Oscar Wilde would approve of.

Within one of the many witty exchanges in the book, there’s a small line hidden which echoed the thought I’ve had for a long time and that has just given me a sense of deep satisfaction. It went something like this:

“Names are everything. I never quarrel with actions. My one quarrel is with words. That is the reason I hate vulgar realism in literature. The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for.”

“I never tilt against beauty,” he said, with a wave of his hand.

“That is your error, Harry, believe me. You value beauty far too much.”

“How can you say that? I admit that I think that it is better to be beautiful than to be good. But on the other hand, no one is more ready than I am to acknowledge that it is better to be good than to be ugly.”

“Ugliness is one of the seven deadly sins, then?” cried the duchess.  “What becomes of your simile about the orchid?”

“Ugliness is one of the seven deadly virtues, Gladys. You, as a good Tory, must not underrate them. Beer, the Bible, and the seven deadly virtues have made our England what she is.”

“You don’t like your country, then?” she asked.

“I live in it.”

“That you may censure it the better.”

“Would you have me take the verdict of Europe on it?” he inquired.

“What do they say of us?”

“That Tartuffe has emigrated to England and opened a shop.”

“Is that yours, Harry?”

“I give it to you.”

“I could not use it. It is too true.”

“You need not be afraid. Our countrymen never recognize a description.”

“They are practical.”

“They are more cunning than practical. When they make up their ledger, they balance stupidity by wealth, and vice by hypocrisy.”

“Still, we have done great things.”

“Great things have been thrust on us, Gladys.”

“We have carried their burden.”

“Only as far as the Stock Exchange.”

She shook her head. “I believe in the race,” she cried. “It represents the survival of the pushing.”

“It has development.”

“Decay fascinates me more.”

“What of art?” she asked.

“It is a malady.”

“Love?”

“An illusion.”

“Religion?”

“The fashionable substitute for belief.”

“You are a sceptic.”

“Never! Scepticism is the beginning of faith.”

“What are you?”

“To define is to limit.”

“To define is to limit”!!

You know what I mean?! The writing! The wit! Ufff.

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I turned 28 last week - I was supposed to have my life together by the time I turned 28, but then again, I was supposed to have my life together by the time I was 25, and that didn’t happen either. I’m not sure what “together” I’m really looking for at this point, or whether I even want a life that's “together”.

How are people so sure of themselves? Have they asked themselves too many questions? Or not enough? Am I doing something wrong? Are we even supposed to be sure of ourselves? But to define is to limit, right?

Lately, I’m liking the uncertainty and recognizing it as an inherent condition of being a human. I’m convinced that any other way is only a lie we tell ourselves in order to survive, or even exist. But that opinion is likely to change soon. Growing up and ageing doesn’t scare me anymore like it used to. I like being unsure of what I want from life. I have this extremely vague direction that I’m headed in and the rest of the time I just spend doing things I enjoy, take as much time to educate myself to be able to make more conscious choices, and try to figure it all out while being fully aware that there’s no end to the figuring out part.

I went on a solo trip to the mountains on my birthday for a couple of days.

This need of finding an escape felt quite alien after having lived in Goa for a while. So, when I found myself in this dry city of Delhi, having to accept the fact that I completed 28 years of my life, I wanted to do it with a nice backdrop at least. All I did on that trip was read and write. I took my sketchbook but I couldn’t manage to pick up a pencil in public, with the fear of being seen as an artist. I have an extremely toxic relationship with the things that matter to me the most. You might have picked up a pattern by now, but don’t worry we are working on it.

And so I just read for two full days, thankfully I don't mind being labelled a reader.

I have always been a reader, ever since I can remember it, I have loved books. My oldest memory involves packing up books in my hello kitty school bag to take to my nani’s house for the summer vacation. Yes, I was that kid that packed books to take for vacation, and that hasn't changed a bit, clearly.

The kind of reader I am has changed multiple times over the years though. I always thought reading was a solitary act. And I reaaaaaaaally enjoy my solitude.

Till my late teens I read merely as a form of entertainment, I loved going on adventures with the characters and losing myself into other worlds and other lives.

Now when I sometimes think of the books I read when I was younger, it doesn’t even feel like it was me who read them. A past version of me who feels more like a friend I knew a long time ago that I can barely remember. It was someone else that read those books, and sometimes I find pieces of memories that that person left within the books - a movie ticket, some dried flowers, a note, some scribbles of thoughts on the margins. It feels weirdly relaxing to get acquainted with myself again.

The way I looked at reading changed after I read “The God of Small Things”. I read it for the first time in my early 20s. Keyan and I both share an immense love for that book. It holds a very special place for both of us and in some ways, it was the beginning of our friendship as well. I remember when she joined the studio I was working in, she told me she did her thesis on it. I immediately knew we'd be friends.

I best not start writing about my love for the book or the impact it has had on me, the words flow endlessly then, and this isn’t supposed to be about that. But I’ll say this, I kept going back to it not to relive the plot but for the language itself. I read a voice so unique, so sure of itself, so tender and yet firm.

As Arundhati herself beautifully puts:

“...the secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don’t deceive you with thrills and trick endings. They don’t surprise you with the unforeseen. They are as familiar as the house you live in. Or the smell of your lover’s skin. You know how they end, yet you listen as though you don’t. In the way that although you know that one day you will die, you live as though you won’t. In the Great Stories you know who lives, who dies, who finds love, who doesn’t. And yet you want to know again.

That is their mystery and their magic.”

Among other things, it ignited in me a new appreciation for literature, not just as another form of storytelling and entertainment but as an artform where style, structure, rhythm, tone were precisely honed by a writer. It also made me starkly aware of the effect literature has on politics and vice versa. I started to see writing as a political act. I started seeing the personal as political, and that changed everything.

Lately, I've noticed another great shift in the way I read. I've been making very deliberate conscious choices in trying to read widely and taking my time with them. I’m no longer in a rush to finish books, I like staying in the world with the characters long enough for me to start seeing them as people with whom I form deep friendships. I carry them within me. I recognize the writers behind the words and really understanding their personalities, seeing their intentions, their vulnerabilities, their greatness and their flaws. I look to them for advice at times. It excites me to know that we can form these bonds with other beings across time and space. It's a beautiful feeling to know someone so intimately.

I recently started this book club with two of the most important people in my life. And I recognized the joy of reading together. It was a revelation. I suddenly had this realization that books are meant to be shared. I’m almost convinced that I must take my side quest of turning everyone around me into a reader a bit seriously and start a more inclusive book club. More on that soon.

For now, I’m tired.

I wasn't sure what someone would really want out of a newsletter, this one was too rambly. Maybe I could do a monthly wrap up of things I read and watched? Or maybe you’d just like to witness another life unfold along with yours? I don't know.  

Also, what's going on with you? Is it a good time to be alive in your universe? Are you able to keep up with the ever-changing world? Are you stopping to watch the ladybugs in the grass? Are you writing down your dreams on paper?

Are you taking the time to breathe slowly?

I’d like to know.

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