On Friendships and Time

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As a writer, I don't ever wish to befriend authors. Not even those I look up to. Even conversing with them makes me awkward. A thick wall comes in between and I get clueless on what to talk about apart from their books or writing process.

I remember how during the 2023 BLF post-festival party, I met the novelists Amitava Kumar and Janice Pariat, and instead of having a regular small talk about this and that, I started telling Janice how her book was the first I took to Cubbon Reads, and instead of talking about the Patna connection with Kumar, I started asking him for tips on becoming a better writer. To my surprise, I turned into a coy fanboy of theirs and I hated that version of myself, especially because I'm not a big fan of either of them. I couldn't push myself to complete a single book by Janice, and the books by Kumar would have shared the same fate if not for them being set in Patna, my hometown.

I thought hard on why I act like this in front of authors and I found that I fear knowing them. I fear the flawed human in them would rupture the image I have concocted based on their words I read. While their measured writing might not disappoint me, they certainly will.

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My goal from 2025 is to leave Bangalore for good.

It's been seven months since I left the city and the city has not once made me long for it, not even for its celebrated weather. I enjoyed the Himalayan monsoon more, as I'm enjoying the east Indian winter. Bangalore's fundamental problem isn't that north Indians have flooded it but engineers. Engineers are the most soulless and cultureless among all professionals and any city with predominantly engineers turns as boring as NRN and the company he built, with such little interest in a city's existing culture that we don't learn anything about it. And to that, add the widespread xenophobia for all the outsiders—the city is precipice for a civil war in less than a decade.

When one migrates to Delhi, one becomes a Dilliwala. When one moves to Mumbai, one becomes a Mumbaikar. One doesn't become a Bangalorean ever, no matter how many houses one buys here. Bangalore is the least cosmopolitan of all the Indian metros, perhaps the only one where the divide between the locals and migrants is so wide that neither the outsiders have adopted its tongue nor the locals have heartily accepted the outsiders. It is a volcano awaiting eruption.

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When I was younger, I would be writing year end notes and new year resolutions. Now year end notes are written somewhere in the late middle of the year, when I feel I have had enough, and resolutions have almost ceased to exist, and even if they arrive, they come anytime. Almost always at the end of the year, never at the beginning.

With time, your sense of time gets warped. You don't live your life year to year but from one grief to another, from one joy to another—for as much or as little time they might linger. Life feels like the sum total of so many lives lived in place of years lived.

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Over the last few years, I have been questioning if I chose the wrong passion. Or rather, if the wrong passion—that is writing—chose me.— % &Truth be told, writing has been completely overshadowed by video everywhere I see. Ephemeral reels have replaced the lasting carousel posts. Podcasts have replaced most nonfiction books. Novel remains relevant but the number of readers who are truly preferring novels to cinema are thinning by the day. The way no investor wanted to touch YQ after the Tiktok wave, questioning how less and less people will write in the future, reinforced my question—
both personally and professionally. — % &We launched the feature of videoquote on YQ too but soon rolled it back, owing to costs primarily, a decision I was secretly happy about because video as a feature was killing the community of YQ.

Video is an impersonal medium. It is run on views, not likes. It doesn't create community around it. Whereas every like on your write-up makes you happy, it's the total views on your video that truly makes you happy. You don't care the two comments and five likes in your video if the total views on your video don't cross 1000. On a write-up or a photo, you care about every like. You care about who liked it, what did they say. That's why Instagram feels like a social network while YouTube feels like a content network, even though Insta is becoming more and more like YouTube with reels taking the centerstage.— % &Out of peer pressure, I tried the video form but my authenticity went for a toss. I was too conscious with how my voice sounded, how my face looked, how my lips moved. I could never find a comfort with the medium. My comfort resides in the facelessness of words. The written form preserves the nonchalance I have with respect to how I look. So I stuck to the form and with time, I thought I would never break out. That writing will keep me limited in my own circle of a handful readers. I felt limited and had accepted the fate in its entirety until last week. — % &Until the Cubbon Reads fiasco happened. We didn't make one appearance in the press and everything that we wanted to say was conveyed in writing. And we realised the sheer power of pen. We realised how every form of protest needs to build its own discourse and nothing does that more efficiently than the written word. We found why freedom fighters left us a vast body of writings which enabled us to peer into their minds, their reasonings and their causes.— % &Writing is an indelible medium. The ink carries a finality and detail that a video can never bring. Over the last one week, writing took away the anxiety, brought every curator and reader together to fight and heal together, and provided us with such peace while fighting the biggest battle—the battle of citizen's rights versus those in power. For the entire last week, I have been thanking my stars for writing to have chosen me. For it to guide me and so many of us out of this calamity without letting our guards down. The battle is still on as we file a PIL. And we will fight it with our pens!— % &

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Aaj raat to Santa banta hai.

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The December That Never Ends— % &This December has been long and endless. Everything that could go wrong went wrong. I won't list the things but the list is endless. From personal to professional to public, all these spheres got shaken.

And for some reason, fortunately or unfortunately, I didn't spend this month at any place I have called home in life. I have been stuck in Kolkata along with my father, first for his surgery and now post surgery, waiting for his stitches to be cut before we head back home. It's been more than three weeks already and hotels have started to feel like a prison—albeit for the privileged.— % &It is too soon to make sense of what happened this month. They say there's no such thing as contemporary history and I will let time provide me more perspective. But an uncanny insight developed of late which makes me happy that I wasn't home:

Here, far away from every known place where I have lived before, I was perpetually out of my comfort zone. The strangeness of the new city never let me take anything for granted. It allowed me not to panic when things went haywire, as they often did in my regular life. I was able to take all other mishaps impersonally, as if I was getting acquainted with a new city while being pushed and shoved by it.— % &The only solace was Kolkata, as a city, didn't bully me. It accepted me, it spoke Hindi when it heard my broken Bangla, it fed me delicious food when I was hungry and its homely owls gave me company on sleepless nights. In one line, the city gave me comfort.

Perhaps, that's what home does.— % &

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Homelessness

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The cricketer R Ashwin retired today. During his 100th Test match, Ashwin had said that test cricket is the closest metaphor to life. I arrived at some answers on why he said that.

First, test cricket is about endurance and survival, which is pretty much how life is. It is not about speed of putting runs on board as much as saving wickets. It is about staying put when things get tough, and giving every ounce, even if it means a 200-partnership for the 10th wicket. Most often, it is more about will than skill. This is all very inspiring, echoing the hustle that everyday life is, but it is also somewhat obvious. Life isn't just the brave fight we put, but also the mistakes we make. Living is about being fallibile & vulnerable. It is about goofing up yet getting a chance to rectify it, which brings me to the second point.

Test cricket is like life more profoundly because it gives second chances. Even if you get out on duck in the first inning, out of sheer misfortune or indecision, the second inning lets you salvage. Life is harsh, but it's also forgiving and patient. It offers one more chance. To show integrity of character & work ethic. To apologise, to repair, to comeback.

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2024: The Year I Almost Retired

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