pretty in possible

evil eye emoji. prayer hands emoji. pink heart emoji.

I am extending in all directions, unafraid and smiling. The hot press of the future is my friend, and the mustiness of the past is being fumigated and dealt with.

I

Capricious and dainty sea!

I am integral with you … I too am of one phase and of all phases.

Last year, I wrote of a manic attempt to ‘correct’ everything that was wrong with me through moisturizers, therapy, and a routine that would offend an ascetic. As I moved back home and greyed into a 9-5, I worried about my brain, society, art, and morality. But this year, I’ve been governed by blazes of deep Work, aimless summer ennui (perhaps you read my SUMMERIA ZINE), intense emotional fissures (remember when I wrote about fighting with my girl friends? We made up!), and mostly, the delicious, gaseous, oozing joy of possibility. Bombay broke open in my palm. I didn’t have the time to theorise.

II

This head is more than churches or bibles or creeds

I applied for the Rhodes Scholarship between April and November. The process was torturous and elating. I spent hours poring over one statement that was supposed to be the Story of My Life. Who I am, where I’ve been, where I want to go. I thought, long and hard, drank Red Bull for the first time since 11^th grade, and turned away from the senseless chatter of socialising. It was freeing; I had missed being consumed by something big and golden and worthy.

As I pushed through successive interview rounds, an old disease of optimism began plaguing me again. I made notes about ‘current affairs’ and practiced pitches for my research proposal. The support of my friends and family and mentors and professors was a gift I didn’t deserve. They came prepared with tough questions, didn’t laugh during mock interviews, and generally let me run around with an air of self-importance. I am so grateful for all of it. The interviews themselves were terribly weighted with consequence, and the panelists seemed horrifically smug. Still, it was the first time in a long time (and maybe the last time) people would really, really care to find out if I was ‘smart.’ Bullshit, broadly speaking, wouldn’t quite cut it. Making it to round three validated my naïve desire to Change the World and Be a Person. But I want to. And I am.

III

I too am untranslatable.

I sound my barbaric yawp over the rooftops of the world.

Maybe – sorry – I’ve been really lowkey about it, but maybe you know I’m writing for dirty Magazine? I love my weekends pinking in our editor’s living room drinking iced coffee trying to – in a world that did not ask for it – make high art. Devastatingly well-dressed, we giggle in cultural chic and blush in shades of design. Something shifted in July as I learnt from creatives whose smarts did not come with academia’s paraphernalia, but rather, from fingers exactly on the pulse of the moment. Their instincts for craft-colour-commentary are sharp, and glamourously insightful. Finally, I feel I can call myself a ‘writer’ with some authority. This has been a door into a world I have longed for, engraved with a voice I’m still carving.

The jokes about South Bombay girls in Bandra are all true; I take a photo of a sunset on Carter Road while driving back home from brainstorming, inspired by a new model for what an Artistic Life could be.

IV

I sing the body electric

It would be wrong not to say how romantic everything is. In October, he dropped me home after one of our early 13-hour dates. He spilled himself in those last minutes of the drive, complaining about the dissonance and contradictions and abstractions of life. I quoted Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass on being large and containing multitudes. Now, months later, we are tying bows around each other’s conflicts, pillow-talking in a love language best described as half-meta half-hedonist. Gluttonous children, we inhaled December. Embodied it. Were artisanal, hands muddy with meaning-making.

But eating cold pizza by a sunrise last week, we talked with bites of open-mouthed trust. Softly, now. The glide has come. There are a million mornings left to drink medium roasts and forget our toothbrushes and do the crossword and fight about AI and change the music. We look forward to taking our time.

V

I celebrate myself

The air of unreality has been shaken off my life. There are mad sounds coming from the piano setting notes through the hall like fresh prints in snow. There’s no dread here, not in the now, where each day blooms multiple like a hydrangea. Evil eye emoji. Prayer hands emoji. Pink heart emoji.

I ended my last year in review post with an Annie Ernaux quote that said: “to exist is to drink oneself without thirst.” Fuck that. I’m wet with January’s air. I’m a glass half-full, foaming to brim.