Haal-E-Dil

writing madness, again.

Meow

I have been elsewhere and nowhere.

I turn away from the stove for a moment and the chai boils over. The tea dust sticks to the walls of the saucepan and floats in a pool on the tray beneath the burner. Flames lick frothy tea off the vessel. I pick it up, give it a swirl, and return the saucepan to the flame for another five seconds before I turn off the stove. I am forgetful. What comes next?

I pour watermelon juice into my black and white mug from the paper cup and flood the laptop table. I turn into a puddle. Cross-legged on the floor, I cry. The grainy remains of the juice run through my calves and stick to the floor, tears meet watermelon mush on their way down. A. gets a mop. If I could, I would move a foot to my left and cower under the desk beside me. Instead, I fold into myself, rock, and bawl.

I want to run a knife through my skin. I wish the gaping mouth would speak to me. I need answers. I ache to not want to run a knife through my skin.

A summer morning three years ago in a kitchen in another city, I rinse a clay meenchatti. Water runs olive as it washes off fresh bird poo. I dole out taunts to the birds that poop and flap their wings in the pot and continue to drink from the same. I fill the meenchatti with water and step out to the balcony overlooking a small park. I place it on the edge of the ledge and watch the water settle into the reflection of the dark green foliage under a bright blue sky laced with cotton clouds. Often storms throw the trees against the window at night, waking me. I wonder how the pot survives night after night of violent wind.

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After a night of being unable to sleep, I plug in my orange wired earphones and change into the burgundy pants and black T-shirt that I have been changing into most mornings that week and walk to a park near home. Not yet fully awake from a slumber, the sun fumbles its way through the clouds. The trees that line the walkway stand still with no wind to tickle them into a little dance.

The park is no longer neglected - the pond has been (k)filled, trees around the pond trimmed down to bare bones. A ‘developing’ park, apparently.

Axes leave tree stumps behind and tender green stalks grow out of them, followed by happy-green leaflets. Pink trumpet flowers burst into bloom from leafless tree crowns. I walk squinting at the flowers and lose my way.

I sit knees to chest on a bench tucked away in a corner of the park canopied by trees. A squirrel rushes out of bushes and hurries up and down and across trees and branches. A reluctant breeze shakes the leaves of the bougainvillea on my left. Sun shines in a glowing orange from behind the skyscrapers on the road behind the park. Burnt orange splatters of burnt-orange light speckle the wall and the bark of the almond tree across me.

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Sometimes I catch myself not breathing. A breath halts between an exhale and the next inhale, seeking my attention. I catch up, and let my chest rise again. Until the next time I stop midway. Lost, unable to recall what comes next.

At night, the moon bashfully beams from between the bare branches of the lone gulmohar tree outside my window. There were two of them. A little while ago, the other tree fell itself to death. How long did it break before uprooting itself? A lone branch of the lonely tree blooms. Fire-bright petals bordered with bright-sunny yellow refuse to fall even after weeks. Are their roots still holding hands beneath? The one who left and the one who is bereft? I lie beneath the soil in a dream between wakefulness and patchy sleep. My veins branch out of my skin and hold hands with the roots.

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I draw. Dots and lines and curves. Over and over and over. Susan Sontag and Agnes Varda are interviewed by a whitest-white man in the background. Susan lights a cigarette, her gaze sharper than the blue flame. Agnes looks to her for words. Together they do not let him talk over either of them.

V. texts she's reaching in 20 mins. I scrub the toilet floor until my fingers ache. I brush and splash water on my face until the hot water scalds me. I step out and stand in front of the almirah mirror. I push around my cheek muscles and try to craft them into a smile. A sob bubbles out of me instead. Who is crying at me from the mirror?

I yearn for a home - silent, dark, safe, womby - to crawl into and be cared for.

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One night I run to Libgen for a book whose cover I find in my phone gallery. I start reading and do not stop. A girl, mad. A web of madness that runs down generations. A girl, running, looking for homes. I exhale in tears. I stop when the Kindle tells me I am 73% through the book. I change into my burgundy pants and black t-shirt, plug in my orange wired earphones, and walk to the park. I can't bear to know where she ends up.

It’s unbearable to feel nothing when surrounded by people you love. It's easier to smile at strangers who do not know how you smile when you are you. I don’t itch to clean the spider webs on the ceiling.

I sit up look at the moon under a blanket of clouds that make it blurry, and cry. Moon made me cry; I complain to a friend. Light from the streetlamp walks in through the open window casting shadows on the wall. The precision of the window bars in the shadow reminds me of unfreedom. I long to hold the shadow bars and bend them a little.

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I write a poem at the end of last year at a communion of twenty zoom-squares witnessing each other, writing together.

for most of 2023, I was a lemon

a good squeeze and I squirt tears

In lengthy emails to my therapist after disappearing for months, in lengthy texts and slow-sigh-filled voice notes to my people, page after page in my notebook, I write about all that broke (in) me that year. I write how the breaking seems to walk hand in hand with healing, like water shatters onto the floor and pool into togetherness. For the first time in a long time, I pin all my hope to the beginning of a new year.

The Kerala government calendar fluttering on the wall bear witness as I continue to shapeshift into a lemon, again and again and again, even in 2024.

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I play games with myself. Look up at the sky through the branches of trees and slide the glasses down the nose bridge. The edges blur, and the world turns softer.  

V. oils my hair, and I shower after 10 days. It's not a new dawn a new day a new life. Nina Simone fails. I play it anyway. I text P. who told me the world seems new after a shower. I can’t get myself to respond when she texts back.

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I crochet. I play old Malayalam movies on the laptop and untangle stubborn yarn balls for hours. Once it runs free, I pull them into loops, turn them into baby-beings, and stick googly eyes on them. I keep a smol octopus for myself, keep others for my people. I bring home fallen flowers, fill a small violet bowl with water for them to float in. Aakashamalliga scents my room for four days.

Madness is expensive. I joke how I need medicines to survive and function so that I can work so that I can pay bills and afford to refill the green pill-box- five tablets per cubicle, one cubicle for the day. To quote a friend off-context, I don’t want meds, me just wants to have some money, a room and a small kitchen.

I turn 28 in a couple of days. Another game to play with yourself – bet on making it to the next birthday alive. My people hold hope-balloons for me - makes plans, reminds me to live, hand me water bottles, cook, clean, and sing for me. I try to copy, fail, and hope they don’t let go.

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Next game: hope against hope that your chronic illness flare doesn’t clash with work timelines, that it is a normal (deep) dip in mood and not an episode that'd simmer for far too long or boil into a hospital admission-worthy breakdown. Count resources required to access care, cry to sleep.

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Every time I wake up, I check the mauve pink pillowcase for ringlets left behind by tears. I need to know if I cried in my sleep.I scramble out of the bed in which I have been lying for seven hours, hungry, thirsty, wanting to pee, crying, reading, resting eyes. I make chai, dunk a goodday in it and slurp the tea from the biscuit.

Every third evening I walk to a kirana nearby to buy two half-liter cartons of milk. They last three days. A challenge for life: stay alive till the cartons are empty. The only rule: No life decisions can be made until you’ve had chai. When you pour the last of milk into the saucepan, prepare to drag yourself to the shop and buy milk. And make another chai. And let the cartons run out of milk.

Early in the morning, I drag a friend to a park, gawk at trees, share random facts, and swing back and forth for an hour. I don’t let go when the swing takes me as close to the sky as it can, I don’t wish to disappear. Instead, I hold on.

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I write this post throughout the month and not-write. Today, I let go of the weight of the draft and pass it on to you.

Tell me, how has your heart been?