Scatting at the End of July
Last time Rohan stayed over, it poured heavily. We didn’t go to the office until 10:30. There is a high-rise that I can see outside my kitchen window. There is also a tree that seems like it has amaltas, but it isn’t amaltas. It is something else that has bloomed for the entire two months I have been here. I think after the first month, it has been going quite rapidly. I am still not very certain when I write. The words are very deliberate and scared. I don’t know what they are scared of, but I am still trying to find a lock. Gosh, I just want the voice in my head to shut up. I am doing everything else I can in my life according to what it should be. I don’t owe anything to anyone except my family, but this one thing I want to do it at a different pace, understand it at my own pace, but I have been going at my own pace, and it has not been working. You need to understand where your limitations exist. I do, but I don’t want to force something that doesn’t exist. Maybe my literary voice is this, but I am unable to see it because I can’t discern what to make of this. Like driving, cooking every day, living outside, living in Europe, and of course writing — all of these things have one thing in common, that I used to think or on some level am scared that I will never be able to do this. Even the MacBook I am writing this on, I didn’t think I would be able to pay it off in a year like I did. So I think I have given myself enough reasons to know why this is also possible, and I can do it; I just need to find a rhythm. Maybe I have already found one, and I am just scared to go all in. Bukowski said that Go All In, for once in your life, go all in. I had an idea that I could start a literary journal. I can do that, which can eventually be my main gig, and I can then enjoy making that my life. Being near literature, near art, near what I love. That is what I want, and to do that, I have to write or be a part of a journal. Why not do both? The apple doesn’t fall that far from the tree, does it? I saw a copy of Think India for resale on a second-hand book page on Instagram. They had shown the editorial page in it, and I zoomed in to see Papa’s name in the editor’s list. He used to do everything in the book. Even writing the editorial, and yet he didn’t get his due. Actually, he did get the job that would change everything for him through DP Tripathi, the editor in chief of Think India, but I just feel he really does deserve to see his name on a novel. Every person who has ever felt the urge to come to terms with themselves through words and wanted to take it somewhere deserves this. I will keep telling myself this until I believe it myself. I don’t believe it myself just yet, but I think in time I will. I am just scatting right now. In my mind, the song has ended, but I don’t want to leave the stage quite yet, so I am just standing and scatting. Improvising. I do want to go to Mumbai. I remembered Pallavi when I wrote about improvising because she does improv. Maybe I can find an improv group here, but they will all speak Marathi. I am going into the victim mindset, saying I feel alienated. No, I don’t feel alienated when they speak Marathi, I just feel left out. I felt alienated when Papa and Riddhi laughed about something at my expense, not knowing how I felt about it, or whether they didn’t care to ask. I feel alienated when I am the only person asking to be responsible for the money spending, but my parents tell me that I am doing “Paisa Paisa” a lot. I want to reserve the big words for then. So I don’t drown in my own pretension that my life is horrible. It’s not. I am just still understanding how a lot of it works.