Week 23

We’re just going to throw in a weeknote because the last few weeks have been hectic but I do want to document a bit of what’s been happening.

• Things are challenging right now — at home, at work, and in my own body. But just the right amount of challenging that feels good, and surmountable. A bit like the soreness after a good workout. It’s not cozy, but I can feel myself stretching and becoming more capable, slowly but steadily. Sure, I do soemtimes wonder if I am actually ever going to get better at multi-tasking, and focus, and wish I had a bigger brain, but none of this thinking leads me down the rabbit hole of self-loathing as it used to. That’s a huge win, and I’m going to give myself a pat on the back for that.
• The new home is lovely. And huge. Mitali and I never thought a home being large would be a problem. We’re used to compact Mumbai houses, but here we could do cartwheels (if we actually could). Everything we bring in that we thought was large (standing desk, carpets, plants et al), just gets engulfed by the house.
• Last weekend was mostly shopping for the house. We made a huge curtains, carpets, and cushions haul at Safina Plaza. It was exhausting but fruitful.
• We’ve also been cooking regularly, which I’m extremely pleased about. I’m working on my dosa spreading technique.
• I’ve also been binging videos of Rajiv Surendra talking about important life skills like washing dishes and making beds. I love how he manages to make chores sound like fun rituals when performed with intention.
• Last night I put up my art on my bedroom wall for the third time. I’m beginning to form an attachment to these drawings that I hadn’t anticipated. This was the work I did back in 2019 when I decided to consciously work on my drawing and did so regularly for months. Everything on my Instagram is from that time. I have hardly drawn since then.
  I first started putting up everything I drew on my wall to keep myself inspired by seeing how much I was creating. It had been something I’d wanted to do for a long time and it gave me a lot of joy to be surrounded by it. I treated the art with the kind of recklessness you have for work you have only just completed. It always feels imperfect, just a work in progress towards future work that would actually be stunning or oteworthy. I used the cheapest ballpoint pens and sketch pens, drew them on brown paper bags from Swiggy deliveries and stuck them up with masking tape. When I left that Pune room in March 2020 because of COVID, and returned a few months later to pack it up, the drawings had faded in the direct sunlight. They were rolled up and set away for the months I stayed at home in Mumbai and unpacked again when I moved to Bangalore. Here, again I taped them to the wall. At some point, I realised they’d also started dictating the aesthetic of my room. They went perfectly with the dark brown wood and brass fittings on the furniture the landlord had left in the house. So I started leaning in to that dark academia vibe with lace curtains and dried flowers.
  Last weekend when I took them down again as I cleared out the room on Queens Road to move to the new place, I was a little surprised by how delicate they’ve begun to feel. I can see the adhesive stains from the last two times they were taped, and how the paper has started tearing at those edges. I’ve now started treating them as precious artifacts that make a house feel like home. I don’t know when I’ll start drawing again, and enjoying it, but until then, these will also serve as a constant reminder that I can do that, whenever I set my mind to it.

Faded drawings from the Pune room in 2019

• Since the last week seemed a little mentally draining, I ended up consuming content mindlessly this weekend. I watched the Stranger Things finale (which I thoroughly enjoyed), Jujutsu Kaisen 0 (in the cinema!), and third season of Demon Slayer.