we all sneeze every now and then. a random one here and there is simply a momentary bodily response or reaction to some stimulus. but a bout of frequent sneezes is symptom either of a short term illness like a cold or of an allergy - still the body's reaction against external stimuli - and now you might need something to help alleviate the discomfort or some medication. take it further still, someone with a chronic sneezing problem, possibly sinus issues or something else within the body that causes it; this now you can be surer needs more medical help and its cause is within rather than without. 

replace the idea of a 'sneeze' above with any human emotion, especially an extreme one, and the concept of mental illness starts to become a lil clearer. 

there's a world that opens up through the doors of books where I often prefer to live. and I come out of it for lil things I love in this the outer shell world - morning runs, swims in cold blue pools, hugs and caresses and sitting close together, soft cotton fabrics with kalamkari and other shopping, birds birds and more birds, their chirping and tweeting and floating in the wind, flowers and dogs and the colors of living things, eyes and what they hold and share, and food where things die and go to become beautiful again. and song and poetry.

Some more from A Passage to India that continues to blow my mind in how well an Englishman in British India understood India, his own country’s imperialism and the behavior of his people, and humanity; also realized that Forster wrote this almost 100 years ago! ‘The court was crowded and of course very hot, and the first person Adela noticed in it was the humblest of all who were present, a person who had no bearing officially upon the trial: the man who pulled the punkah. Almost naked, and splendidly formed, he sat on a raised platform near the back, in the middle of the central gangway, and he caught her attention as she came in, and he seemed to control the proceedings. He had the strength and beauty that sometimes come to flower in Indians of low birth. When that strange race nears the dust and is condemned as untouchable, then nature remembers the physical perfection that she accomplished elsewhere, and throws out a god – not many, but one here and there, to prove to society how little its categories impress her. This man would have been notable anywhere; among the thin-hammed, flat-chested mediocrities of Chandrapore he stood out as divine, yet he was of the city, its garbage had nourished him, he would end on its rubbish-heaps. Pulling the rope towards him, relaxing it rhythmically, sending swirls of air over others, receiving none himself, he seemed apart from human destinies, a male Fate, a winnower of souls. Opposite him, also on a platform, sat the little Assistant Magistrate, cultivated, self-conscious and conscientious. The punkah-wallah was none of these things; he scarcely knew that he existed, and did not understand why the court was fuller than usual, indeed he did not know that it was fuller than usual, didn’t even know he worked a fan, though he thought he pulled a rope. Something in his aloofness impressed the girl from middle-class England, and rebuked the narrowness of her sufferings. In virtue of what had she collected this roomful of people together? Her particular brand of opinions, and the suburban Jehovah who sanctified them – by what right did they claim so much importance in this world, and assume the title of civilization?’

Forster in A Passage to India writes with a deep understanding of humanity, and a lot of racial empathy even in 1920s: (context: Fielding is leaving after visiting Aziz who was ill) "Although the Indians had driven off, and Fielding could see his horse standing in a small shed in the corner of the compound, no one troubled to bring it to him. He started to get it himself, but was stopped by a call from the house. Aziz was sitting up in bed, looking dishevelled and sad. 'Here's your home,' he said sardonically. 'Here's the celebrated hospitality of the East. Look at the flies. Look at the chunam coming off the walls. Isn't it jolly? Now I suppose you want to be off, having seen an oriental interior.' 'Anyhow, you want to rest.' 'I can rest the whole day, thanks to worthy Dr Lal. Major Callendar's spy, I suppose you know, but this time it didn't work. I am allowed to have a slight temperature.' 'Callendar doesn't trust anyone, English or Indian; that's his character, and I wish you weren't under him; but you are, and that's that.' 'Before you go, for you are evidently in a great hurry, will you please unlock that drawer? Do you see a piece of brown paper at the top?' 'Yes.' 'Open it.' 'Who is this?' 'She was my wife. You are the first Englishman she has ever come before. Now put her photograph away.' He was astonished, as a traveller who suddenly sees, between the stones of the desert, flowers. The flowers have been there all the time, but suddenly he sees them. He tried to look at the photograph, but in itself it was just a woman in a sari, facing the world. He muttered, 'Really, I don't know why you pay me this great compliment, Aziz, but I do appreciate it.' 'Oh, it's nothing, she was not a highly educated woman or even beautiful, but put it away. You would have seen her, so why should you not see her photograph?' 'You would have allowed me to see her?' 'Why not? I believe in the purdah, but I should have told her you were my brother, and she would have seen you. Hamidullah saw her, and several others.' 'Did she think they were your brothers?' 'Of course not, but the word exists and is convenient. All men are my brothers, and as soon as one behaves as such he may see my wife.' 'And when the whole world behaves as such, there will be no more purdah?' 'It is because you can say and feel such a remark as that, that I show you the photograph,' said Aziz gravely. 'It is beyond the power of most men. It is because you behave well while I behave badly that I show it you. I never expected you to come back just now when I called you. I thought, 'He has certainly done with me; I have insulted him.' Mr Fielding, no one can ever realize how much kindness we Indians need, we do not even realize it ourselves. But we know when it has been given. We do not forget, though we may seem to. Kindness, more kindness, and even after that more kindness. I assure you it is the only hope.' His voice seemed to arise from a dream. Altering it, yet still deep below his normal surface, he said: 'We can't build up India except on what we feel. What is the use of all these reforms, and Conciliation Committees for Mohurram, and shall we cut the tazia short or shall we carry it another route, and Councils of Notables and official parties where the English sneer at our skins?' 'It's beginning at the wrong end, isn't it? I know, but institutions and the Government don't.' He looked again at the photograph. The lady faced the world at her husband's wish and her own, but how bewildering she found it, the echoing contradictory world! 'Put her away, she is of no importance, she is dead,' said Aziz gently. 'I showed her to you because I have nothign else to show. You may look around the whole of my bungalow now, and empty everthing. I have no other secrets, my three children live away with their grandmamma, and that's all.' Fielding sat down by the bed, flattered at the trust reposed in him, yet rather sad. He felt old. He wished that he too could be carried away on waves of emotion. The next time they met, Aziz might be cautious and standoffish. He realized this, and it made him sad that he should realize it. Kindness, kindness, and more kindness - yes, that he might supply, but was that really all that the queer nation needed? Did it not also demand an occasional intoxication of the blood? What had he done to deserve this outburst of confidence, and what hostage could he give in exchange?" (I'll stop there because I could go on forever if I let myself go. and because that idea of exchanging hostages to express and to build mutual trust, that's an idea in contracts in Economics that Williamson wrote about in the 1980s; Forster understood it so well at a human level so long ago, in fact he understands so much it is wondrous and amazing to read him; Forster is truly alive still through his words and I feel fortunate to be able to read him and connect with his thoughts, his morals ideals ethics, his meaning of being human.)

magenta, fuschia, rani colour, if you know what I mean, is the color of the Indian desert landscape. against the sand brown, or sandstone pink of the earth and earthly forts. that first is abundant in Bougainvillea, different shades of it, some with lil white dots in the center, some without. if I were designing a new line of summer fabrics, that's what my palette would be. Sandy brown and stone pink, splashed around with creepers of tiny green leaves and bunches of papery Bougainvillea fuschia. how has Nicobar missed that so far or for that matter all these millions of expensive brands of (mostly women's) clothing touting indianness in their fabric, embroidery, and inspiration.

after more than three years of living back home in India we are finally out on the road. all our other holidays so far have been out of India or to Goa (which isn't really India). and I had begun to think that Delhi was India or that India were Delhi-like cities. 

last night we got our second punctured tire in a week, just the night before we were to drive. the puncture repair guy and other men who stopped to get their tyres filled up all gawked at me. and the mosquitoes tried to eat us alive while we waited and the guy patched up our wheel. this isn't the life I usually live, this isn't the india I am usually in. 

but that was still just outside of the mall that belongs to my india. this morning while I drove the first 2-3 hours out of Delhi, truck drivers bikers more truck drivers all gawked at me, the biker smiling invitingly at me when I honked at him to get out of the way. I guess they aren't used to women driving. but also a small truck/tempo full of rajasthani women waved at me repeatedly when I found myself trailing them after having overtaken them; that was a rare found connection across cultural barriers.

India is a funny country, you see signs for water parks and rows of unoccupied new apartment budings every 50-60 kms or so advertised as dream homes when the surroundings are rural and farmland, and the highway dividers are drying spaces for cowdung cakes. the highways have become smoother and wider than I remember from 10-15 yrs ago but strange contraptions of slow moving heavy vehicles still drive in the fastest lanes and trucks come at you suddenly in the wrong direction and no one thinks it strange, and maybe houses have become pukka have got electricity and dish tv, but there are still stacks and walls of cowdung cakes, the people making them look like their fathers and grandfathers in their garb and way of living. yes, 14th century forts have become luxury and boutique hotels and the demand for clean bathrooms has started to create some surprising rest stops along highways, but from the terraces of the fort hotels you still see lil farmers' houses keeping a few animals and farming tiny plots of land, their women still in their ghunghats. 

and even in those hotels there are still rowdy chauvinistic north Indian men splashing around loudly in the pools, more so when other women are around, flaunting what they think are their peacock feathers.

Forster says india beckons or rather appeals to one without promising anything. I wonder what indja is today. the man splashjng in the pool while his girlfriend wades in the kiddy pool in shorts and tshirt (pool rules clearly written say one must have a proper swimsuit to enter), is gone now; the tiny remnant of drizzle leftover from the evening rain is over, it's getting dark and mosquitoes are wondering if they can penetrate my protective film of sprayed odomos, the fort is coming alive with decorative lights that attract attention away from the stonewalls and bright Bougainvillea hugging them, and I hear bats just above my head flying in circles and clicking away. 

A woman is starting a wood fired chulha next to me. I ask her what she will make. She answers "makka aur bajre ki roti". there's a leopard spotted cat we saw earlier lapping up water from the pool; now it's kitten is running around and has scared a group of Delhi tourists, trying to get scraps of their food under their table. the chulha is smoking away and reminds me of the smog this morning and the factory chimney spewing black smoke you can see from the fort. 

what is India today, when most Indians who remain living here do so because they can't seem to get out. Is it still a promise-less call, an idea, contradictions of poverty and money, misery and luxury, history and modernity, patriarchy and women pushing against it. 

Rajasthan also reminds me of the obsequiousness of the people who serve those who pay them. it's stronger here than in many other places I've been or lived in. a waiter refurnishes the outdoor chairs and table that I am occupying because I'm sitting here even though the drizzle that was his reason for removing the cushions is back again. and he is embarrassed that I moved the mosquito coil myself between tables, although I'm happy to do so. and the cat is now sitting on the chair next to me even though I have no food and I'm just typing away. 

reading EM Forster again, after years. this time it's A Passage to India, after a few other books by other authors about India (although those were non fiction unlike this, but Forster's fiction is more real than life). reading Forster is like a gentle blissfulness. the following, a quote.

"She felt increasingly (vision or nightmare) that, though people are important, the relations between them are not, and that in particular too much fuss has been made over marriage; centuries of carnal embracement, yet man is no nearer to understanding man. And today she felt this with such force that it seemed itself a relationship, itself a person, who was trying to take hold of her hand."

I think I somewhat understand why there exists stigma around mental illness. It can be very challenging to live with, not just for the person themself but for spouses and partners and living-in family members. 

But for all those reasons and more we also need to open up and talk about these things, to share family histories and genetic propensities so that people are more aware of what they can pass on to their progeny and whether it's worth it. So far I thought my family, possibly on both sides had some illnesses zigzaging through members; now so does his. Many of these are much more common than we as a society accept or acknowledge or can even imagine. And yet ppl keep having kids without thinking what they might be burdening them with. At the very least awareness of genetic propensities should help design and maintain safer environments when they grow up, so that the possibilities in genetic makeup don't necessarily become realities through triggers.

Laura Marling 'Alas I cannot Swim', especially the title song and My manic and I.

she wrote it when she was 17-18.

we were always special. and then the realization that he was ill all this while, that he hid from me all along, dented that feeling. I thought he taught me vulnerability, trust, honesty, love, sex, running, a rediscovery of literature, and courage. now I know it was getting to know him that taught me all of that; he barely knew those things himself. he was barely surviving, struggling since ever that he had forgotten it took so much effort. but we are still special, the two of us. 

and did you see the moon today? I was driving back when it just got dark and I saw it low in the sky suddenly to my left. it scared me how beautiful it was. perfect, round, and glowing. I showed it to him from our window when I got back. he also said it was 'scary'. its probably today I understand why the word 'stunning' is used to describe beauty sometimes. 

Gods were probably creations of schizophrenic or anxiety ruled minds, or those on psychedelics (also naturally occuring, just like illnesses). The idea of heaven and hell probably added by hope and inspiration seeking depressed minds? Or maybe to rationalize some concepts of morality for social cooperation. Rituals must have come from OCD patients. And maybe dervishes and the idea of religious fervor and trances arose from bipolar highs. 

so in one way, religion is probably a concoction of mental illnesses. but on the other, for that very reason, it's basis exists naturally in the human mind. what to make of that? 

seems like I had been unconsciously preparing for this for the last few years with all that reading about genetics, mental illnesses, psychedelics, and the human mind. new purpose in life, or my fate. 

we are both in therapy now. he is back to his reader self and I realize how and why I missed that so much (he reads so much faster than me). and I'm feeling superheroic too. I always knew life wasn't a gift. Now more than ever when I'm overwhelmed though, all I need sometimes is a look up into the trees and hear the birdsound and look at those various shapes of green leaves. or a run in the park.

and I should have never come back to India.

sometimes I love reading books written decades ago to know the words used then, to understand the dilemmas occupying their minds then. to learn more about the origins of and the evolution of our thoughts and language. 

Raja Rao writes of his first meeting with Nehru, and I learn that there was/is a dialect called Deccani Urdu. That in the northern Urdu, idol was translated as 'budh', probably connected with the idea of Buddha. and that 'murti' is in fact Deccani Urdu for the same.

I learn that Nehru had a British passport, and probably so did Indians then as British subjects. but it seems like Raja Rao did not; did he have a French one because he married a French woman?

I have earlier read Nehru write about his visit/stay in the black forest in Germany. today Raja Rao describes visiting Nehru there. and for a while I transcend the passage of time and find myself thinking their thoughts and listening to their conversation.

there's also an essay where Rao extolls EM Forster (one of my idols/loves), but I have yet to read that. 

and I learn new words when I read old writings. chthonic; esurient.

But there are also the women who claim to be feminists but are ironically sexist in this regard. They assume that men can only want any advances they make toward them, verbal or physical, subscribing to the sexist myth than a guy wants all the sex and female attention he can get. Women also need to keep their hands to themselves, also need to understand consent; because although feminism is about women's (sexual and others) liberation, it is more importantly about equality. And consent is crucial to equality, either way. Any analysis of harassment or inappropriate touching/talking should be gender neutral.

boys (in India and elsewhere) grow up being told a whole set of lies about human sexuality in complete contrast with the silence we girls receive. about their need to masturbate in contrast with the taboo-ness regarding female masturbation, about their need for sex in contrast with the myth that women don't really enjoy sex but do it for the man.

so they as men are moulded by talk and treatment (and porn) to become (sometimes) unpleasant sexual partners. the holding her head in fellatio, hell even in intercourse, the objectifying of the breasts as having their own identity separate from the person (or the butt for that matter). I've always pointed it out when it happens to make him stop doing it cos of how inanimate it makes me feel. and it needs to be pointed out, every time every instance. 

even when we tell a street harasser that it's not ok, we somewhat correct the imbalance in conversation around sexuality. even when you kick away that leg from invading your personal space on a flight or bus. 

many years I wondered how such sexist parents brought up reasonably feminist sons like him and his brother. now (I'm a slow learner) I realise how much the sexism of the parents has percolated within them. 

the things the mom says, "Because she's a girl she must have told you everything.... she will come around ..."; and thinks and suggests, "having a kid will solve all problems". 

someday I will still probably write that book, now it will have to be about honesty and sexism and marriage and proximity to someone with mental illness (and how it sometimes feels contagious not by touch of course but by connectedness of minds and by the togetherness of dealing with it, the sharing of thoughts and the effort to obliterate myself so I can be less judgmental and less upset). 

just this morning he told me about this other blog and in comparison I felt like a coward because even in my mostly anonymous state here I haven't had the courage to confess and tell; therefore this today.

I have a strong sense of intuition. even other ppl have said this to me, ppl who know me well and have heard me a lot. these days I'm feeling like I also have some premonition. kinda scares me that. 

but now in hindsight I wonder if those falls on my runs were a warning for what lay ahead (I fell once more, soon after buying new shoes). I also remember telling him around that same time that almost every year the coming winter encourages me cos I do look forward to these few months of not continuous sweating but this year it felt strangely dark and depressing. 

even my plants are dying one by one, some red tinier-than-ants-insects feeding on the spotted croton.

there are my memories, 

and there are his, 

and they don't often align. 

and half our life, 

spent together

is a lil hollowed out.

even though I dream his memories now

and there is no 'truth'

only what we manage to construct together,

feeding each other's version

in and out back and forth,

sometimes losing touch of the boundaries

between us and the walls within.

it's hard to explain. I've read a decent bit about mental illness, I've seen friends who refuse to get help and family some of who have been blurred from being due to medication. I've always found the topic captivating, dark yes and scary yes, but enigmatic and mysterious. I've met ppl who almost brag of their struggles and those who are surprisingly open and matter of fact about it. There was also this girl once in hostel I was getting friendly with and then one late afternoon in her room (very dark I don't know why) she told me things about her family and childhood and violence which spooked me enough to avoid talking to her after that. Ive wondered many times since then if I could've helped her and I didn't. But what I feel often when I think back is not guilt but a strong sense of self preservation. 

In a similar way I have avoided some family members because I couldn't bare to see or hear them in their state of being. Sometimes it's very hard, you don't want to hurt them in the slightest but that means allowing them to bruise you quite a lot. 

And now, now I want to read a lot more about it. I remember that time I ate that spiked chocolate on a not great day, almost dehydrated and tired, and how it felt like my mind had gone across. That was soon after reading Plath's Bell Jar. Since then I've been ever more curious, of coourse because I crossed that line back in my mind but the fact that there was a line, right there, made it all too real. 

Now I want to study it professionally I think. It's becoming more and more irresistible. And these words from The Gene keep hanging around in my head, something to the effect of (I don't remember the exact words) 'where does the illness end and the person begin' or 'how do you separate identity from the illness'. 

some theories I have formed over the years and some words I need to put in writing so I don't forget and can quote later. "being human is becoming difficult" ppl who suffer from anxiety depression and related issues can't help becoming more self centered. can you ever really know someone? if you confess something to ppl, they will sometimes extend/impose their idea of things onto you in that moment of your vulnerability. ppl love to equate themselves to you especially in moments of defeat or other types of low. even if you know ur a much better fighter in life than them, even if that intent to equate kinda humiliates/underestimates you. It's hard to be objective, but it's not impossible. Reading has been a trove of wisdom and empathy, from where my sense of right and wrong emerge and evolve. And if you write, try and make a deep incision; don't barely scratch the surface, you can be better than that. And if you daren't do that, then ball and crush the written surface, obliterate it. Language is secondary.

photopost and a recommendation

sometimes the sky even in delhi is Blue.

these are from my terrace that I'm going upto a lil bit more this winter. Peepul keeps taking root along the water pipes. 

Today was esp beautiful, cold breeze blue sky and strong sun, just like I like December to be. 

birds were playing with the wind, floating weightless.

Oh and yeah, do watch My Octopus Teacher on Netflix. and then look up Craig Foster's other works.