Getting over April

Warning: This issue includes a lot of whinging.

When I started Dilli Billis, I was extremely sure about pivoting from the personal essay angle, and writing more about culture, society and South Delhi. Not that I have anything against personal essays—a lot of my favourite writing is by great (mostly women) writers turning their personal experiences into universally-relevant ones! However, the explosion of the format has also resulted in a lot of bad, vainly confessional essays clogging up the media-culture pipe, and I’m terrified of ending up as one of them. What if I find it too fun to write in detail about my sex life and thoughts on marriage, and get into a habit of churning them out without any self-awareness or checks in place? What if I make widely generic assumptions and then get bullied for not being smart or accurate enough? Or worse (for a chronic people-pleaser), what if you tolerant people turn around with a sneer and say, “Why does she think we’ll be interested in any of this? Why is she talking so much? It's not even good enough writing for us to care!” 

Vulnerability is a bitch. Self-consciousness undercut with vanity is also a bitch.

So Dilli Billis ended up being positioned ostensibly as commentary, despite being informed by the aspirations of the personal essay. I mean, we all know I’m no film critic, and the DIFF edition was more about my little adventures around the event. We all know. I really am too self-absorbed when it comes to my writing, and autotheory is what I do. But I’m still struggling to completely own up to it, so let’s keep the farce up for one more edition. This one is for all intents and purposes, a guide on putting yourself back out there and social life in Delhi as a single billi, after surviving a devastating-April-of-turmoil. It has a lot to do with what I’m going through, but let’s just pretend that it’s more for you and has stuff you can also use. Deal? Deal.

Let’s begin with context setting. 

Now I’m not fully committed to the astrology-girlie life, but it is my strong personal belief that April was a month of cosmically-induced chaos, suffering and pain. Everyone was hurting, or in denial about hurting. Was the week of the solar eclipse normal for you? You’re the exception then, something was in the air. 

For me, April-of-devastating-turmoil was the month of a devastating breakup, drawn out in stages like severing a leg slowly and tortuously while it’s trapped under a rock (I haven’t seen the movie and I’m definitely not going to ever). We just got through the bone marrow as recently as last weekend, it’s been bleeding since. Not a scab in sight.

It also doesn’t help when the other person involved gets to conveniently disappear into a nice little tour of endless validation, distractions and fans, while you are isolated and depressed in your room, with an actually deranged flatmate, arguing with your boss about SEO. Alexa, play Troye Sivan’s The Good Side please?

Costar reminds me I shouldn’t make accusations today. 

****

Back in college, a boy once made a crossword clue out of my name—THE girl with a broken HEART. You jumble up the letters of HEART, add THE, well, you can figure it out. It felt extra poetic then, as it was right after my first experience of heartbreak.

There’s always been something so primal, conclusive and inevitable about heartbreak for me—everything adds up like clues in a bad detective novel, to somehow prove that this was always meant to be destiny. You’ve seen the prequel relationships, how was this going to end up any different?

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I came back to my Substack once, and couldn’t bear to read my old writing. I still can’t look at it. The cheeriness pisses me off. What did that bitch have to be so blithe and frivolous about, sunk in the complacency of domesticity? It’s something about growth, I guess. Never turn to look back at your old art, you’ll freeze and turn into a pillar of saltiness about it.

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I didn’t know what to do about Dilli Billis. The characters populating my autofiction had walked out of the text.

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Eventually I realize, I’m still here. Despite the viciousness, public humiliation and indifference, I’m still here. There are more billis to be found.

How to put yourself back out there (a guide)

(some of it also applies if you’re new to the city and looking to find your people)

Reacquainting yourself with solitude and loneliness is a lot of work. It’s really hard to put yourself out there if you end up routinely crying every five hours. Here’s a tip that can help if you’re a human hose pipe—make plans that are strategically less than five hours long, and cry in the Uber/auto you take on the way back! In general, cabs and autos are a great safe space for unleashing your turbulent emotions, without shame. The drivers are hopefully distracted by the road or their phone conversations, and have definitely seen worse. Maybe wear a mask, if you feel too self-conscious? It’s expected with the year-long pollution we experience.

Start small by going out alone to movie theatres. It’s dark in there, and you can cry at any point. In fact, it’s expected of you for some films! Luckily, movie theatres have caught on to how increasingly redundant they are, and are cutting down on ticket prices for the non-blockbuster films. You could watch an Oscar-nominated film that the masses don’t care about for a couple of hundred bucks. 

I hope PVR folks aren’t reading this, but it’s also easier to sneak snacks in now. Fill a tote bag up with candy and deflated Uncle chips packets, mix it up with opaque clutter and some sanitary napkins on top. Be in a rush, and make sure nothing crinkles when the security guard does their cursory inspection. You can now have a wonderful movie-watching experience without spending a grand on overpriced popcorn.

In the midst of April-of-devastating-turmoil, I watched Aavesham. Dear reader, I haven’t laughed like that in a while. Somehow, the most cathartic film for me to watch was that of a Bangalore gunda and his wholesome minions, and the absolute bloody meltdown he has when he is betrayed. Psychotic Fahad Fasil got me. Running around wildly waving an axe, covered in gold jewellery and screaming crying “Eda mwone, naayinte mwone!!”

Aavesham is on Amazon Prime now, if you missed it.

The next week, I took myself out to watch Challengers. It’ll remind you that you can find things sexy. That you want to start eating again and become as hot as an athlete. That maybe the ideal relationship is with two white boy twinks deep in a competitive, homoerotic friendship.

Once you can handle being in semi-public, you level up to independent movie screenings and art exhibits. Hit up an art-appreciator friend who knows what you’re going through to have pity. Preferably single and going through it themselves. You can go alone too. This is Stage 2 of reacquainting yourself with the city.

A new friend and I were talking about how India Habitat Centre is the perfect place to frequent if you’re lonely and new to the city. They have air-conditioned events that you can just walk into, like the ongoing film festival. It can make you feel like an important, creative person with creative pursuits. You will also feel validated about your intelligence, if you stick around for the inane questions the Jorbagh elite spews during post-event Q&As.

If this was 2019, I’d have told you to get on Hinge and meet people. Polish your radar so you can suss out the nice folks. But it’s not advisable anymore, especially if you’re in your late twenties. I recently tiptoed back on Hinge and left just as quickly; it’s as gross as everyone says it is. Something changed in the two years I was away. Everyone is more jaded, and wants to just talk endlessly within the app, no other goal in sight. It’s a self-contained validation game, quite like Orkut back in 8th grade. You also notice that a lot of men have written that they’re looking for “kindness”.

This needn’t be said, but distraction dating/sex rarely works. Wait to heal, else it just gets messier. Bone-marrow-cutting messier.

****

Listen to Peggy Lee’s Is That All There Is, at least once a day. Listen, as she tells you what it’s like to grow older and accept life’s inevitable disappointments. You will always smile every time she gets to your favourite part.

Because I know
Just as well as I'm standing here talking to you
That when that final moment comes
And I'm breathing my last breath
I'll be saying to myself

Is that all there is
Is that all there is?

****

A friend recently met a woman who’s in a very happy third marriage. This woman had gotten married, had a divorce, then gotten into a bad second marriage, gotten divorced again, and finally found everlasting love in her 40s. Imagine! If one bad breakup was enough to crush you so badly, imagine surviving the end of actual marriage-level commitment multiple times, and believing again! And getting to live happily ever after!

This story will stay with you. Even though romance is an unsanitary gaping wound right now, it’s nice to be reminded. Even if you have blocked all love songs on Spotify and had to leave your favourite coffee place one day because two college girls wouldn’t stop talking loudly about their boyfriends, it’s nice to be have hope. 

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Once you’ve feeling normal-ish, say yes to every social invite. Every single one. Don’t be picky. You’d be surprised by what you find.

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The most affirming stage of putting yourself back out there, according to your oracle deck and your therapist, is (predictably) spending time with friends, new and old. They will be kind, tolerate the obsessive thoughts you seem wedged in, and remind you that there is life outside of it. You go to great dinners, and hang out with their cool parents and pet parrot. You celebrate their birthdays, drink too much vodka and walk all over the city. You tell your best friend that you need her, and she’s already on her way despite a wounded knee, ready to remind you who you were once upon a time. Instagram catches on. You are inundated with so many reels about limerence, being single and escaping cycles of dependence. Pop psychology has never been so affirming.

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Things still feels greyscale, but you don’t let it derail you anymore. You can’t afford to. In real life, you need to schedule your mental breakdowns between chores, meals, and work deadlines. There’s a great scene in the otherwise-blah He’s Just Not That Into You (we commit to on-theme texts, okay!), in which beautiful Jennifer Connelly finds proof that spineless Bradley Cooper is lying to her and loses it. She screams, lifts a huge ornamental mirror off the wall, and throws it. Glass shatters. She cries for a few seconds. Then she goes to get a broom, and starts cleaning up the mess methodically, still crying.

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On the other hand, personal pain seems a bit self-indulgent and trivial in context of the absolute gobsmacking shitshow we’re witnessing with the national elections, imperial US bullshit and Palestine suffering. The country is about to turn a terrifying corner, and things aren’t looking great, to put it lightly. As one of the parties involved in April-of-devastating-turmoil pointed out, “Bro I cannot be taking shit from you and your bassist ex when we’re living through a rigged election. All parks are actually orange, are you even looking outside?”