I am sorry. I have been gone too long. My last post was in 2016 and that was for a class. I haven’t written for pleasure in ages and I’ll tell you why.
Writing is not fun any more. When you do it to get paid, day in and day out, any task stops being fun.
But I won’t digress too far from what I wanted to write about. Grief.
All of us have been through grief. Usually at the passing of someone close to you. Death is a sort of finality that you cannot reconcile with.
This past year has been difficult in that sense. I rushed to Pondicherry exactly a year back (October 2019) after my oldest uncle was declared brain dead through a bizarre incident and he passed soon after. I think my uncle’s passing was the closest I have come to grieving.
I have had all my grandparents pass; my paternal grandfather passed before I was even born. But I was too young and because my grandparents were so much older than me, I wasn’t especially close to any of them. My uncle, however, was a different story. He was an energetic, jovial, charismatic, loving, and kind person. Just an all-round wonderful human being.
When I sat outside the ICU in Pondicherry, I couldn’t remember the last time I met him but I remembered some of my happiest memories with him. After my illness, as a break from my house which had become my prison, I remember going to Bhatkal to spend time with Neelam Mhau (my aunt). Vishu Maam and Vidya Mami were at Bhatkal at the same time. I spent a few weeks with them, relaxing and enjoying a place that I visited every summer holidays. I remember Vishu Maam playfully teasing me about my air guitar (and virtually every air instrument) and I will always cherish him that way.
Another reason I write about grief is something that happened much more recently. So my parents, being the good Samaritans they are, have taken to feeding some of the stray cats around where we live in Mumbai. One female stray decided we were upstanding grandparents for her kittens and delivered a litter of 4 kittens near the electric meter box of our building. And these births happened right before our eyes, literally.
We grew to love these kittens like our own.
Casually sleeping on the trash can
We named the kittens by color because we weren’t feeling too creative. White kitten is Gori, the black-and-white one is Blackie, the tabby with the darker back fur is Bolt (named after the great Usain Bolt because he used to speed up the staircase), and the last one is Billoo Jr.
They’ve all grown into strong 3 month old kittens who love us. All but Gori. She went missing about a week before they had completed 3 months. And I miss her so dang much. She was such a loving kitten, always wanted to play, and always loved us like she loved her siblings. I once watched her play with a bird feather for 30 minutes straight.
I suspect she fell into an open manhole when someone stole the covers one night. That evening was the last time I saw her. My parents feel someone took her because she was such a wonderful kitten. I hope she is happy wherever she is.
Grief is hard. Losing someone you love is hard. I cannot imagine the grief I will go through when I lose my parents. Because that’s a “when”, not an “if”. Death is the only certainty.
I moved to Toronto, Canada on September 25th, 2021. Here are my insights from my life in Canada so far. Basically a pros and cons list about the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).
Pros
Food
Food in Canada has been mostly incredible in Toronto. There’s so much variety when you’re eating out.
Anyone who knows me knows I LOVE eating out. Indian food has been hit or miss but I’ve eaten some incredible Thai food, Syrian/Damascene food, incredible Caribbean food, flavorful dumplings.
I even managed to find a frankie in Toronto. Nothing compared to the Churchgate station Tibbs frankie (the Mumbai OG) but decent considering we’re on the other side of the world.
The people
People have been mostly friendly and willing to talk. Very rare for large metroplexes I’ve lived in beyond Mumbai.
Again, anyone who knows me I love a good conversation. So far, people have been generally talkative. Scroll down to the Post Scriptum (PS) for my tips to talk to strangers.
The outdoors
Toronto has a lot of outdoorsy things to do. As someone who dislikes going to the gym, exercise outdoors is my source of happiness.
There’s a huge selection of stuff that’s available, depending on the weather. It’s snowed to hell? Go sledding. It’s warm? Go biking around Toronto or swimming in Lake Ontario.
Public transport
Public transport is well-designed till the last mile in Toronto (not Mississauga). Just be careful of buses over the weekend.
My comments come from a lifetime of traveling on public transport. My dependence and love for public transport is well known.
You can literally take public transport only till Niagara Falls, ON. Quite a distance from the GTA.
Cons
Expensive
It is CRAZY how expensive Toronto is. Real estate is in huge demand but low supply for housing that makes sense at the price.
Maybe my skewed view comes from having lived in a state like Texas where real estate is generally affordable.
Poor salaries
Pay in the GTA and Canada in general is pretty garbage. Inflation as high as it is right now will hit super hard here.
It is unrealistic how low the pay is with how high living costs are. Not just rent; groceries, eating out, everything is crazy expensive.
Having talked to an Irishman from Dublin and knowing the crazy real estate in Mumbai and NYC, is all real estate skyrocketing?
Inept immigration
Like all governments, the Canadian government seems incredibly inept.
Maybe it’s just stuff related to immigration? My Permanent Resident card got lost in the mail. No way to track it. No way to check how the renewal process is going.
On the other hand, my tax refund was processed super quick, as was my Ontario Health Insurance card and my Ontario Photo Card.
I know I’ve dropped some tantalizing tidbits in this short blog post. What is Damascene food? General food questions? Would LOVE to recommend some food. Hit me up in the comments.
P.S: My friends are always shocked at how easily I can talk to any random person on the street. The trick is to find something common between you and the other person. Then let them talk. And always value what the person is saying, interjecting with something relevant when needed.
This is another shameless plug for anyone who needs help with navigating the immigration system to come to Canada. Please ping me; I try to help for free.
Another piece of advice: Jobs are aplenty in IT. Any other industry is a struggle. If you are coming to study, study IT. Literally everyone coming here is studying business or marketing.
Since coming back from the US, I was always intrigued at what Indians thought of the concept of privilege. I had thought a lot about the kind of privileges I had inherited in India and what privileges I was afforded in the US. It made me realize how lucky I am; I have always felt guilty about my privileges since then.
After I came back to India, I had a conversation with a coworker (also a good friend) at my last company. I specifically talked about how we both were privileged by Indian standards simply by being born biologically male. I explained how families treat sons and daughters differently. In India, they usually do.
Friend said he did not have privilege just for being male; his sister was treated equally. Perhaps it’s a strategy I should have thought out beforehand. If he had talked to other women about the problems they face, he would have understood that he was looking at his privilege through rose-tinted glasses.
Gender Privilege
Male privilege is very real.
In India, some women are never allowed to go out with friends, have a social life, have any kind of experiences beyond what is considered training for marital life; it depends on families. Male children have different curfews compared to female children. Women aren’t allowed to take part in religious and (sometimes) cultural occasions if they’re menstruating. They aren’t allowed to enter temples when they are on their period.
Even if your family treats kids equally, society sure as hell doesn’t. You are forgiven a lot of things as a man. I live in Mumbai and all our house helps have had a history of their husbands being drunk, unemployed, and violent. The wives slave away while most men contribute nothing to their households.
You are harassed much less as man. I remember reading a report about a large percentage of women being groped, catcalled, touched inappropriately when asked about it in a survey. Don’t forget the numerous reported rapes in India. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, literally. Most rapes in India go unreported.
Forget harassment, I was inspired to write this article by our house help who remarked “You do quite a bit of housework”. Knowing how much my Mom does compared to whatever little I do around the house, is the expectation from men to do housework THAT low? I’ve seen a lot of Indian men I know do exceptionally little to help around the house (other than earn for the family. My Mom earned for the family AND did a lot of the housework). And all this is unpaid labor that women are just expected to do.
Financial/Social Privilege
Pivoting to other kinds of privilege. Recently, my Mom could not get out of bed due to a disc prolapse (she’s fine now but I’ve never seen her in this much pain). Since my Dad and I are handy around the house, we did most chores except cooking full meals. We had multiple choices: asking our house help to cook for us, ordering in, or kind friends and family giving us food. We could afford eating out every day if we wanted. We got a lot of food from family and friends. Essentially, our social and financial privilege could help us out.
Compare that to our house help’s brother. He’s going through a similar back problem as my Mom but he has lesser access to the privilege we have. Because he cannot work, they have a financial crunch that our house help has to resolve. I could also talk about healthcare privilege here but that would be moot.
Our house help has issues of her own. When she married her husband, her mother-in-law did not disclose that her husband was prone to seizures. Because of this, he’s never worked in a job for too long and has had drinking problems. She works at at least 10 houses, trying to give her son a better life. She alone has to manage feeding a house of 4 people. She takes a few days off in a month but she doesn’t have assured holidays, almost no long holidays.
Compare that to my Mom. She had to privilege to take sabbaticals twice when she was working: once when I was ill and when she underwent treatment for breast cancer. Yes, I am comparing the organized sector versus the unorganized sector. I’ll come to that in my educational privilege section.
What family you are born in can dictate the kind of privilege you have. Yes, your grandfather/father/whatever-ancestor worked hard to give you the social/financial privilege you have. You inherited it. And from inheritance, I pivot to a very unfortunate (but perpetuated) privilege in India – caste privilege.
Caste Privilege
Privilege is a heady, addictive drug. Anyone who says the caste system doesn’t exist now or society is against “upper castes” is literally showing their privilege. You aren’t affected by the caste system because you have been benefiting from the caste system for generations. Yes, you missed out on a dream college seat because of the quota system. Guess what? People from so-called “lower castes” have been missing out on stuff for centuries.
A lot of people bitch about the quota system (for Americans, this is Affirmative Action in India). Just a thought for those who bitch about the quotas: how many centuries have upper caste people benefited from the system that kept taking away from the very castes you say are now benefiting? Unless your upper-caste ancestors actively worked to bring down the caste system, you have no say in this. You speak from a position of privilege.
You say the caste system doesn’t exist? Here’s an eye-opener, a Bloomberg article about people keeping the caste system alive in Silicon Valley, of all places. My ex-roommate, a guy from Kanpur, talks about how insidious the caste system is in Uttar Pradesh. He mentioned a caste called Musahars, a name that literally means “rat-eater”.
Of course, caste comes in when you’re talking about Hindus. But what about if you are any other religion in India?
Religious Privilege
There has been a rising intolerance to other religions in India since… you know when. I won’t get into a political battle because it’s honestly not worth it.
Being Hindu in India is an easy benefit. Hell, even being an atheist in India is easier than being a Muslim, I’d say.
Muslims in India find it harder to rent flats because they are considered “antisocial” elements. Christians are called “rice-bags” as an insult.
Icould go on and on but this is just scratching the surface. I’d be doing my non-Hindu citizens a disservice by talking about issues I have absolutely no idea about. So if you want to tell me all the shit you’ve gone through, I’m here for you.
I know I’m expounding privilege on a blog, so my words might not reach a huge percentage of India’s population. That’s where educational privilege comes in.
Educational Privilege
The fact that you can read this and make sense of it means you are luckier than a huge chunk of India’s population. India says 77.7% of its population is able to read what I’m writing right now.
Would they want to? I’m sitting in the comfort of my parents’ home, educated but working freelance jobs right now because I can afford to. Educational privilege doesn’t just mean the ability to read and write; it means the ability to have a comfortable life for yourself, even if it’s through inheritance.
Educated people tend to get better jobs and thus enable privilege for themselves. And that’s another argument for the quota system, it gives people who have forever been downtrodden, a level footing.
Anyone who is lucky enough to read this has educational privilege. The fact that you can also speak and understand English means you are luckier than a lot of Indians.
I finally get to two more privileges, both apply to the US as well as India: Location privileges and skin color privileges.
Skin Color Privileges (Racial Privilege in the US)
The fairer your skin tone is, the easier life is. Do I need to elaborate on this?
White privilege is a real thing in the US (as much as conservatives refuse to admit it). If you are white, you automatically benefit in jobs, education, dating, almost everything.
Being fair-skinned in India gives you advantages in the job market when you interview, people are just nicer to you in general? Almost every single marriage ad in Indian newspapers mentions skin tone, as if you’re marrying someone’s skin.
Oh, have I mentioned white people are LOVED in India. But maybe that’s just because they are a good source of money when they travel? Not sure.
Anyone have any more examples?
Location Privileges
Born in a developed country? Welcome to every other country as a tourist without the need to go through a tedious visa process.
Born in an underdeveloped/developing country? Go through an expensive and tedious visa process to go literally anywhere.
Even within countries, being born in a city gives you a lot of benefits (pollution can be an issue though). Like if you’re born to a family in a city like Mumbai/New York who own real estate, you can benefit from saving on rent, essentially pocketing most of what you make from your job.
Finally, I am adding what I call Indian Privilege Bingo here. Evaluate how privileged you are and understand that privilege. Make sure you help people who don’t have that privilege; the world is a happier place if everyone is happy.
Male
Hindu
Upper caste
Educated
Can speak English
Came from middle class family
Has a home
Can wear clothes you choose
Heterosexual
Healthy
Lives in a city
Has friends
Human (Free Space)
Did not skip meal involuntarily
Fair skin tone (compared to standard)
Didn’t have to work till graduation
Able-bodied
Not disabled
Lives in a peaceful country
No criminal record
You can afford to be “apolitical”
Can legally marry the person you love
Can afford to say “everything should be privatized”
Remember Orkut days? Remember those days where we used to compete to see who had the most friends? Granted, we weren’t even adults yet. Remember those days when everyone had a landline? Remember when we had to write down phone numbers in a phonebook?
I didn’t get a cell phone till I was 18 (this was 2008). How was keeping in touch so much easier back then? I probably had a literal handful of friends, so life was easier?
Social media was quite new then so hardly anyone was on it. Honestly, I don’t even remember how I kept in touch with people before social media.
I have lived in 3 cities (one of those on the other side of the world), met a LOT of people, and had the pleasure to have befriended quite a few of them. Are they really friends though? My friend Ethan used to say this about me: “Shri has a lot of acquaintances, not friends.” Maybe he’s right? Keeping in touch with people has always been difficult for me. So I open this question up to you.
How do you keep in touch with all your friends? It’s a serious question.
When you live in the same city as your friends, it’s easy to meet them in person. How do you do that when all your friends are scattered over the world? And I’m not even talking about acquaintances.
My parents (especially my Mom) have done admirably at keeping in touch with so many of their friends and family. She calls each of her 4 sisters (my aunts) quite regularly and is still in touch with her college friends AND school friends. I always admire my parents for their ability to compartmentalize their life. I have struggled with that. An easy way to cop out of this is the fact that most friends of theirs are based in India.
Video calling during COVID times seems to be the best way out. But that’s not my jam. I’d rather meet people in person.
I try to wish everyone I know on their birthdays. It leads me down a rabbit hole sometimes since I have some very specific memories with some friends.
Facebook has been excellent at reminding me of people’s birthdays. If I have their phone numbers, I wish them through WhatsApp. Americans, please try to use some messaging app because I cannot SMS/text you. Also, I have actively been trying to reduce my Facebook usage so I’ve started saving friends’ birthdays on Google Calendar.
Maybe I’m just a person who doesn’t have a lot of close friends? Maybe that’s a cop-out? Maybe my friend Ethan was right. Maybe I am one of those people who has a lot of acquaintances but not friends?
That’s not to say I don’t have friends at all. My school friends are still some of my closest friends. Since we’ve spent quite a bit of our childhood together, it’s easy to just meet them without keeping in constant touch. I also have close friends from my two attempts at graduation. I think the Indian education system helps you make friends for life because of how much time you spend with the same few people. Of course, you also need to keep in touch after that because life has a way of making people drift apart.
WhatsApp has definitely helped keep in touch with some friends purely because some groups tend to be active. I apologize if I haven’t been as good about keeping in touch as I hoped to be.
Having said that, I want to talk to all y’all, so please respond to this blog post? Or ping me on Insta or Facebook Messenger. Hell, LinkedIn works in a pinch.
I love you all. I hope to see you when COVID eases out. I miss all of you.
I have always been obsessed. Not with work like most people I know are. I work when I need to and try to keep a good work-life balance.
No, I used to say I have OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) but I would be doing a disservice to people who actually have OCD. Sure, I am obsessed about certain things, maybe borderline compulsive. But I know I don’t have to go through the hell people clinically diagnosed with OCD have to, many of them on a daily basis.
Just a Reddit post showing what serious OCD really is. And read the comments after. *Trigger warning – Blood and torn nails*
But hey, let’s talk about my pet peeves/obsessions. Here’s a list of them in random order. (But between you and I, the top ones are some I struggle with on a daily basis)
English and grammar – Yes, my top peeve is what anyone would call an obsession of the privileged. A little part of me dies every time I see easy words misspelled. Run-on sentences. Go figure.
Punctuality – Coming back to India has been a struggle. No one is ever on time except my Dad and I. People take IST (Indian Stretchable Time) quite literally.
Littering – India, and Mumbai specifically, seems to be obsessed with littering. It’s upsetting to see how many people litter but the streets are swept almost every morning so the situation isn’t as bad as it used to be.
How Noisy India is – Honking, people playing every goddamn WhatsApp video to the public, honking, just the general noise generated by the insane density of people in Mumbai, have I mentioned honking? This is a pet peeve because I have sensitive hearing from all the medication I took for XDR-TB.
I HAVE to wash my feet every time I enter a bathroom and any part of my feet get wet. It’s an obsession/pet peeve. I don’t know why. This was what motivated me to write this post, strangely enough.
I HAVE to save contacts in my phonebook with their first name and last name. Pro Tip: If you are obsessed about this like I am, save some details about the contacts in the Notes section of the contact. Definitely helps.
I will keep updating this list when I remember more peeves/obsessions. Tell me if you remember anything annoying you can remember about me?
I am back with another post! Since I quit my job in preparation for my now-indefinitely-delayed move to Canada, I have not written, either for business or pleasure.* For a writer, that is bad. Getting back to writing after a long break is difficult if not impossible.
This talk about writing was for me to segue into talking about writing during our childhood and why I think about this now.
I was an avid reader through my life, right up until the mid 20s. I developed a love for writing when I was studying for engineering entrance exams. *Shameless plug for my early blog posts here*
But some of my most vivid memories of writing are from school. I clearly remember the times we had to write autobiographies of inanimate objects. I always used to wonder what a dish rag would feel like when I used it on multiple dishes. What a trash can/dustbin feels like when it’s overflowing with trash. It was always difficult to write about autobiographies of inanimate objects because as a thirteen year-old, you barely think about life. Who has empathy as a 13 year old? What do you know about life at 13? I had seen my grandmother pass away when I was 8 but as a kid, life is just too exciting to ponder too much about someone’s passing.
I was always a half-decent writer so I always did well at writing in school. I just wonder about what I would write given those topics now. I feel like I would do well considering I am more empathetic now than I was at any point in my life before.
As I sat down to coat prawns in rice flour and semolina to be pan-fried later, I wondered about the life of those prawns. I coated about 15-20 prawns and I thought about what they went through to feed us.
I think quite a lot about what animals have to go through to feed us. The meat industry is not kind to animals and I can see why they can’t afford to be either. Earth has a massive, unsustainable populations of humans at the moment. And I know most people will balk at the concept of not eating meat. I am there with all of you.
I love meat. Since I have a uric acid problem, I cannot eat much red meat but I love eating chicken, seafood, and turkey. But I know I need to cut down on my meat consumption eventually, for my health and for the environment. It’s a good thing I live in India; this country has some of the best vegetarian food in the world.
My most recent experiment is with trying to cut down on alcohol consumption (not that I had a lot to begin with) and reduce consumption of added sugar to a bare minimum. I’ve been doing remarkably on both fronts; something that has surprised me is my willpower at controlling my sugar intake. I never thought it possible but here I am, about a fortnight into my experiment. And I’m doing well, the occasional sugar cravings notwithstanding. My next experiment is going to be with deep-fried foods, something that might be infinitely harder. I’m hoping this has a positive impact on my physical health, something I need now that I’m 30.
Okay, I’m guilty of having flitted between multiple topics here but I also remember that used to be my writing style. I hope y’all stick around for my next PSA, haha.
I’m thinking of leaving songs here that I’m obsessed with at the time of writing this blog. Give them a listen, if you want.
*I started this post in December but only managed to finish it now. I realize I have written a few posts (private or otherwise) since then.
“I love new clothes. If everyone could just wear new clothes everyday, I reckon depression wouldn’t exist anymore.” ― Sophie Kinsella, Confessions of a Shopaholic
The Song Remains The Same 