This time, it’s not the perpetual mess in my head, but I’m really broken. I tripped running up the stairs and dislocated my shoulder, then dislocated it twice again trying to figure what that weird stabbing pain was. A visit to two doctors has me headed to the operation theater to fix a torn labrum - the ring that forms the outline of the socket where the shoulder joint securely lies within.

…

Days have been dull, and they have been like this for a while now. It’s not like my state of mind over the decade has been kind to me. I have never felt such self-doubt and my indecisiveness, the lack of patience and the will to take any action or hold a stand. It’s even quite challenging to maintain a clear train of thought. I realized, a pleasant Saturday morning can be ruined really quick by your mother screaming over the phone, demanding that I come over right now. It was a relief I was not present to experience the tantrums first-hand, but I was familiar with what was going on. I feel for my father. It’s a harsh reminder of experiences from nearly 10 years ago. I’ve lived through two years of this daily, crazed fights. An argument with my father is what triggered this weekend’s incident. It’s almost certainly an overreaction to some petty issue, that escalated into an out-of-control, rabid screaming and her playing victim. This is the strategy of a manipulative person who wants things her way. More importantly, she wants to know that she’s entirely right in demanding things her way, and the means to getting them are just. The idea of me considering a Hindu girl as my wife, meant I’ve dealt with the screaming, shouting, physical attacks, manipulation and mental abuse. Growing up, I took these as normal behavior since I knew no better. Being the only child and an introvert possibly stopped me from ever questioning it, or asking anyone to intervene. I’ve held on to my code, of being honest, nice, accepting of everyone. Today, I’m none of that, and it bothers me. I’ve kept away from everyone these years and that kind of loneliness messes with your head. Though I followed an unconventional education and career path, I was fortunate it left me with some form of success and stability. It was enough for me to finally get out of my shell, gather all my optimism and hope, confide in someone as dear as my ex. She was quite possibly just as naive a person as I used to be and in the same phase. We had dreams. To have that kind of trust and faith shattered by a threatening, menacing, insecure, narcissistic, and selfish woman, has left me with nothing today. Any form of positivity and interest has long left, let alone self-respect. What’s to lose now? What’s to celebrate? A typical confrontation with my mother during those years would be when I reached home from work. My mother would scold and taunt me, with a stern stare, then go through my wallet and bag while I freshened up. She wanted to know if I spent any money on ’that girl’. When I finally sat down after dinner, sitting quietly and going about my time, she’d confront me. A jaw-grinding grin, eyes wide open, a fist-shaking would be first, then some nasty taunts directed at my ex, on the lines of “Oh, you want to do this? You think you can….” to bouts and claims that I wanted to humiliate my mother. Things would progress to telling me that I should leave and go, that I’ll be all alone in a year, and that woman of mine, will cheat on me, run off with someone else, and her family thugs will come and beat me up. The fist shaking and teeth grinding often worsened, and it would be in my face, with grunts and worse. I’ve been spat on, I’ve been kicked in my face in my sleep. I’ve retaliated at times and I’ve cried. It’s a surreal feeling to experience this from a grown-up woman, and a mother. I say my mother is a narcissist because I’ve seen her transform from that vehement woman to the opposite, when the phone rings or someone rings the door bell. She turns into a feeble woman who’s being harassed by her son. She’s quick to call an uncle, or her brother, or a friend, crying, telling them about how old she’s become and no one cares for her, and how terribly we treat her. That fake empathy in her voice even today is absurd to see. Opportunities to mock and berate someone are never left unused. Some arguments turn into her flailing her arms about, falling carefully to the floor, crying, acting like a possessed person and acting unconscious. After calming down, she would get back up again come back with her fist clenched and shaking in my face, repeating what she’s been saying. I have seen this routine and its forms every other day for nearly two years. I told my ex about the disagreements and resistance, but I don’t think I could have expressed in words, what was happening everyday, and how I was being treated. I felt, exposing my ex to it, might have made her feel unsure about me. I thought perhaps, everyone would come around and things would work out. I thought time is all I needed. Opposing my mother’s wishes, meant living a life of utter rejection, uncertainty and abandonment. I broke down eventually, I chose to detach from my ex, without any discussion, explanation or without any closure or a goodbye. I gave that person my word, and I did not stand by it. I had never done that to anyone before. I genuinely wished she’d never have to see my mother’s behavior. I felt like she deserved better and that we were just a terrible family. I punished myself for it by closing myself up. I’ve never asked people for help. As the only child, an introvert, asking for help doesn’t come naturally. It makes you anxious. You think you can handle everything yourself and  that you’re worthy of only the things you can achieve yourself. Ten years on, I think I feel hurtful regret, I didn’t ask my ex to help me, or her sibling, my cousins, or my uncles or the few friends I had. I kept it all a secret, and it haunts me to this day. Since then, my outlook has changed. I don’t see the point of anything. I don’t see the point of my ego or pride. Who am I doing any of this for? What’s the point of growth now? What’s the point of any form of success? Few things offer temporary distractions. I don’t want money. I don’t want to fight anyone at work to prove a point. I don’t care if I can do something better. I let people get their way. I don’t complain and I have few demands. I thought my mother would be supportive once I broke things off. She didn’t help find a single proposal in those  5-6 years while I faced rejection from her grand and proud, Christian community. My mother tried to sabotage my wedding day, and the engagement. She’s chosen to throw tantrums in the hotel room, screaming that she would not attend. She behaved in this manner, on the day of the wedding. I ask myself, if I had to face these situations on my big day anyway, why did I not go through with it with my ex? I’m a fool. My mother is a person who truly cares for nobody but herself. The wrath of her demands are to be borne by those closest to her. This is a person with no code, no concept of honour, hard work, integrity, honesty or self-respect. My mother now plays the calm and content mother image now. Her life appears sorted, talking on the phone, laughing yet complaining about everything that ails her. I find all of it disgusting and insulting because I was made a fool out of, the one and only time I chose to voice what I wanted to do with my life. I have taken the blame and carried the guilt of her decisions imposed through me towards my ex. I have had to face the guilt of situations with other people. It’s why I don’t sleep as well, and why I spend every unoccupied moment feeling sick and uncertain about the point of anything. People don’t think highly of me anymore. People think I’m arrogant, rude and inactive. My ex thinks I betrayed her. I’ve lived a state of social limbo since 2012, distracting myself with dumb things and the world has changed. It’s like everyone’s so happy, and jolly, and worked up about everything. It’s quite tiring trying to act like everything’s wonderful, and how happy I am. The truth is, I can’t be happy; I try to be content to maintain basic civil sanity. So when people ask me to participate in their joys, I want to avoid all of it. It’s a stark reminder of everything I had and wanted. I do not know what I ought to celebrate. I honestly feel like I’m mocking myself and dancing about, like a fool that I am.

…

A colleague at work who has been on the lookout for proposals, asked me casually, who would I have married, had it not been for the major issue. Quickly, I admitted jokingly it was X2 and why, only to realize that I was so, so wrong. There was no way that me, in my senses would’ve ever settled down with X2, or X3. When I got back home from work, it took me no time to realize the very glaring fact that I would have ended up marrying my first ex-girlfriend. That pulled me into a whole barrage of memories and spirals, things I wish I had forgotten. I realized, I was way happier then, than I have ever been.

…

The plan was to meet at an undisclosed location close to HAL airport, a group of highly intellectual individuals from different forms of life, backend, frontend, and content marketing. Let’s call the individuals, Kits, Nam, Awk and Grep. The location of our stay was decided by the three. It was near an abandoned airstrip in the centre of Bangalore, now swarmed only by the air force. Months went by and I couldn’t commit to the event, because of prior commitments. A last-minute change of mind and I flew myself into the city late Friday evening, the last before New Years. I hired an Uber to this AirBnB, reached the door and rang the bell. An unsuspecting face peeped out and hurriedly shut the door shut. Whispers, moans and shouts continued behind the door again. The door opened moments later, the face revealed itself. It was Kits. It was the first time I would meet him. He’s this fair Maharashtrian guy camouflaged behind a beard and a goatee. Lying on the sofa was Nam, under a bath towel that doubled as a blanket and a tent to store snacks he’d been eating. Awk was there too, always so pleased to see me not unwilling to show it. The tea poy was littered with filth, chips, beers, bottles, drinks, empty cans and glasses, some of which had made its way to the floor. I’ve never thought of myself as a neat and tidy person, but these were just degenerates. As is tradition with people of this cult, humiliation and embarrassing others is part of the ritual. What better way than to welcome me with /b/ and some porn sites. This went on for a few awkward minutes. They’d been drinking for a while now and it was obvious from the faces and utter lack of composure. Nam was blabbering about, throwing random abuses and sadly, Awk was the only person talking sense. We had a couple of drinks and we spent most of our time, talking Bakchodi, discussing our lives, our jobs, the other Reddit idiots from the group. Another part of our culture is making audio and video calls when we meet, to those who didn’t make it to the meeting. In this case, Blaz who showed off his SJW/hipster/chad-ness by showing the book store he was at. Another colourful member of the group is Lulu, from Kerala. He spoke with him for a bit, and he asked us for discounts. A lot of time was wasted by the indecisiveness in choosing a movie to watch, so we spent most of our time watching YouTube videos and random standups. A plan to hang out at a pub was cancelled after Nam decided he couldn’t stomach any more alcohol. He’d been drinking a lot, with only snacks and a Idli in his stomach. We were hoping he would puke but he didn’t. He circled from one room to another, from the balcony to a toilet to another and we witnessed Kits’ nervous look. His room’s toilet clogged with a Nam would be his worst nightmare. We also witnessed the display of true Indian secularism, the last rites of a religious leader, his corpse carried by armed force vehicles at the runway. We stood and watched politicians, religious leaders and film stars walk in and out of helicopters, as patrolling security guards looked up at the balcony we were hanging out at. Attempts were made by Nam to hurl a ball at them from the balcony but we felt it wiser not to. Instead, we considered the thought that he might in his intoxicated state hurl himself out the balcony at some point over those two days. We peeped down onto the ground below to check every now and then. One of the leaders, a dude drapped in orange stepped out with two women and children. One of the ground staffs dived head-first to his feet then crawled himself away. Ever watched a C grade Bollywood movie? You know the scenes of suspicious behaviour, the helipad looked exactly like that scene. The group of Reddit idiots are an incredibly talented lot, so we pride ourselves as being better than the scum of this earth. We first bitched about our workplaces, the incompetency and our autism preventing us from outraging. We marvelled at Nam’s explanation of his outrage incident where he walked out of a meeting. We were proud of him, and hoped one day, we would garner the courage to be like him. We discussed startups, it was why we were here. To come up with an idea, assign responsibilities and find funding was our goal. We had no funding, so we could only ask someone to fund us a meal and some snacks for the evening. Our ideas revolved around taking down Amazon in the next few years, by launching a queue-less billing system, armed with sensors and cameras. We underestimate the Indians. All we needed were some retarded electrical engineers to wire them. This was the insight Awk brought to the table. It was appalling . Nam felt he could be the catalyst to this dying discussion. He wanted a Medium clone, so we just shut him up immediately. Motivated and refreshed after the three days of much-needed social stimulation, we departed late Sunday evening on our own ways. Latest reports from Pune tell us Kits is suffering from Cholera and he might be on his deathbed rather than on a flight back to the US. Awk dreams of joining a bank , and Nam to Amsterdam.

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My parents and I have lived in this apartment for 33 years. One of the bathrooms, the shared one sprung a leak on Wednesday. My mother pointed it out to me when I returned from work, a ballooning patch of plaster, drops tip-topping on the floor. It didn’t smell so we had some relief but knowing that it was dripping endlessly was concerning. I can count the number of visits the flat owners upstairs have made. The flat was once rented out but only for a couple of months, back in 2012 or so. We’ve never faced leakages, so it annoys me to no end. I ask my father to call the owners of the flat, who tend to spend the summers in the US, the rest in another part of town in Mumbai. The hope is that they’re visiting, or with good sense, have left the keys with someone in our society. After a brief conversation, he agrees to come check what’s wrong, but not before Sunday. He lives 30 minutes away, but he doesn’t care. Neither my father, nor I are compulsive in such matters. We choose to be patient.

…