The Tag that Launched a 1000 Words

So people have tagged me in the past in these tagged blog posts things. But I was always that snooty writer who ignored them like "Pfft, I'm too cool for these kinda kutti kallis." Except now with my record of 1 post per year (I'm gonna pretend I went through a time warp during 2020, 2021 and 2023), not feeling very cool. And this is like the only thing that has managed to get me out of this mega Godzilla-level writers' block that I'd been stagnating in for well over a year now. So thank you, person who tagged me. :)

Eight Things (or People) I Am Passionate About 

1. D

Well, this one is a no-brainer. She is my life's breath, my soul and my best friend and the reason I wake up in the morning (and not just because I have to get her to school on time.) 

I asked her for her 8 things and she said: "Your phone, cup noodles, I don't want to say You because that's understood and you will start getting cringy, my cousins, Hansika, Dress to Impress, sweatshirts andddddd butts *snigger snigger*." The love of my life, ladies and gentlemen.

2. My Kids

The only people that D ever gets insecure about are my kids - my nieces and my nephew. She's always like "Hey, when they come, can you try and not be sooooo fun and stuff?"  I just realized that since I've always been the youngest in my family until these guys came along, these are the only lives I have known right from the beginning. Like the full story. 

They were my first babies, the ones who taught me even before D came along that it is possible to love a tiny human thissssss damn intensely. The ones that make me a decent mom but an even cooler mema. 

During our last vacation, we got to share one cabin with just me and all of the kids and no adults telling us what to do (I mean adultier adults)  and we had the besssssst time ever.  I know they're all growing up and we aren't as close as we used to be and I hardly get to see them, but I also just know that when they're here with me, all 5 of them sprawled across my room, just chilling and chatting and laughing, I feel calm and happy and home.

3. People 

Okay, for anyone who knows me and knows how anti-social I am, this would be the part where you splurt out your drink and call my bullshit. But hear me out. I don't like people as a whole. Like if I accidentally walk into a room full of people, you can bet I will run the other way.  

I think what I meant to say is, I like observing them, I like knowing things about them. Super random stuff - likes dislikes, why they are the way they are, what childhood trauma led to these issues that they have today, you know, simple stuff.

If I feel that if I feel you've got an interesting personality, I might as well do a thesis on you. I often find the randomest of people opening up to me about random things and sometimes I end up thinking - why am I even listening to this but I also can't help it. I have to know! It's like each person is a story. And I do like a good story. 

When I travel on trains or buses, I am always too shy to start up a conversation with a stranger. so I'd imagine lives for them, names and personalities and stories for them. So ya like that I like people, from a distance. 

4. Movies 

When I used to go to office a long time ago, one of the guys who worked with me asked me what I was passionate about. And at the time, I couldn't think of anything.. I think I said something dumb like sleeping or something and he looked at me judgingly. It always stuck with me since then.. why am I not passionate about anything? I mean there are things that I like sometimes, but passion is different, no? 

Even back then I did watch movies quite regularly but I never considered it a passion. Not until 2020 at least. When I started looking at movies in a whooooole other lens.

Started dissecting and introspecting and discussing it. Started speaking to people who would take a movie that I would've seen so many times before and tell you something so profound about some seemingly insignificant scene or bit of music that now you're looking at the same old movie in a whole new light. 

I started writing about movies then, about characters, about the deep impact they've had on my life. I realized that movies had never just been entertainment for me, it had played a real big role in shaping who I was, my ideas about love, about romance, about heartbreak, about feminism, about marriage and parenthood and so many more things. Soooo yeah, movies.

5. Art

I didn't even realize this until I was thinking about what to put down here. It's not like I'm doing art every single day. I barely sketch or paint anymore. But when I look back at the times that I have, I remember how much at peace I'd always felt. And it's always a happy memory. 

When I was a little kid, I was obsessed with drawing Disney characters, I remember I'd once played my Beauty and the Beast VHS tape and paused it at a particular scene so that I could look at the TV and draw Belle. The things we had to do before Google Images.

And when I was pregnant, painting became an obsession. That was all I did during my last trimester. I did worry about the fumes and long hours of sitting wreaked havoc on my back but it kept me sane. I remember furiously painting a huge pot just days before my delivery because I don't know... I felt like I had to do this for myself, that I would no longer have this freedom anymore to sit and leisurely paint to my heart's content. and I wasn't wrong. 

After that art for me came in the form of school projects and fancy dress competitions. I threw myself into these, I'd completely take over my nieces' art projects and spend sleepless nights over it. I'd research D's fancy dress costumes months in advance and create everything from scratch and my god, I loved it. Of late, D and I have started building a collection of tiny canvas paintings that we sit and paint every other weekend. It's one of my favouritest things to do with her, our shared passion, other than movies.

Recently I tried my hand at clay modelling and felt that same wonderfully blissful feeling of peace and tranquillity after a long time. 

6. Music

I don't call this my passion in the literal sense like I like listening to music. I do but I don't even listen to music every single day or anything. I've put music here in the sense that I love music so much that I often think of what background music would play when things happen in my life. I feel life would be so much better and less confusing with background music. I've always done this, though when I was little it was the opposite, I'd hear the song and imagine a real-life scenario for it. And it was usually incredibly cringey and ridiculous. Ok, fine I still do this. But ya music was and is the passage to my imaginary wonderland.

7. Birthdays

I love birthdays, especially mine. I know I'm at an age now where I should be dreading birthdays because I'm just getting old. And that feeling does creep in sometimes, but I push it into some corner and go and eat a shit load of cake instead. I think it's because my family always made a big deal of it when I was little. I think I grew up kind of expected that treatment always.  

My mother still treats me the exact same way and is always the first one blowing balloons and reminding me to order cake. I remember on my 16th bday, it was just me and Amma and she had broken her foot and had it in a cast. So even though I had been waiting forever for my sweet sixteen, there wasn't much we could do given the situation. But when I came back from school, Amma had managed to put up all the decorations we had, blown up the balloons, and had gotten my cousin to order a cake for me. Mothers are just.. I mean...are we even deserving of this much love?

So now I try to do the same for D. In fact, the both of us hype each other up for our big days. We both have a pact that we will not go to school or work on both our birthdays. And it's just a day of pure indulgence. 

At some point in life, I stopped expecting or waiting for someone else to do things for me when I realized I know what I love better than anyone else, so why can't I just do that for myself? It's so much easier and practical. I buy myself a present and eat and do all the stuff I want to do and it's the best. Highly recommend.

8. Writing

I almost rolled my eyes when I put this here because just earlier today I was ranting about how much I hate writing nowadays. Because now writing means work. And writing for work is just painful. But that's not the kind of writing that made me put it here. I recently found that whenever my thoughts or feelings are all jumbled up, writing it down makes it so much more clearer. 

If I want to have a conversation with someone, I would much rather put it in writing. Writing has become less of a thing to do when you're bored and more of a necessity to keep my sanity. I can't journal or anything consistently. But it gives me peace knowing that when shit is hitting the ceiling, and I don't want to talk to anyone, I can always rely on writing like an old friend.

Eight Things I Want to Do Before I Die

1. A House of my own

"Not a man’s house. Not my daddy’s. A house all of my own. With my porch and my pillow, my pretty purple petunias. My books and my stories. My two shoes waiting beside the bed. "

I don't know who wrote this poem but that about sums it up. As kids, when we were playing house-house, I was just manifesting my future home. I don't even know how long I've longed for this. 

Every time I pass by some furniture shop, I'd mentally make a note and be like I will come back and get this, this and this when I have my own house someday. I'd gaze enviously at all the knick-knacks that my aunt filled her cupboards with and plan in my head how I would decorate each corner of my house. A yellow sofa, walls filled with weird art, a balcony full of plants, long flowy curtains with fairy lights, it's all there in my head. 

One time I was staying over at my sisters', and I cleaned up her entire apartment when she was asleep, and pretended that I owned the place. It's been a weird obsession since before I can even remember, one that feels achievable from time to time and yet still remains a dream. 

2. Touch Snow 

This is a collective dream that D and I have. We will one day travel north and touch snow and pretend we're Elsa and Anna. 

3. Travel with D

This is just an extension of the above. We're both not travellers and we hate travelling. I'm more of a watcher of other people's travel reels person. Every time I see a picture or video of a gorgeous field of sunflowers or a huge snowy mountain in the midst of all the wilderness, a voice in my head always goes "What if you were to get explosive diarrhoea right when you're standing in the middle of that field? Or your period?"  

What I meant by travel with D is to live out the dream I had ever since I watched Home Alone 2, where Kevin stays in a big fancy hotel and orders all the pizzas and ginormous sundaes and walks around in a robe and do a cannonball in the pool. I want THAT. Saying I want to travel with D sounded more sophisticated than saying I want to pig out with D in a fancy hotel.

4. Write a Children's Book

This is probably one of my oldest dreams. To write and illustrate a children's book. I thought of it more seriously when D was a baby and I used to make up random stories for her. But then when I started buying her books, I realized there are already sooo many awesome progressive writers out there now writing books with mind-blowingly amazing illustrations - like Tullika and Pratham and Storyweaver books.. 

So then was like meh never mind. But yeah, maybe someday.

I did once start writing my autobiography when I was in the 4th grade because I figured I'd seen enough life to start writing about it. 

5. See my Design on a Billboard

The closest  I've come to this is when a design that I did for a plot for sale billboard came up somewhere in the middle of nowhere on the outskirts of Bangalore and was probably seen by a total of 2 people maybe. I also did do a vehicle wrapping once which probably got seen by a few more people. But a friend of mine recently had one of his works go up on Times Square in NY. Times freakin' Square. If not that much, then at least somewhere my mom and dad can point at it and be like "My daughter did that."

6. Live One day like I'm in a Movie

Ok, this isn't exactly a thing to do before I die, it's more of a fantasy. I'm forever writing scripts for my life inside of my head, and nothing ever happens the way I write it. I just want one day to go exactly like I imagine it, or even better. One day of my life to be like a Mani Ratnam movie or a GVM movie. Where the wind always flows in the right direction and my hair is always perfect. Where it rains exactly when it's supposed to rain. Where people say exactly what you want them to say. And the right music plays at the right time. And you feel like a main character every minute. Uff, a day like that.. would be divine.

7. Drive

Ok, I can see my sister and my friends already rolling their eyes. Yes, I have been running away from relearning driving for years now, and it has been on the top of my list of New Year resolutions for the past 7 years at least. and I don't know why I can't make myself go through with it. But that doesn't mean it isn't something I desperately wish I could do. So effortlessly like everyone else. So yes, driving... definitely before I die. It will mostly also be the reason I die as well but okay.

8. Cut Bangs

I came close to it during the pandemic. Did watch tutorials and give myself something that resembled bangs but it wasn't exactly bangs. I want real proper bangs. I'm talking about Zooey Deschanel kinda thick bangs. Or lovely luscious curtain bangs. I've tried 6000 different bangs filters, and I think maybe I could pull it off but it's such a big cut, I always back out. Hmm yeah, maybe when I'm 50. 

9. One day without Inhibitions (Ya, it's 9, I don't care)

I know the amount of words and thoughts and feelings I hold back. Due to fear of confrontations,  fear of hurting people, fear of losing people and fear of being judged, fear of being inappropriate. What if just for a day I could say whatever I want, wear whatever I want and do whatever I want without worrying my brains out about what people would think/say. I hide so many facets of my personality from so many different people, what if I could be the same person with everyone I know? What a crazy thought, ack, I can't even imagine!

Eight Things I Often Say

1. No
D says this is the word I use the most. It bugged me when she said that so now I say it extra just to bug her. 
Her: What time is it?  
Me: no. 

2. I Dunno 
I used to say this so often during school that when my classmates threw me a surprise party in 12th grade, the cake said "Happy Birthday, I Dunno". I still say it a lot now when D asks me random stuff, but have learnt to follow it with "What do you think?" or "Let's ask Google". 

3. Ugh
This is the most versatile word I use. I use it just like someone would use the F word. To imply disgust - Ugh, I hate everything. If something is really unbearable cute - ugh, Fafa is such a pookie. To convey happiness - Ugh I love her so much. Anger - Ugh, I hate my job.

4. I hate everything, 
Water heater broken? I hate everything. Early morning meeting? I hate everything. Received life-altering bad news. I hate everything. Killed a mosquito on my pillow and now the blood is everywhere. I hate everything. Combine it with the aforementioned ugh, and it becomes my life's tagline. 

I realized I'd been saying this way too much when I caught D saying the same when she had to erase something for the 4th time while doing homework. Have been trying to replace it with positivity ever since. The last time I got my period instead of retorting about my usual hatred for everything, I overdid it and was like yesssssssss awesommeee wooohoooo wow wow wow wow and D thought I'd gone insane. 

5. Anything x6
I never realized this until D told me. Every time I'm exaggerating a number, it is always a number with 6 in it. I've told you 6000 times not to do this. We've already seen this movie 600 times. For the 60 thousandth time, stop farting on the pillow. 

6. I Love You
Growing up, like any other typical Malayalee family, I love you wasn't something that was uttered often at all. Not due to the lack of love, just it wasn't something you said out loud. I've heard it more from my sister than from my parents. Which is why I now say it all the time to D, even when I know she's sick of hearing it. And to my nieces and nephew. 

And recently my friend taught me that it is a perfectly normal to say between friends as well. When she said I love you to me for the first time I was a little taken aback and awkward as expected. But now the I love you's flow freely and it feels so nice and reassuring every time. I know we haven't spoken in a while, but I love you, okay? I don't know why we safeguard those words, pretend like only couples have ownership over it most of the time. I mean, who doesn't like to know they're loved? Why do we hesitate every time?

7. F***ing F***ity F***
So most people don't know this, but I do use the F word every now and then but mostly under my breath or in my head. Sometimes when it gets too much, I go to the bathroom and swear to my heart's content. And it always starts with odd F**ng F***ity F**. I don't even know what that means or how I came up with it. It sounds angry and comical at the same time. Is it weird that I'm as adult as I can get and I'm still thinking - shit, I hope my dad doesn't read this part?

8. You know which movie/series this reminds me of?
Life doesn't come with a handbook, but I feel movies are the closest thing to one. Drawing parallels between life and movies is something I do so consistently that one time D actually retorted - Life is not a movie, Amma! 

Eight Books I Last Read

1. I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Sehee

Started and didn't finish.

2. Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason

Started and didn't finish.

3. Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri (my favourite author once upon a time)

Started and didn't finish.

4. Goat Life by Benyamin

Started and really thought I'd finish but didn't.

5. Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy

Started and didn't finish

6. Do Epic Shit by Ankur Warikoo

Started and didn't finish

7. Surprise Me by Sophie Kinsella

Started and didn't finish

8. Goosebumps- Welcome to the Dead House by R.L Stine (with D)

She started it and didn't finish. Damn, wonder where she gets it from.

Eight Songs I Could Listen to Over and Over Again

This one is too tough. So I'm just gonna pick stuff from my "Songs That Make Me Happy" + "Such a Nice Feels" playlist on Spotify. I hate picking out lists of favourites, be it movies or songs. I know I will want to change it again 600 times and will think of 6000 other songs I should have added.

Strawberry Kanne - I know weird one to have on my number 1. It's either this or Mana Mathurai from the same movie. It's almost impossible to listen to these songs and not feel happy by the end of it.

Azhagiye - Another one from my happy list. This one also falls under my secret day-dreaming list of songs.

Nilaavumm - This song soothes me, like a soft silent rain on a lonely night. Also Maranittum Enthino.

Raree Rariram Raro - The movie, the scenario, the words, the emotions behind it, everything about this song I love.

Cherathukal - this was my most listened-to song in 2020. It's a let all your worries float away for a while kinda song. Would also add Uyiril Thodum and Uyirin Nadhiye over here. Every time I travel, I have to listen to those songs without fail and look out the window while fully channelling my main character energy, it's a must.

Mounam Swaramayi- This song feels like coming home after a long tiring day to a warm hug. 

Kannodu Kannoram - I think I fell in love with this song a lot more after D happened. And it's one song I often find myself humming. Also Unnakenne Venum Sollu. Ya ya, I'm just sneakily adding more than 8 songs and hoping no one notices.

Poonkattinodum - I dunno. I just love this song. No explanations.

Eight People I think should do this tag.

Nope. I'm still way too cool to do this bit. Noone.