I'm balancing a plate of french toast on my stomach while I lie horizontal in my bed (as I have done all week) in my formerly white tshirt and formerly red boxers which I noticed have developed a rip and been unsuccessfully mended without my knowledge. My hair has taken on a CenterShock style. I can't bring myself to eat it because my desire to eat has been sapped by my fever that is just a couple of points shy of the heat outside. I'm supposed to be reading about the Civil Disobedience movement but here I am writing to you. Though I'm not sure if I'll send this to you. I'm waiting for my mother to come back so I can regress into infanthood and be mollycoddled like the tiny precious darling child I am. The fact that I'm a 20 year old dhaant (where I come from dhaant means hulk) is obviously negligible. If I didn't have exams I would be savouring this extended illness because I have weird fantasies about illnesses. Like acquiring a tropical disease while conducting anthropological researches in South America, then being nursed back to health by genius butlers like Jeeves. If only I were a Wooster. Yet another is inspired by The Fall (Lee Pace, yummy!). The other fantasy is inspired by my mum's own bout with cerebral malaria when she was a young'un and being given morphine to soothe the pain and fever induced nightmares (that's a bhoot wali kahani I'll tell you later). How can one in such a situation resist singing Sister Morphine in impassioned dard bhare tones I cannot understand. Though my mother wasn't amused when I tried singing it to her last evening, she just popped a paracetamol in my mouth and went off to do Puja.
I also cannot study, which I'm conveniently blaming on the fever. Though it's probably because I'm lazy and a little irreverent and subconciously think I'm better than everyone. Kuch effort nahi marna, lekin jab aur kisi ke number ate hain toh 'how did she do better than me, she's stupid'. They do better because they work hard.
What is it about us? Why do we feel entitled to think everyone else is a moron, wow, great piece of insight bro. What makes us feel so superior because we possess the ability to throw around a few artful phrases and strategic pop culture references? My fever helped me to confront this all week (more than I do usually). Because when you're paralyzed inside your sheets but you can't sleep and you're having these weird conversations with yourself about how you still haven't fucking finished reading Sperber when you promised everyone you'd kick ass this year if you're allowed to give the exam, Version 2 of you has some really good arguments to make you feel bad for being a lazy motherfucker. And she also KO's you by enumerating all your little insecurities and problems (99 PROBLEMS BUT A BITCH AIN'T ONE!) And you turn over and try foetal position, then throw one leg out of the sheet with one arm over the other pillow, but it's both hot and cold and you can't really sleep.
You know who helps at such times, Morrissey (Nick Drake is for other kinds of feeling like shit days). Because he has many artful phrases, and his music is great, and sometimes he makes me laugh by being so typical. And we are both fond of self pity, are of ambiguous sexuality and (allegedly voluntarily) do not have sex lives. And hence in our free time we write and mope. But of course he's an iconic musician and a millionaire and I'm a 20 year old slob with cheese all over my clothes.
(PS: I was also chilling with The Cure and Siouxie and the Banshees in my head, apart from the Smiths. I'm on some 80s Brit post punky goth blah trip. The Cure were surprisingly happy in the later stage, for people that look like that)
My mother said something awesome the other day. She mixed her drinks on the weekend and was in a bad state and as I was taking care of her she said 'You know my table at work has a sign that says "I exist, that is all and I find it nauseating". And I think that the overwhelming feeling of my life has been nausea'. When I pointed out that I don't think you can apply Sartre's quote to post alcohol nausea, she grinned. Nice piece of undergrad logic, Ma. Glad to see somethings never change. We'll all still be spouting heavy handed philosophies when we get drunk in the autumn of our years. Let's hope we'll have a minor idea of what we're talking about by then
I also cannot study, which I'm conveniently blaming on the fever. Though it's probably because I'm lazy and a little irreverent and subconciously think I'm better than everyone. Kuch effort nahi marna, lekin jab aur kisi ke number ate hain toh 'how did she do better than me, she's stupid'. They do better because they work hard.
What is it about us? Why do we feel entitled to think everyone else is a moron, wow, great piece of insight bro. What makes us feel so superior because we possess the ability to throw around a few artful phrases and strategic pop culture references? My fever helped me to confront this all week (more than I do usually). Because when you're paralyzed inside your sheets but you can't sleep and you're having these weird conversations with yourself about how you still haven't fucking finished reading Sperber when you promised everyone you'd kick ass this year if you're allowed to give the exam, Version 2 of you has some really good arguments to make you feel bad for being a lazy motherfucker. And she also KO's you by enumerating all your little insecurities and problems (99 PROBLEMS BUT A BITCH AIN'T ONE!) And you turn over and try foetal position, then throw one leg out of the sheet with one arm over the other pillow, but it's both hot and cold and you can't really sleep.
You know who helps at such times, Morrissey (Nick Drake is for other kinds of feeling like shit days). Because he has many artful phrases, and his music is great, and sometimes he makes me laugh by being so typical. And we are both fond of self pity, are of ambiguous sexuality and (allegedly voluntarily) do not have sex lives. And hence in our free time we write and mope. But of course he's an iconic musician and a millionaire and I'm a 20 year old slob with cheese all over my clothes.
(PS: I was also chilling with The Cure and Siouxie and the Banshees in my head, apart from the Smiths. I'm on some 80s Brit post punky goth blah trip. The Cure were surprisingly happy in the later stage, for people that look like that)
My mother said something awesome the other day. She mixed her drinks on the weekend and was in a bad state and as I was taking care of her she said 'You know my table at work has a sign that says "I exist, that is all and I find it nauseating". And I think that the overwhelming feeling of my life has been nausea'. When I pointed out that I don't think you can apply Sartre's quote to post alcohol nausea, she grinned. Nice piece of undergrad logic, Ma. Glad to see somethings never change. We'll all still be spouting heavy handed philosophies when we get drunk in the autumn of our years. Let's hope we'll have a minor idea of what we're talking about by then
6 comments:
You're too sweet ya bro I hope the Cure are in the process of curing you. 'What are they thecuring y'know?' haha i want to chill and watch movies allnight with DJ. I just threw around some Sartre references about other people being stupid and all and then read what you said and decided not to. Theek hoja yaar. tera dard mera dard. d se dard d se daaru de se dimag kharaab.:D
Remember when we made DJ listen to Britney? That was when you and I finished that bottle of JD and DJ and Dikra slept. My fever hit a weird high in the evening and now seems to be vanishing, it's totally weird. Will go to Doctor man tomorrow. I wants a Nick and Norah type scene.
This post was kinda in reference to what we were talking about in the car this morning. ;)
Also, I think when we say 'Hell is other people' we forget we're someone elses other people.
Hahaha. All three years in college after, every exam result "What!? how did SHE get a first div? She does not even read!!" But then I realized I was being an asshole. Oh! And its so much cooler to be a person who throws around pop culture references. Just thought you should know.
Also fever sounds bad :( Get well soon.
'Hell is other people but other people is not hell' is what I typed and erased in my first comment. Because of the obvious reason that I sound ridicc!! You know what I want to do. I want to wave cigarettes in the air and say long meaningless sentences ending with monosyllabic shortformed words like ridic! and legit! and fuckinA! What a long boring Mundane depressing pissing off month but we'll walk together in this storm whatever weather cold or warm. I need to drink a beer so bad my throat hurts. Get well bro, dhoop voop mein mat ja.Main prarthna karungi tere liye.jannate sajai. Ah there they are, the pop culture references.
For some reason, I found this post really funny; and yeah, fevers are a strange trip.
Hope you got your admit card though; I had to accost about a dozen doctors before a gynecologist agreed to sell me two months of presence for 500 bucks--if it hadn't been for all the heat and distress I'd have laughed.
Yes, I did get my admit card finally. The teacher that I disliked most pulled through for me. A gynaecologist? That's hilarious. Though I think the place I go to would probably have some more questions for me than just attendance if I produced a gyno certificate. :)
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