A few days ago, two of my very good friends got engaged to each other and I went to be a part of their big milestone in life. A smiling, happy, young, blissful couple on the throes of their new life together and fiercely excited about it. Both families bustling with so much energy that some didn't know what to do with themselves. Elders bestowing benign smiles on the couple, boisterous aunts drunk on wine and letting loose some hectic dance moves, tanked up to the nostrils with festivity and jewellery, merry-making, ritualizing at every opportunity, officially satisfied with the union of two kids that were always just meant to be a large part of each other's life.
So, last Friday morning, I found myself on a train to this event. I had a single berth and next to me were a family of four. A young father constantly on his phone who I suspected was having an affair with someone else while a haggled wife tried to contain the kids - an infant boy and small girl of about 10- but I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt when I later heard him sing lullabies to the little kid, putting him to sleep and dedicatedly wiping off the infant's puke from their suitcases, compartment floor and own pants. Some time during my 8-hour journey, the wife asked me, "Didi, what time are we reaching?" I wondered how much older I looked to her or was it just a form of addressing a woman of similar age? I bought two books by the late Khushwant Singh, Train to Pakistan and The Company of Women, simply because I was guilted into buying them by the vendor, who gave me a painfully impatient stare while I checked out the books he was carrying. Many amputees thronged the train, begging for money, with almost identical amputations which really made me doubt the imagination of the begging racket mafia. After giving away some of my money to some of the earlier ones, I just shook my head at the ones who came in late. Hijras aggressive as usual marched up and down the compartments and left me alone. I was glad because if they had stopped at my berth, I would have struck up a conversation about the rights of the transgender community and whether they were aware of any people in this region who worked for them. At one point, the wife and husband went off somewhere while the woman politely asked me -didi- if I would watch her daughter for a while. That's when the little girl proceeded to tell me which of her subjects she has not done her holiday homework for, among other things.
At the engagement, I displayed a sufficient amount of enthusiasm, not that I had to really try because I was truly happy that my friends had made it through the odds and were going to happily be at each other's throats for the rest of their lives. I dressed myself in a pink, very modern-looking mekhela sador, went through the hair/make-up/heels/jewellery drill and pulled off a decent job considering I had actually not put in this much effort in my appearance in about 4 years now. I tried my best to calm down the to-be-bride when she was freaking out about being late to the event but I don't think she wanted my advice ("relax, it's YOUR engagement, stop taking calls now, we're just an hour late"). After about an hour, when the rings had been exchanged, I made my way to the bar and got myself a glass of wine and sat down because my feet were already aching. The night turned out to be a pretty happy one, with a lot of dancing, bootlegging after the bar was closed, being pulled up by the relatives of my friends to dance, obliging, last minute hunting for Bollywood music which was on demand, giving and receiving compliments, delaying dinner, taking photos and the other regular wedding-time shabangs.
Something about the significance of my two friends getting engaged managed to put me in an incredibly strange mood the next day. We went out for lunch, shopping and dinner with both the families and I was exhausted the whole day, looking terrible and feeling irritated. At one point, when we were driving from one mall to the other, I longed for a cigarette and was struck by the premonition that I had completely destroyed myself, past, present and future, with my choices, habits and thoughts. I was deeply pitying my own tragic affair called life for about 10 whole minutes, while everyone chattered on in the car, and made a note to blog about this particularly disturbing feeling. My legs were tired from all the walking, my face and hair so greasy and disappointing and my responses were becoming lesser and lesser obliging and enthusiastic, as I dully nodded along to apologies for drunken dancing by aunts and the mother-in-law-to-be the previous night. I could no longer bear the formality or the saccharine since I had my own in-head chaos to deal with, while the families wondered how to communicate with this strange, quiet, chain-smoking, single Assamese girl.
What triggered my chaos on that day was something negligible, that ought not to be mentioned here, for self-preservation measures, at which I am pro. It did however spiral me into seeing clarity, astral-like, what would be of me if I did not take charge of my self right now. The whole trip had jolted me into some sort of mid-life (yes, because I am surely not going to make it to a hundred) crisis, with graphic detail of my own mismanagement of resources and opportunity, time wasted and currently being wasted, degeneration, reality- bitten and rabid form, abandonment and regrets, etc. spirals of dubious nature. How far was I willing to allow this chaos to perpetrate though? And with such a passive, meaningless trigger (that shall not be mentioned) nonetheless.
I will let it perpetrate to the extent of a carpe diem-like fervour to end my blogpost and go do something else, rise tomorrow to forever change the way my life is directed right now. In a small world, on an exceptionally rainy Tuesday night, at the right place and time. Hazzah.
