Control | Shrink Tales

I was somehow feeling lighter than usual when i set out for therapy on Tuesday. Bombay was getting hotter. My yearning for home and rain was at the back of my mind but was not eating me like it usually does.

Ish said that it just came as a natural choice to her to pick on the subject of my fish curry from the notes from the previous session. She said that that was perhaps the first time i had mentioned food at all. It was true. In all relationships there comes a point where i decide to disclose my vulnerability regarding food and it looked as if that one line in my writing was that in my therapy sessions. That's quite an achievement, i guess, given that i told my partner about it just last year, almost three years into our relationship.

I felt good that Ish disagreed with her about pushing me towards doing something about my unhealthy support systems like smoking and not eating. It could have the opposite effect, she said and i was like 'on your face,' to her in my head. But then i also knew that in the end she would be right. 

We spoke a lot about control.I had not realised that it was an important part of my relationships with people and things. I always considered it as having something to do with sex all the time. Sexual abuse. For instance, when Ish was saying that for me, the peak point for all relationships was - i completed the sentence with sex. But she was going to say control. For me, the peak point was when i consented (or not consented to sex and it was coerced out of me) to sex. But in fact, it was not sex i was consenting to, it was control over me or my body. Because in most of my relationships, the sex part of it was abuse.

This perspective on relationships made me feel better. It is the relief that i know something  about myself so it will help me make better judgements. For me, that is the best part of therapy - these joining of dots that will give me a clearer picture. The good thing is that, unlike when she shows me the whole picture all naked in front of me, i don't feel defeated. Or figured out by Ish. It feels like figuring out for yourself and that consoles me.

She asked me to think of instances where i had lost control with substance abuse. It was then that i remembered that the first time i drank in my life, i ended up having sex with my female friend from college. That was something i had no intention of doing. Ish linked this fear of losing control with Father's alcoholism. It was true. I grew up as a child who wanted to avoid losing control like that at any cost. Father behaved differently when he was under the influence of alcohol. Even after his death, i saw that his brothers were alcoholic and they turned rude and impolite to Appan when they were drunk. They were all different people when they were drunk. I remember making a pact with my only male cousin. That he wouldn't drink or smoke when he grew up. He in turn asked me the same question. It was kind of feminist for a boy of that age and time. In the end, i do believe i started smoking and drinking before he did. The first cigarettes i stole was from his own father.

Thinking about losing control, i also remembered the humiliating experience with Aalayam, my ex editor, one of the accused in one of my complaints of sexual harassment. I felt bad for him because people, especially men considered him unworthy of my attention or love. That naturally led me to take him under my wing and openly feed him love. But as is the case with a lot of men who interact with me, he took it as permission to approach me for sex. I just couldn't think of him in that manner but he persisted despite my repeated 'no's' In the end, it was when i got drunk that i decided to let him have whatever he needed from my body. It was horrible and humiliating, is what i told Ish regarding that.

So in all relationships, that is, in all people i loved, i considered giving control to them as the epitome of love. So it was with Sister. With Appan. It's when i shook myself out of Sister's control that our problems started. I started noticing things that i couldn't agree with. My 3.5 years long relationship with Jay, of course, i agreed to have sex with him without even him approaching because i was sure that that was the relationship that was going to work for me so i might as well finish off with the initiation ceremony. He had control over my family.

Now when it comes to my partner, it changes for me. Here, i made a choice. Refraining to do things that will hurt him is one of the things i do for him. I don't see it as control. I see it as love. I would anyway do it because i loved him. He would do the same for me. Even if he doesn't, my love has to be superior in that way. Each one in the relationship should get the best possible format of love.

What about food? If i continue in this manner, did my food problem start first or abuse? Ish thinks it is food. I do too. So it could be that i identified food as the cause for the fat shaming that was done to me. So me giving control to food was me taking my relationship with it to the peak point so that food will leave me alone and treat me properly. Like when i had fish and rice and felt absolutely awesome about it, the same night, i let it control me. Gobbling up some pieces and rice before i threw it.

During the week, I read an article about quitting drinking by an alcoholic. The writer tries to find out if quitting had made any of the writers write poor writing. Then I remembered ish asking me about the fat me. :-( felt sad. Imagined fat me in school etc. The article was really good and when inji saw that I had shared it, she told me that it was keeping me in mind that she posted that in malayee feminist reading group. 

Jay called. He said he was going to have a baby. I cried. I don't think I was sad. I was amazed and overwhelmed, felt as if something was happening in my life. I was happy and worried at the same time. Worried because from the conversation I realized he hasn't changed a bit. Recently I had looked at his photos and had felt that he was smoking weed a lot. Thought about addiction genes being passed on. 

Sister said really hurting things. But because ish had told me that it was not going to work without her reciprocation, I think maybe the mind did not blame myself for it. I asked her why she hated me so much. Asked where the hatred came from. 

Covering events in Bombay is giving new experiences. I still hate the place though.

Being Stared At While Smoking In Bombay

Bombay, where i live now, is supposed to be the most important city in india. She was all praises for it. She wanted me to come here. I would've had to anyway. I just accepted the first offer which came my way. I needed a steady source of income. The job was in Bombay. She calls it Bombay and not Mumbai. So i do the same. I moved here.

It's time to break it to people. Bombay is not what it is believed to be. It is a far cry from 'progressive'. I face all kinds of discrimination here. Owing to my looks, clothes i wear, complexion, language, my South Indian identity and on one occasion, laughter.

Bombay doesn't make me want to blog like how Kolkata did. Whenever i tell people that i don't like this place they tell me that i will, eventually. Yes, it had happened in Kolkata. I had hated the place when i went there to give my interview at Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute [SRFTI]. But it grew on me and made me a moth in its dusty, dull landscape of buildings and people.

With Bombay came depression, job, house, money but never love.

It's okay. Maybe i'll find it.

Came here to note down a fact. More number of people stare at me when i smoke in Bombay than in Kolkata. Once a man clicked my picture when i was smoking. When i smoke in the parking space in office, people gather in corridors to stare at me.

Much progressive. This.

'Commute': On my way to work, one day

Not Smoking in Public in Kolkata

12.2.2014

On February 10th i took the decision not to smoke in public. It is a huge step for an addict especially for one in Kolkata. Here the rate of smoking in public is higher than any place i have been to. Back home it wasn't even possible for me because people would approach me thinking i was a prostitute or to moral police me. That way home was better. I don't think it matters that people ask you not to smoke in public because you are a girl. It's okay. Nobody should smoke in public. Ideally nobody should smoke. I know i will quit one day. I hope it happens before nicotine gets the better of me. 

Was reading in front of my department that day. An Equal Music by Amitav Ghosh. The book is a thriller. My definition of a thriller is a little out of the conventional, so don't take my word for it. I was brought back to the real world by the most gentle touch on the shoulder. It was an old friend, a senior-D. Were very close for some time and had fallen out for over a year. But when he touched me like that i felt it was by someone who knew me in and out. Who liked being near me. Who loved me. He wanted a cigarette. I had to turn him down. I later thought of inviting him over for lunch just because of that beautiful touch i thought most men were incapable of. Then dropped the plan. Have always been bad at starting things afresh, maintaining good ties with people etc. 

With the new year i had also decided not to waste food. This meant i would have to keep a few things in a refridgerator. My coconuts, curry,mint leaves etc. are therefore distributed among three fridges in the hostel. One in the mess in first floor, one in Al's room in ground floor and one in my neighbour and friend Mith's room in second floor. Every day a dish or two are born out of ingredients from one or more of these. Its a montage, a film student would like to say. 

So for the cabbage thoran for the day that D missed due to my horrendous social skills i went to Mith's room for the coconut. We talked for a while, she had just been back from MIFF in Mumbai. She casually asked me what i thought of a beautiful orange and green [great combination of colours this is, if you hadn't noticed already] jute bag hanging precariously on her cupboard knob. When i said what i thought she said i could have it. Polite no's. But my eyes watered. It had been long since someone did that to me. It had been long since someone touched me like D did that morning. Everything added up. I cried even after reaching my room. 

At night after the screening when i told A Leo Pou of the new decision he said he was going to gift me a flower pot. I forgot to collect it from his quarters that night. He had inspired all of us by making a beautiful vegetable garden behind the doctor's chamber and adorning the parapets of both his balconies with lovely flowering plants. The next day he came all the way up my room and gave me one of those plants. Purple. Lovely. Now sits smugly in my balcony. His documentary 'My Grandpa's Home' had been screened at MIFF and we talked about it for some time. It was about his grandfather who was the last member of his tribe not to have converted to christianity. A lot of people were impressed by it, he said. I was very happy for him. He then took me to his vegetable garden to pluck peas for his dinner. I got some too. Also gave me a mint sapling. I hope it flourishes. 

The gifted pot

Summer is on its way. I hope to get a single occupancy room soon. Even thinking of feigning some kind of sickness so that they are forced to give me one but truly out of ideas for it. As soon as i get one i will start on that long time dream of a vegetable garden. These are the things which will help keep yourself sane in this maddening shit pool. One has to have some fluffy couch to sink in at the end of a tiring day and here every day is one.