Were you fooling me?

fuck that kobain guy for being so real and relatable.

I woke up in the morning, did my ritual, and my hands were paining and itching very badly. They just hurt more and more nowadays; it’s mostly the bones. I was contemplating whether I should go for the walk or not, but I realised if I want to be a runaway, I need to run away.

So, I packed my bag, threw my MacBook out of the bag, and left for the Metro station. Last year, I turned 20; the teenager in me lost badly and couldn’t achieve anything. Last year, I walked from Cuffee Parade station to Dadar Chowpatty, covering the whole of the coastal line. It was a brilliant walk; the sunburns were crazy, but I had a lot of fun. I saw a lot of things. But all of that was too polished, wasn’t really sharing the real struggles of Mumbai.

This year, I turned 21, and again ended up being a failure. I was going to walk from Cuffee Parade Park to anywhere near to Sion, completely covering just the Harbour line. I wanted to see what it had to offer.

I started from my friend’s apartment at 6.45 AM in the morning, took a metro to Cuffe Parade, reached there by 7.30, and started walking towards the park. The Cuffe Parade Park is lovely; it’s nice but kind of also over-hyped. It did not feel like a place where only the rich are pretending that they exercise. There were people like me sitting and staring at couples holding their hands and looking at each other. There were rich people, obviously. Where’d the rich go in this small world? They were working out with their dogs.

Around 8.30, I left the park in search of something fun. I turned 21, but I’ve already done all the mature people shit everyone does on their 21st birthday celebration. Alcohol, earning money, mutual funds, getting hired, flying, and I’ve even gone past that. I’ve been fired from a job; I’ve been kicked out of my rented apartment, I’ve been rejected by a girl and so much more. All of this is checked already. So, I thought, to make this birthday special, I’m going to smoke 1 cigarette every hour of the day until I reach Dadar. I realized I arrived at adulthood very early in life and that this place is very poorly furnished.

It’s hard to find a cancer shop at this time of the morning, but I found it. They say that shit, right? “A drug addict finds the dealer, and not the other way around.” I bought a cigarette, stood there, and smoked. And what a grandiose feeling it was to stand and spew some smoke out of my un-brushed mouth. This is becoming a ritual, a goobad one.

I kept on walking further and was passing by the school where the rich send their kids. A KIA came, then another SUV, and then a Merc, and so on. It kept on happening. And out of those cars stepped kids who did not look like kids. The girls and boys looked like they were already 25. It makes me wonder about what’s happening to teenagers post-2020. I started looking older all of a sudden, too, with a shit lot of white hair all over my coconut shell and an overtly tiring posture. I looked at the kids in awe, though; they looked very healthy and strong. Lovely, but I think it’s the privilege which makes them look and feel different. It’s not their fault, but rather mine and my parents’ fault. Bloody parents.

I don’t remember what happened for the next 3 hours. I did not smoke another cigarette for a long time. I was planning to grab a beer, but the nearest beer bar I knew was falling out of my route. And perhaps that was the only bar that’d give me a beer in the morning. I think a lot of this essay is going to be just me saying things. Because I was walking very mindlessly; my hand was paining all the time. And because of the itch, I wanted to scratch it very wildly. It’s just that I was getting distracted all the time. I don’t remember anything; it’s all very blurred, even when I wasn’t drunk or wasn’t high on any congress grass.

I remembered talking to Safwan about disorders and this thing of distraction. And he suggested I go to a doctor and rule out all the possibilities. In the chat, I appeared super naive, as if I don’t know anything, and asked him, “Do they do blood/urine tests to diagnose ADHD?” Obviously, no one does. ADHD is neurological, and it’s diagnosed through nonsensical conversations between a patient and a well-studied person. I don’t like or understand it, though. What if I’m giving the doctor exactly what he wants? What if I pretend I don’t have it or have it? People say, “You’re brutally honest, I wish I could be that direct and honest,” but I doubt I was honest with those doctors I talked with. It’s funny; they’re probably never going to figure it out. Studies say that very few psychiatrists have ever been able to cure their patients suffering from borderline personality disorder, major depressive disorder, or any kind of mental health disorder. ADHD can be solved, though; it doesn’t fall in that loop. The fix is simple and possible: shove one pill down your throat, and you’ll be detonated in a matter of minutes.

I had coffee at a coffee shop. That asshole of a waiter charged me INR 35 in the bill as a service charge. And you know what service he gave me? Just saying, “That’s it?” when I made myself comfortable with just one latte. I don’t know why he would expect me to eat his apple pie, cherry-banana glaze, or butter-chicken toast early in the morning. And I absolutely hate bakery products in which Mr. Banana is showing off his/her curves. But by the time I figured out whether I should pay it or not, I had left the coffee shop. But, there wasn’t any budget limitation on me that day. Only transaction limits, though.

I walked mindlessly for a long time, crossed the extreme right side of Fort, walked through the barren, dusty land for another 1.5 hours, crossed Sandhurst, and then slid into Masjid. Uncles were bathing on the street while sitting on their khatiya. Women were staring at people walking while washing their utensils. The houses looked like they were going to fall any moment. But most of them looked handmade. It felt comforting to see them have a life. I crossed the bridge and headed towards the market region. I wasn’t supposed to, but then I went in search of some tartaric acid. When I was young, I used to bleed through my nose for most of the summer and later, randomly. Hence, the doctor recommended me to eat more sour fruits. But I wasn’t able to find any sour things for a very long time. So, I gave up the thought and took a seat outside a perfume shop. I was trying to figure out a way to get outside again. I think boys living in Masjid look very handsome and charming. Their hair is almost always very beautiful and silky. It’s lovely to watch them.

Earlier, these kinds of psychopath walks felt like a time to be with myself and figure some things out. Previously, at least there used to be some kind of conclusion or concise decision made. But nowadays, I start thinking about one problem, and soon enough, I find myself wondering, “What was I thinking?” It’s a fun place to be; come to my side whenever free. I never wanted to be useless, though. But somehow, I don’t have any intentions of helping others. Neither do I want to be a catalyst in one person’s dream, nor do I want to work to pay bills. I don’t know how I’m going to survive. I’ll suffer for sure, but who cares about suffering? It’s very liminal for me right now. I’m too used to that kind of nonsense; now I don’t even find anything heavily stressful. I got kicked out, and I wasn’t able to feel anything for a long time.

Oh, wait, it’s story time. A lot of people asked me why I was thrown out/asked to leave/kicked out of the house by my flatmates. So, here’s the story. Don Tart is one of the characters from the book I’m working on. He’s a fresh 21, sad, angry, and melancholic theatre artist. Very young and early to adulthood, but making a good enough living with his troupe, “The Nocturnal Smiles,” and his girlfriend, Emily Sharapova. I decided to kill him in the 5th chapter, or, moreover, “made Don commit seppuku.” Because that’s how I imagine my book to be. Vincent Szabo, the narrator of the book, has all of Don’s personal diaries. The plot after the 5th chapter moves from one diary entry to another for another 10 chapters. It’s Vincent and Emily reading through Don’s diary entries for the next chapters. It isn’t a mystery; everything was visible to people. It wasn’t just feeling literal. And that section of the book is to make things literal about people hiding behind the art.

But how do I build a deeper, detailed connection between the diary entries? I want to be artistic, and artistic in a way that I can confuse anyone. Literally, anyone. So, like everyone else, I started actualizing things. I just did all that I could. I bought a diary and named it “His diary” on the top of the diary and “Pool of blood and love”, as he subtitle. And I used to spend time writing what might be going on in Don’s head. The personality for Vincent was already figured out. But I hadn’t completed working on the character design of Don Tart, so I was completing it through the diary.

And while leaving for a conference, I kept this super dramatized, pain-romanticizing literary artifact of mental disorder on my bed. My flat owner who is also my flatmate decided to read it. And then he decided to kick me out. He felt it was risky for both parties. They said something was wrong with me and it was better I figured this out somewhere else. I was fine with it, though. I wasn’t in the mood to explain anything to them. So, I just took my stuff and left the house the very morning I landed back in Mumbai. “Oh God, what a tragedy. Your life is so interesting. Ah, that must suck. What the fuck? Do you want to go to the police?”

It’s fine, though. It’s completely fine. I mean, what can I or they do? I focused back on the walking, and it was time for some McDonald’s. I was in Mazgaon, Lower Byculla East. Somehow, that part of Mumbai is just something completely different. I mean, everyone knows that the personality and character of the city changes in every region. But I think I find Mazgaon, Dockyard, and Reay Road better than anything now. They remind me of the canopy-style, cozy roads of Bangalore.

I had some burgers and fries there, sat smoking outside a pharmaceutical shop, and watched a dishonest asshole fining a person for a nice mistake. I sat at the bus stop for another half hour until I decided to continue the walk. Somehow, it was hard to walk. It felt like I’m some person who has fallen or sunk too deep and is learning to walk properly again. The walk kept on feeling very disappointing, but every disappointment was getting knocked out with a Coke or cigarette. K.O. disappointments and regrets.

There’s no graffiti on the walls in this side of Mumbai. It’s bare and very blissful. As always, walkable roads are next to none, but I’m used to falling or twisting my leg often. I really wanted to fuck this walk, find some coffee shop, and just spend a few hours there writing something. But I couldn’t decide that for the longest time. I headed towards Dockyard, and it felt like a village almost. It was very lovely.

My dad gave me some nice amount after a lot of years. I wanted to buy something. UNIQLO got an exclusive Jean-Michel Basquiat-collaborated artwork T-shirt. But I realised I can paint similar things, so why should I invest 1500 INR? I’m a fan of Basquiat, and I love him. He was different. I think he’s one of those artists who made me realize that my “art” does not have to be a fucking vase with a flower in it or a painting of a parrot or hyenna. It can be anything. It just has to convey. So, I decided not to buy it and rather invest time in painting my own T-shirts. I always wanted to wear my own anger, grief, and sadness.

It was almost 5.30 PM when I was sitting on the street in Dadar. It was apparently Simran’s birthday, too, and that’s why he remembered mine. 14 is a nice number. But because people like Simran are also born on that day. I circled Dadar for a while, and while buying my last cigarette of the day, I hit the daily transaction limit. Now I was stuck. I was sitting beside the shop for another hour, sitting clueless about what to do now. I did not feel like eating, even when I was hungry. So, I was just sitting at the circle, watching people walk by.

A girl in black came and kept her bag beside me. Some corporate worker for sure. She got a cigarette, lit it, took a bottle out of her bag, and smoked the cigarette while drinking. She looked calm. I don’t know what was in the bottle, but I doubt it was water. And I just couldn’t help but admire her. I almost was going to ask her if she could get me a cigarette, too. But I didn’t. I got my friend to pay through WhatsApp and ended up getting my last cigarette of the day.

That’s it. I don’t remember anything after that. My back hurted. I went home by 9.30 PM.

racing heart, tingling mind, body starving for impulsive moments