Do you ever get that feeling where there’s so much to do, yet all you want to do is sit and stare? At the blank sky or the black inky screen of the television, looking at the reflection of the still sofa and go into a numbness so quiet that the motorcycle buzzing on the street below pierces through your head like a long pointy needle? I call it being listless, feeling listless. But I think those are moments when the world feels too overwhelming.
There is so much stimulation from everywhere and so much that a young productive person can do, that lying around sitting on sofas and staring into nothing feels like an utter waste of time. I have always felt I have been the crazy to-do list girl wanting to account for every single day of life , but I heard something on the weekend that tops this habit of mine.
P and R, my cousins, barely 24 and 21 are intermittently feeling inadequate after looking at all the activities their friends and peers are doing and publicising about on LinkedIn. I barely have an account at LinkedIn and I look at it once a month , but these two talented , intelligent girlies are having anxiety attacks reading about the 50 courses their friends are taking on Coursera, or the articles they are writing and the academic things that they are doing. This is next level. I have always looked at Instagram and Facebook posts of my friends and wanted to go on vacations like them or eat at fancy restaurants like them, but hyperventilating about LinkedIn pursuits is so Gen Z, that this millennial doesn’t understand it.
In other news I am watching the series Sex and the City and so much education is happening even for this married-for-9 years-woman, that it would beat any Coursera course by a huge margin. My mom never let me watch it back when it came out in 1999, which was good in a way, because now I have something to binge watch and also practice. Tch Tch.
When I tell my husband that I am feeling listless, uninspired, he generally comes up with a couple of options that will interest me. But on this particular Sunday evening all he said was, same with me, baby, same with me. Lockdown is getting to all of us, and hence both of us sat side by side, quietly, blankly looking at the dull grey sky. And then sighed. May be this is what being married for 9 years is. Sitting and staring and sighing.
Recently husband read a word in a book – ‘uxorious’, it means ‘having or showing a great or excessive fondness for one’s wife.’ The same evening we read this news article where a woman in UP had applied for divorce because she “felt too loved by husband.” The court did not grant her divorce but the wife alleged that at times he even cooked and helped her with household chores. Either this is true and we are all supremely fucked up or Indian media has only two jobs: writing such bizarre stories and talking about Sushant Singh Rajput all day long.
Or maybe people are sick of watching and reading about coronavirus. So many people I have spoken to told me the same thing, earlier they used to track the number of cases, statistics of death rate etc, and now we have become so numb to all of it, and it’s such a railroad wreck that these daily numbers don’t mean a thing. 65,000 plus cases each day?! We are soon going to be number one, but hey, who cares? We have so many people, that the statistics which apply to others don’t really apply to us.
What we could do in the interim is watch endless hours of Arnab shouting his heart out demanding justice for Sushant Singh Rajput and sometimes get to see a pretty face of Kangana Ranaut amidst all the hullabaloo. Hey, Kangana is a fellow curlie, and the first one to parade it onscreen, so I will always have a soft spot for her. But anyway, if that’s not sufficient you can make a group of people and discuss the several rumours that are floating on WhatsApp about SSR murder/ suicide.
That’s not what normal people do? Oh we are indulging in it at every other possibility. And the rest of the time sit and stare. And wonder where the sky begins.
And sigh.
xoxo,
RC
Sizzle and Drizzle 