Dearest,
We are a few letters in. I feel like I can call you dearest now. This term of endearment is also part-placatory because I haven't written in a while.
I had misgivings about putting too much of myself out here for scrutiny in these weekly missives and wanted to retreat for a bit. Then, the letters I had planned didn't feel right for the moment we are in, the particular space I am suspended in and it seemed disingenuous to put out something at odds with this headspace.
Another draft reached 3,000 words and I didn't want to put you through that. Not today.
//
There’s a viral video which shows a paediatrician distracting a baby with an endearing tongueclick-fingertap-dance-thing. The baby is so entranced that he doesn't realise the paediatrician is dispensing an injection into his chubby thigh. He doesn't notice at all.
There is a particular world leader who excels at this distraction. He knows what will rile public opinion and when he wants a news decoy from something problematic, he says something incendiary which feeds into this clickbait model of news and spawns waves of disbelief and outrage.
This isn't a new tactic but it feels increasingly like others are taking cues from him. I see this a lot in Sri Lankan news cycles. Every time something in the local news explodes it seems prudent to look at the stories that go unnoticed. The news that gets filed on sites as four-line items and don’t receive a social media post or gain traction.
A few weeks ago, we had cows and murderers dominating the headlines. We've progressed beyond it but I'm still absorbing the news that we have a convicted murderer on death row in parliament.
If crime was criteria for omission among our honourable parliamentarians we would not have many parliamentarians. But before we could take in this historic moment of a convicted murderer taking oaths in the house that Bawa built, a short-lived proposal to ban the slaughter of cattle took over the news, filled the headlines for a hot flash and subsided. By the next week, we had forgotten about both the bovine problem and the murderer in parliament problem.
Since then, I’ve been thinking of the stories of the WhatsApp lynch mobs in India and I've had two poems by Ellen Bass and Tishani Doshi looping in my head. I am adding both to the postscripts at the end of this letter.
//
A delightful result of being at an age where your friends are bringing out babies into the world is that you also get to have CHILD FRIENDS. And with CHILD FRIENDS (why am I capitalising this), come short eat parties, and I do enjoy a fun, relaxed short eat party. There's a trend to have these showy, large birthday shenanigans where everyone radiates stress and the kid is crying and the parents begin smile-fighting against the photo backdrop because they have just realized how much everything costs and all of this can make an egg boat eating experience a little stressful.
I do feel for children growing up in the backdrop of a pandemic. A friend's son was so thrilled to have us visit and to be seeing people that he began crying when we got up to leave. Zoom schools feel like an ersatz* version of the real deal. This photograph of school children in China with social distancing headgear also stuck with me. Uff, my heart.
Some of my CHILD FRIENDS are at that age where they are developing their personalities and it's fascinating to see their blurry personas take form. One has gotten into a habit of solemnly clutching her chest and exclaiming 'oh dear' when her mother scolds her.
Another loves food. Like really loves food. He gazes at food with a soulful intensity that most people reserve for their near and dear. He saw that I was upset once and his instinctive answer to my despondency was to totter up to me and jam forkfuls of pineapple into my mouth. There's an expression of pure delight and astonishment that travels slowly across his face when he eats something he likes. I hope this food pleasure never diminishes. I hope he continues to find joy and solace in his meals.
When is the last time you ate something that made you feel this way?
Mine was our first takeout after lockdown. This was the first meal from outside our household and we ordered from our favourite South Indian joint. Gratitude/relief/reverence coalesced as I scooped up tomato chutney with a crisp dosai and dug into it, eyes closed. It was a moment of familiarity and normalcy from a past version of life amid a strange few months. It was joy. Absolute joy.
//
Always interested in how old words accrue new meaning. On LinkedIn recently, someone messaged me asking if I was a content writer and if I was taking on projects.
For a moment, my fingers hovered over my keyboard and I was tempted to reply, "Sir, I am a slightly discontent writer these days. But what can I do for you".
//
The cat was sleeping next to me as I write this. She was in this deep, unencumbered sleep that perhaps only animals are capable of lately. She twitched and woke up with a jolt, her eyes dilated and her body, stiff with alarm. It took a while for her to calm down. Stroking her, I realized that she had been having a bad dream.
I am going to spend the rest of the day wondering what kind of things cat nightmares are made of (Needy humans? A dearth of fish? A day with no naps?)
Have a good week.
Yours,
Adilah
* Can you tell I have been waiting to use 'ersatz' in a sentence? Did it feel like a hot air of a word occupying a place when a simpler one would have done?
Ps: here are the two poems.
Goat, Cow, Man - Ellen Bass
####
They Killed Cows. I Killed Them - Tishani Doshi
Nice, very nice.
""Sir, I am a slightly discontent writer these days. But what can I do for you". Hilarious!