So I'm back from Goa, relaxed, de-stressed, and annoyingly chirpy...err ok so make that was annoyingly chirpy, since office always gets rid of the chirpy factor. Am back, from a holiday that I've been looking forward to for ages. And back with 39 pics and only three worth posting. The rest of the 36 are, well, bullshit. It looks like I have no sense of light, or composition and no control over my motor nerves.
Pictures taken by my friends of course, seem quite wonderful. Shuddho's in fact are really good, despite or perhaps because of the 15 minute wait that preceded almost each picture. Jitz went by instinct, not trying too hard but not as if she took no effort at all. Hers look like she took an actual interest, liked the person, and for a moment was detached enough to step out, take stock and take a picture with a discerning eye.
Even the waiters at Brittos fared better than I did with this (picture 2).

But oh me. Me... I was phenomenally bad. For evidence look to picture 1. That is one arm, one person, and another person's back. The person in the middle looking so unfortunately bad, is actually quite good looking. Why have my pictures been so disastrous?
Is it my cheap Polaroid camera? It can't be as picture 3 is taken on my camera by Shuddho. Is it really as simple as me not being creative enough (although someone else left the sentence at just 'creative'. But I refuse to believe that anyone can ever be described as not creative) .
I have since found an answer I can live with. I think my supreme ineptitude stemmed from being to conscious. Too conscious that this was the best time I've had in a long time. Too conscious that 7 mega pixels can perhaps capture the sight but not the sounds smells or just the comfort of belonging. That it can't record that giddy happy high. Or that slightly bittersweet feeling of not quite fitting in and yet knowing that it's just right. Maybe it came from a desperation, that I must take a picture so that I remember, but quickly, lest I miss out.

But miss out I didn't. Thank God. What I do is miss my friends.

When you hurt people, they begin to love you less. That's what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.

--

Abhilash Talkies, The God of Small Things

Of all things, this is one sentence that really scares me. It bothers me if people like me a little less. Even if it's people who I don't like too much. Isn't that weird? Why would I ever give anyone that power? And why do I?

So here's to a new endeavour. Here's to learning not to care.

and oh well, here's to lost causes...

Dear Boy-I-Was-Sort-Of-Hitting-On,

I really really like you. Like you in a 'love is' cartoons, line drawings of walking into sunsets hand-in-hand, make me go ridiculously girlie giggly mushy, moon over your Facebook picture, consider doodling your name at random times but not actually doing it since I am too grown up to, way. I like you and the only reason I find this so easy to say is because there is very little chance of you stumbling into this blog. Sigh. As someone very wise recently pointed out I apparently always fall for those who are outside the realm of immediate possibility.

But anyway, even if you'll never read this, I write this to just get this off my chest. And to serve as a warning to all other dimwits like me.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry for being so dense. I'm sorry for replying to you in a flurry of excited typos every one and half month you pinged to say hello. I'm sorry for doing all that natak of hitting on you and pretending I wasn't. And I'm sorry for not realising that the interest wasn't actually mutual. Which is where epiphany number two comes in. I think my arrogance stops me from registering that someone I am so obviously interested in, isn't interested back. So I keep pushing and pushing despite all sorts non-encouragement (not active discouragement, mind you) until the boy is forced to act like a jerk. Which is when I register "he's not that into me" and go crying to friends who rally around saying 'there there, he's a jerk'.

But you! You are so totally sweet. Thank you for not being a jerk. Thank you for asking me to what I now see wasn't a date but just an arrangement for us to be at the same place at the same time. Thanks for not getting sleazy. Thanks a thousand times for not taking advantage of my adolescent type crush and giving me your room number (yes, this has happened to me before). Thanks for hugging me goodbye and kissing my hair, in a way that made me close my eyes and feel a little squishy inside. I realise now of course that your oh-so-sweet gesture wasn't an exclusive move but an applicable to all girl friends thing. Am sorry for being a small-town type who didn't see a PR type move for what it was.

And what I'm really sorry for putting you in a spot where you couldn't say "back off!" This will teach me not to hit on professional contacts. Gah, what can I say, I'm really sorry for being a stupid cow.

Swooning still,

M

P.S. But you're still so cute!

P.P.S. Sniff. Here is my rebellion. Will not wear my heart on my sleeve any more. Or, for that matter, your favourite band on my caller tune. So there.

On hold

Sometimes it feels like my whole life is on whole hold. I don't know how many stories that I've filed are on hold. That's work. There are three blog posts which are still on hold cause what I have written on I have no clue how to finish. That is, or so I kid myself into believing, my writing. And all my plans of working outside the city, doing my own thing, making ends meet on a higher salary that is still far too little to survive on (God, why does that sound good?) will probably come to naught. That's life

Somebody hang up and let me go.

So there's Free Fallin' by Tom Petty and a beautiful beautiful cover of the song by John Mayer. I'm listening to the song on loop again and you know what really pisses me off about the song (other than the thought that listening to one song on loop over 20 hours is, well, a little nutty) ? It's when he says "And Im a bad boy cause I dont even miss her". I mean, really, is it just me or is it always, al-bleddy-ways that a boy gets to say this?
Please can a woman cover the song in a really kick ass manner and change that to And I'm a bad girl cause I dont even miss him ? I'd really prefer to sing along to that version.

Through The Filters

With him everything seemed to have that tinted glow. Not rose tinted. But as if viewed through muted yellow filters. The colours were richer, her laughter louder, her hair shinier and her skin glowed. Like the old Dove ad. There was something about that time made it seem as if everything was tinted with that slightly fuzzy happiness that made everything ok. It felt like a time shot in Vaseline shots.

And now the filters have changed. Everything now was a dull boring brown. Nothing was funny anymore. Not even her. How unfair that that glow went away with him. How unfair that he left and the brown came back.

In My Place

Out of all things that she could have remembered from that book, what she did was a paragraph that didn't matter. A young truck driver drops everything to accompany a strange 60-year-old man who talks to cats. Another falls in love with a girl in a picture. World War II soldiers lost in a forest have remained the same ever since. But what she remembers are half forgotten lines about a girl the truck driver could have visited. The truck driver wonders why he is going along with a strange 60-year-old on a strange excursion. He could have visited that girl in Tokyo "who always made time for him whenever he wanted to meet her," he thinks. Which is when it hits her.

She is that girl, she realises. There is no mention of that girl in the book again. Just that one line. It's easy to identify with that protagonist in a book who conquers all kinds of odds to get to his goal. Easier still to identify with the best friend or the sidekick, and like Kate Winslet in Holiday, feel like a side character in your own life. But nothing... nothing quite puts you in your place like the realisation that you aren't the best friend. You aren't even the best friend's other option. Yours is not the situation that could have happened. You were never an option.

You are those twenty words that people won't even remember.

Unidentified Coloured Object


So my very obliging girlfriends gather at my place to welcome me back after my three week hiatus. One of them has suddenly developed something of a social life in my absence. And has had an obvious pedicure and is wearing nail polish. Her pedicures would always come sans nail polish before so I obviously take note. Toe flirting, I accuse. And well, if a girl is dating anything she does is attributed to the sudden appearance of guy. Hair serum? Aha date with boy huh? Eyebrows done? Oooh date night. Dieting? When is date? Shopping? Going anywhere fancy with boy? Of course all of these things are stuff we'd do irrespective of boys but it's generally fun to watch them squirm and blush and deny start a general banter. It's like small talk. But better than talking about the weather. I mean with the weather all you can say is "Oof it's so hot" and it ends there. This on the other hand offers us endless possibilities for a conversation.

So yes nail polish. She demurs. "Yeah I finally went for it, because they got me a white nail polish," she says.
Girlfriend 2: "That's not white. That's more peach."
Me: "Yeah, a very light diluted with white sort of peach."
The one with a social life: "Han? I thought it was white."
Girlfriend 3, arrives later and the topic comes up again. "That's white," she agrees.
Girlfriend 2: "No actually it's sort of coral."

A day later, we're walking down the street to grab a bite when it finally hits me. "Aha! I know. This is shell pink."
Her: " Han? I thought it was white"
Me: No... think sea-shells. It's that sort of pink.

(We are very good at that stating the obvious. What's OCD? It's this compulsive need to do something obsessively, she wrote. What's shell pink? It's the shade of pink often spotted in sea shells!)

So now the matter is resolved. Shell pink. So there.

[663 finds his apartment is flooded]
Cop663: Did I leave the tap running, or is the apartment getting more tearful? I always thought it would cope okay. Didn't expect it to cry so much. When people cry, they can dry their eyes with tissues. But when an apartment cries, it takes a lot to mop it up.

Chungking Express, 1994


My house thinks it's in this Wong Kar Wai movie. It figures it is allowed to act up now that mom's in Bombay. The AC refuses to work. Got it fixed by the maintenance people and it still switches off in the middle of the night and only starts working when I wake up suffocating and panicky. The floor of my box bed also just gave way. It sort of caved in the middle and the durries and stuff is poking outside. Like it's saying, "Dude I refuse to take all this load, without your mom around." And the AC remote walks about the house alone. Here it was on the bed... sometime later I will find it on the window sill. Wonder what kind of shenanigans it will get into once I leave as well. Spooky this.

Deliver me from well intentioned neighbours. please god please.

What is it about that sad sad song with its soaring violins and weeping melody, that gets to us so? Why do we persist in making our heartbreak worse with sad songs? Why must I listen to Damien Rice singing “And why'd ya sing Hallelujah/If it means nothing to you/Why'd you sing with me at all” when I already feel like shit? It’s not even as if the words are especially brilliant. It’s not like I enjoy this feeling of wanting to go on long bawling trip, curled up into a ball the windows closed. Especially not when stuck in office with the most inane cover story in the history of all cover stories. I don’t need to make my claustrophobia worse with that melody that chokes me even as it moves. Why do I do this? Why does my already low, friend listen to So Unsexy over and over again? Are we perverse or what?

Hollywood wisdom

"Girls are taught a lot of stuff growing up: if a boy punches you he likes you, never try to trim your own bangs, and someday you will meet a wonderful guy and get your very own happy ending. every movie we see, every story we're told implores us to wait for it: the third act twist, the unexpected declaration of love, the exception to the rule. but sometimes we're so focused on finding our happy ending we don't learn how to read the signs. how to tell the ones who want us from the ones who don't, the ones who will stay and the ones who will leave."

Gigi, He's Just Not That Into You, 2009

May be if I read this enough, I'll remember not to forget.

why boys are stupid

so it's raining after one of the hottest and most humid week ever. My work's mostly done and I really feel like a drive and coffee. And unfortunately for me drive and coffee type things can only happen with boys ( my equally unfortunate girlfriends don't have cars and aren't trusted with their parents' cars either). So I dig out boy's number from a stream of texts ( I will so not save his number, given number of times I have ended up drunk-texting/dialling), and half smiling at the thought of coffee and the lovely weather, dial... Dated Rahman number as caller tune should have brought me back to earth but nooo, am still dreamy-eyed.

Me, sweet voiced, cheery: about to say hi

Him: Han, Ma bolo.

Me: what the fuck?!

arggh, a particularly dense/ hard of hearing boy: han ma bolo

Me: Ma? what the fuck

Him: Oh it's you... listen, I'm driving now. Will call later.


Why girls are not...


Deflated I walk back to my comp to see an office atex message blinking.

Debo: It's raining. Am drenched:D

Me: You went downstairs without me?!!

Debo: no no, was at the verendah

Me: You wanna go downstairs and get wet?

Debo: lets lets

So we rush down, leave a crowd of puzzled, elderly men smoking at the porch, and into the rain and the already waterlogged pavement. We wade across to the opposite side order tea, run to the pan shop to buy cigarettes, and stand around shivering, smoking, sipping tea, grinning from ear to ear. " I feel like dancing," I say. Debo smirks knowingly: "You already are."

Inside, shivering harder, grinning even harder, when another random elderly man looks awestruck : "Bhijte gechile naki?" We only giggle harder.

Boys stupid. Girls be smarter.

So Unsexy, Alanis Morissette

Oh these little rejections how they add up quickly
One small sideways look and I feel so ungood
Somewhere along the way I think I gave you the power to make
Me feel the way I thought only my father could

Oh these little rejections how they seem so real to me
One forgotten birthday I'm all but cooked
How these little abandonments seem to sting so easily
I'm 13 again am I 13 for good?

I can feel so unsexy for someone so beautiful
So unloved for someone so fine
I can feel so boring for someone so interesting
So ignorant for someone of sound mind

Oh these little protections how they fail to serve me
One forgotten phone call and I'm deflated
Oh these little defenses how they fail to comfort me
Your hand pulling away and I'm devastated

When will you stop leaving baby?
When will I stop deserting baby?
When will I start staying with myself?

Oh these little projections how they keep springing from me
I jump my ship as I take it personally
Oh these little rejections how they disappear quickly
The moment I decide not to abandon me

I love this woman. She gets us so.

Gush-ling

So it's 2:30 Pm and page release time. And the cover story has a quote about someone gushing about Hrithik's eyes. (Or was it his nose?) Except the person quoted is not qualified with name, age profession etc. And since the reporter is on leave, SeniorPerson1 and SeniorPerson2 decide to pick a suitably "gushy" age.
SP1: Make it 24.
SP2: 24? No no. 19 is more fitting I think.
SP1( disbelievingly): 19?...(pause, and then she looks at me) Malini how old are you? 23 or 24?

Me:!!!!!
By the way, I am now 2 years, 13 days and 6 hours old at this office. When does one stop being "of gushy age" ?

I bought my friend a pink balloon.

It was 9:30 pm as I got off at our bus stop, hot and sweaty and cursing at the vile woman who was trying to throw me off the bus. I hadn't been able to get out early and meet Sabi for coffee. Incidentally she is my only close friend I have no Orkut/Facebook pictures with. Lots of those stuck inside photo albums--me on her birthday 1994, in my first salwar kameez. Us on her school farewell, she in a sari and me in salwar kameez. Saraswati Puja-both of us in a sari- she prettier. Again. Lots of birthdays, farewells, Christmases and pujos. No random coffee shops. No posing over alcohol. No sleepovers.

Not that it ever mattered, but we both suddenly realised that there was no online photographic evidence of how close we are and intrinsically linked our lives are. There is a stupid testimonial on orkut that doesn't mean anything. But that's it. She has her glam pics with her hotel people. I have those not-so-glam ones with my college gang, and my work gang, and many extended groups. But we have none of us together.

No pictures of waiting till late afternoon for Uncle Alvin(her uncle, now mine as well) and aunty (her mom) to finish cooking so that we could finally get our hands on Christmas lunch. No pictures of nearly dying because the pork curry (and once vindaloo) was way too hot (for me). No pictures of me valiantly carrying on despite a runny nose, and tears and sweat. No pictures of falling asleep post-lunch, smug, full and very happy. No pictures of just lolling about on our terrace talking endlessly. No pictures, of what I now recognise as my best memories.

This time now that she was in Calcutta we would photo graph it all. Us in shorts and chattering aimlessly. Us with our going out faces. Lots of us. But that didn't happen. There was always far too much to talk about. And we were never satisfactorily pretty enough for pictures. At least not both of us together. So the plan was to meet at a coffee shop and randomly take lots of pictures. Thanks to my work schedule that too didn't happen.

I was walking back, thinking about all this and considering dropping in for quick hello when I passed by the sad balloon seller. Sabi and I became friends after I joined the school in the fourth standard. She was in the fifth standard then and mother had dragged me to her place during the holidays to borrow books. Anyway the point is, we haven't seen each other through balloons and Barbie doll stage (although no, she was over barbie dolls. I loved her Barbi'e's kitchen set. I was a domestic 10 year old).

But I digress again. Sad baloon seller. Hot sultry evening. Horrid day. Pretty sad balloons. Even the heart shaped one was wonky. So I settled for the big pink round one (by the way isn't 5 bucks a bit much for a balloon?). I walked to her place, bag, phone, press kit and balloon in hand.

Sabiiiiiii, see what I got!!" said my fake whiny voice.

"You gwot me bwaloon!" she said.

"Accha no hugs, far too hot," I protested. Obviously no one listens to me.


"Mommy I got bwalooon," she showed aunty, who rolled her eyes in reply. "Bwaloooon," she said for extra effect.


I got my friend a pink balloon. Just because I can.

(Clarification: We don't really have an IQ below 75. We just like acting that way.)

Sabse Chota
So yesterday evening, I headed to Metro Plaza after an assignment at the ICCR where I watched a stunning wadaiko performance. Something about them reminded me of anime cartoons… the martial arts type stance, the intense expressions, the very hypnotic beats…(unfortunately that’s all I understood of their music and thankfully I didn’t have to write anything beyond a 30 word caption). Down the lane was Metro Plaza, where I was supposed to meet colleagues out shopping.

I wouldn’t buy anything, I planned. And I held off for quite sometime. There was a nice lacy sleeveless top that screamed ‘buy me’, but I looked away. There was a plain black round necked T that, I swear, I needed desperately (it would go with my long sleeveless white tunic, my fab India skirts, on every fat day…) But I decided I needed the money in my wallet more. There were peep toe ballerinas that I decided were far too cute for me. I can’t do cute, I told myself. And then, I fell for a corduroy, calf length A-line skirt in pretty grape. It was languishing behind a lot of hideous mini skirts and was on sale. I had to rescue it. Except that the shop had no trial room. And the waist looked a wee bit big for me. So I tried it over my jeans and T. Fits fine, I thought. "If it fits over my jeans it’ll be loose emni, na ?" I asked my colleagues.
They nodded. "Bhaiya isse chota size nahin hoga ?(Doesn’t this come in a smaller size?"I asked the shopkeeper.
"Yahi sabse chota size hai" he shook his head.
"Haan?! Maine kabhi bhi sabse chota size nahin pehna (Really?! I’ve never worn the smallest size in anything!" (Yes I know the Hindi is wrong, but this is Calcutta). And…well…bought. Sigh. Things I do to feel thin!

P. S. the skirt looks fine if held up with a belt. Without it, it rides dangerously low.

P. P. S Does anyone know an inexpensive tailor who would alter clothes they haven’t made? In Calcutta that is.

the life and rants of the single, imaginative and (perhaps) desperate

So when he called me to ask if I was coming to watch his show, I shrugged. I thought, ok, cute bassist, already beginning to happen band, is being nice to media person. And then I watch them play, while hiding behind the bar so I can take notes while watching them, without being shoved around by the pub goers, my eardrums bursting because I'm right next to the speakers and I'm a little sad and a little lonely and fall a little in love with their music. It comes easy with self pity, beer and no company. I leave in the middle of their show as it is quarter to twelve and this was a last minute assignment and my poor mum is waiting up for me.

In the car, happy, alone, the wind in my hair, am impressed enough to leave a message saying "Loved your gig. Malini from so and so newspaper". I wake up the next morning and see the reply:"Hey, wanted to meet you. Left?" I almost reply. But decide against it.

Still don't have an interview so I sms the ahem-rather-hot band manager. "Would ****** be free for an interview at 2?" Nope. They're leaving the hotel at 2 since they have a show at an orphanage. Could the interview happen there? Sure, I say. And cringe. Mail my pending story. Get ready to go to work on my only day-off in the week.

I reach the venue, which is a quaint house off the bypass where they are setting up their equipment. And in the space of the interview am charmed in spite of myself. Their wit. Their humour. Their complete lack of snotty attitude. Oh and how they almost made me blush. Almost.

Question: Once the novelty factor wears off do you think your music and songwriting will be strong enough to stand the test of time?"

Vocalist: Yes because the sound remains the same. If today you take a baul or ram leela performer and make him wear a shirt and trousers while performing, what he sings remains the same. If that lady in jeans and kurta does the bharatnatyam, she may not look like a dancer but it will still be bharatnatyam. Even if there was no kajal in your eyes**(or something to that effect) they wont stop being beautiful.

I smile a little unsurely. What is going on, I wonder. What do I do with this sentence? Does it go in my copy? And well, what is a compliment doing in the middle of my interview?!!

Bassist sniggers: You didn't get that.

Vocalist: That was a compliment.

Me (I think I mumbled) : mmm well, I smiled. Sort off.

Vocalist: She got that. She smiled.

I continue valiantly with my interview (difficult to do, if your feeling as foolish).

Interview over, I watch them goof around and practice and realize that my copy would be hopelessly not objective. Just when the gig is about to start a woman lands up. "Where is ***(bassist)? I have his clothes."

"Ota ke ( who's that)?" I ask the photographer. "Bassist er bou (wife)," he answers. My heart sinks. Ok no. Shatters into tiny million pieces. "It's meeting the man of my dreams and then meeting his beautiful wife," Alanis laughed in my head as she sang this, I think. (Ok so not man of my dreams. Not tha-ha-at cute. But you know what I mean? Alanis, gets me.)

Sms to Debo and Sanjukta: I just found out that the bassist who I thought was interested is married. wail!"

Debo: Ahare hugs. Why does it always happen with us?

Me: Sniff. I dunno. He is cuteness!

Sanjukta: Single men are a dying lot....(more stuff I wont blog about)

Me: He's cute and has a dimple and a goatee and spiked hair and geeky glasses. Am a pool of mushy lust.


When the gig begins I see them interact effortlessly with the kids, entertain, crack jokes and dance and continue the show despite ten thousand complaints to lower the volume (madhyamik on, complained the neighbours) and the lights being switched off twice. I decide I'm in like with all of them. The bassist, who's married. The hot band manager, who Gtalk gossip tells me, is not single. And the sweetheart of a curly-haired drummer (who is almost three years younger than me) who grinned at the kids, who danced around him, as he played.

All the men I want are either married, otherwise taken or too young! Such is life. Sigh.

girl talk

The phone beeps. Girl: Checks sms. "Oh the reply…'too much thinking would be about trying to understand what happened yesterday…What went right and what went wrong and most imp y! :-)' hah! capital letter after an ellipsis! Ki boli?"

BFF: chuckles. "what?! does he even know women?"

Girl: hehehe. guess not. but honestly, what do i say?

BFF: hmm what about 'aha'

Girl: Nooo!

pause.

BFF: He's the one thinking too much. He brought it up!

Girl: Exactly. Maybe I should text him that.

pause

Girl: No. Let him suffer. I wont reply till he calls tomorrow after landing.

BFF: laughs. "You have to think so much, na. I feel all smug"

Girl: Bitch!

BFF: giggles and ashes her cigarette into the overflowing ashtray.

pause

Girl: Oh I know! I'll say 'hah, why don't you admit it. You're the one thinking too much.'

BFF: han send exactly that

Girl: Oh but I was supposed to maker him suffer.

BFF: It doesn't matter. This is a nicer reply.

Girl: okay... types furiously... "Smiley with a wink? or Smiley with a D"

BFF: Smiley with a D

Girl: ok... and send

5 minutes later

Girl: He still hasn't replied!!

I don’t hear my name often enough. At least, not the way I know and pronounce my name. Most of the times I’m Miss Malini Something. Or, worse, a Mrs Malini Something. And when I’m introducing myself to someone who I’ve called or met for work, I say Malini from so and so newspaper. So fast that I almost swallow my name and make sure that they get the name of the newspaper, but often not my name.


I remember a maths tutor and a relative who would attach the prefix Hema, to my name referring to a yesteryear Bollywood actress. Later in college when a television serial came out starring another Bollywood star,with my name and Iyer as the title, I was called that. Or teased by that title. It never really bothered me. It was annoying, true. But that was all. There are others who don’t seem to get their tongue around the middle syllable. It’s Ma-li-ni. Not Mal-ni. Though there are times I've thought Mal-ni sounded kinda cute. Another batch mate came up with another corny substitute. Maal-ini. Maal as in goods/ booze/ drugs/ whatever and ini as in her.


The only time when I notice hearing my name is actually a PR trick. I say “Hi I’m Malini from so-n-so newspaper and they make it a point to say ‘Hi Malini,’ when just a simple 'yes' would have sufficed. It makes me feel good ( I think, Ooh, what a pretty name I have!) and saying it out loud helps them remember my name. And though I know it’s a PR trick, I’ll be the first to say it’s damn good one! I’ve heard Mal B (ach. Like Mel B?!) Miss *insert surname* or Mal, or the worst, Muhi-li-ni. And this when my name is one of the easier Indian names.


I don’t know if not hearing my name often, has some kind of deep far reaching psychological repercussions. I’m too comfortable where I am and with who or what I am to ever have any kind of deep existential identity crisis.


It must be the same for others too, am guessing, since I don’t call any of my friends by their name that often. You don’t say the person’s name when you are talking to them in person. So much so, that I often don’t know the way someone pronounces their name. There is this boy I’ve known for a year and it only occurred to me to ask how he pronounces his name while writing this post. I know that Debashree pronounces her name as De-bo-shree. And Sanjukta is San-juk-ta sometimes and Shong-juk-ta/ Shom-yuk-ta at others, mostly depending on what language she is speaking in. Sabrina is Sabrina always. Srijita too is Srijita always except whenever I say it comes out as Shijita. Sonal is actually somewhere between Sonal and Sonullah… there are so many names I’ve mispronounced or pronounced correctly over the years. Sometimes even on purpose.

But I miss hearing my name. Which is a little strange. How do you miss something you never had?