Time Rolls Forward

December 18, 2025

            On Thursday, while I was messaging with my friend in a faraway land she texted, It is amazing how the day can end so quickly when doing nothing. 

            It struck me that this was the way I felt about the year. I did nothing, it passed so quickly. 

            Later I watched a 17 min video of a young woman in Florida going into a café and drawing. She drew the café and the people, as they came and went. She drew some of the food she ate and painted it in bright colours. Yes, this is what I want to do with the last days of this year I thought.

            But then there was the other desire of filling the hours with things I didn’t do all year. Stop analysing the reasons why you didn’t do anything and do some of the things you wished you had done, this voice said. Like going back to that book – the only novel I have written that I must get out into the world before I die. The issue still burns for me and nobody else has written about it that I know of. And when this desire grips, I wake up at night and roll around with ideas and frustrations. And in the morning on 2 hours sleep I try to re-work some of the pages. 

            Drawing in a café is being present to the moment. For me a not-professional-artist, it is a task that doesn’t have a purpose beyond doing it then. I will never make it into an art piece and sell it or show it to the world in a u-tube video. And that purposeless time has much meaning.

            Wandering the streets or the forest also has the same feel. Maybe with the added feel that doing this might help me find the self I still feel I have lost in this year. It is true that I have lost it. Small things like not knowing what is in the box on my desk, which at the beginning of the year I opened and used every day tell me that something has changed during the year.

Reality is not continuous, is it? But sometimes I pretend it is. My thoughts at the end of the year come in fragments, which I try to string together into something whole and sometimes convince myself that I have done so. That I have solved the puzzle of this year, answered the burning question.

I don’t know what the question is yet. And that’s somehow ok. Because we don’t know the questions that drive us in life though often, we pretend to? 

I see now, after the blood pressure stabilised that the things in my life that regulated stress and perhaps with that blood pressure, had become distant from me as the year progressed. When the knee got injured, everything did change though I clung to the idea that I was managing well despite it. I trained less and when I did train it was always through pain and the fear that there would be consequences — like more pain, and swelling, and further injury. 

I wrote less because at one time writing and training were somehow linked so instead of writing more as I trained less I did less of that too. And both these help regulate stress and pressure. And I read less until September when some inner impulse urged me to read the booker list.

Every day, for the first week after I saw my blood test results I wrote in my journal — I felt lost (when I saw them), I feel lost, I might continue to be lost. And on the last day it changed to I felt lost, I feel lost, I will try to feel less lost. And I did find a measure of peace, until Friday. The organ that might be dysfunctional is the kidney. The kidney is one of the bodies filtration systems, it remove toxins from the body. It’s ability to do this seemed to be slowing down. In the last two weeks I journalled a lot about the psycho-spiritual toxins within — resentments and angers in relationships, anxieties and never-ending fears about the future. They had built up. I can’t say I have filtered them all from within, but the process begun has brought peace. 

Until Friday when the spouse suggested I go in for my blood test a bit earlier than I was supposed to. He said, we might know if things have shifted before Christmas, then. I fell into disarray, chaos. I didn’t want to find out that the numbers were worse. The inner-safety I had built, perhaps through some rigid routines, fell apart. I had worked in a steady groove for two weeks but again the lostness invaded. We did go for the test and then to the pen shop and got a shiny new pen and ink I didn’t need. It was comfort shopping. I hadn’t expected the upheaval to return but this is where I am today.  

But no, this year and the next are not separated by a boundary where some invisible magic will clear the difficulties of this year. They are continuous. I will not have a Hollywood ending to my year but I don’t have to frantically rush to finish some things this year so I can start the next year fresh, empty, hopeful. It sometimes happened this way in the past, like when I finished the first draft of the novel I referred to above right on December 28 in 2018 or when I got a health test result back with improvement like I did the year my potassium was high – 2020, I think. But it is ok to not have completion. It is ok to carry unfinished things into the next year.     

In 2026 I plan not to set challenges but breathe and get back to living in the moment whenever I can. More drawing, I guess. This year my sketchbook is full of faces. I like drawing faces, perhaps I can improve but I really want to draw trees and perhaps with a stronger knee I can walk more in the forest again. 

Thank You!

December 8, 2025

I woke today in my own bed after having slept six plus hours after several weeks of an average of five hours sleep per night. I felt different. Less like doom was around the corner and more like hmm… what is this feeling? Am I smiling? Is the headache really barely noticeable? Do I actually want to open my eyes and have the energy to make the bed? My pressure was normal when we measured it. 121/82. I can’t remember the last time I felt this OK! 

I want to thank everyone who read and responded to my previous post. I want to doubly thank those who shared that they have been on blood pressure meds for long. As I shared that I had begun to take them more people began talking to me about people they know who are on the meds, and have been for years. My NS buddy was taking them, our cousin takes a pill before brekky every day, my best friend, my son.... and so on…

Wow! 

I’ve had a hard time with my meds adjusting my pressure. It went low, it went high again when we moved to the cats home. I lay around in their living room coping with some of the side effects and feeling that it would never end. The pressure dropped low when I was outdoors and then my pulse raced and raced and left me short of breath and scared. When I measured later it was 96/53. Ok! I read sometimes it happens with the meds.

Anyway, hearing so many share that either they or someone they know takes the meds has made me believe that my body too will find a way to equalibrium and I too might feel normal soon. I would think — oh so-and-so has high bp and still does this or that, or so-and-so who has high bp has such hectic high flying days — they all live normal lives (though I don’t know the minutiae of what they/you struggle with). Thinking this is a nice feeling. For weeks I haven’t slept well, and then dealt all day with fatigue, foggy brain, and depression. Waking up to this and sitting here in my pj’s, past noon, watching the tress outside swaying in the breeze, which is gently blowing into my home too, is as close to heaven as anyone can get. 

I want to pull out my paints and experiment once more with drawing the trees outside, capturing shadow and light and depth and texture. Something I’ve tried before and never been able to do. My brain actually is looking at the vista of trees and saying, lime green here or ionian green there or a bit of grey to capture the shadow there and what is the blue I should use for the skies? Honestly, I yet don’t have energy to do get out my paints and try this today, but I haven’t even had this thought for weeks. It’s all been a dull blur, so this is welcome. I am grateful I can read and write. This is hope. 
            One pill. Ten days. And a sense that there is life to be lived. Heaven indeed. 
            Thanks everyone for helping me get here. 

Also want to say that my circle of energy still feels tight, like I still want to stay a bit withdrawn, like I still can only think of my body and a few close peeps — so even though a part of me wants to reach out to have a zoom call most of me wants to stay low. I will initiate contact when I feel able. 

With so much love.

uncertainty

 December 5, 2024

I wish fervently for the next year to begin with a return to flow. I’m so drained from the slow and intermittent trickle that life has felt like this year. I’ve felt more than mildly depressed, screeching-ly irritable, perpetually exhausted, since I injured my knee in January. The problems from 2024, 2023, 2022 had refused to resolve and followed me into 2025. As the year progressed new small things that would have felt manageable in ordinary times seemed like wide cracks that would swallow me whole. And the last quarter of the year has been particularly dreary — except for two events that have shocked the inertia most of me had fallen into. 

Shocks for me can be things that suddenly energise a sleepy system (can be great), or things that badly disrupt a functional state (terrifying). I had one of each.

December is a time to reflect over the year. This year I made three lists. Things I have done, things I wish I had done, and things I have coped with. The third was the longest, and the coping methods used have been revealing. The things I have done list is mostly made up of ‘passive’ stuff — like classes I’ve participated in, rather than those that create a sense of accomplishment. The things I wish I had done made me sad, but I also saw that I did attempt (unsuccessfully) to re-ignite some of those towards the end of the year. The only thing I really feel proud of doing this year is attending a poetry class in July, reading more poetry after, and signing up for a poem a day prompt in October when I did write poem drafts on 21 days. Nice eh!

When I was in Bombay this year, I met a friend who casually said in the midst of a conversation, Radhu you were always very self-aware. Meaning in tune with myself. Meaning able to see clearly what I was doing, good or bad. It shocked me, more so because a friend in Singapore had remarked on the depth of my being the week before. Neither statement was something I identified with anymore — meaning at one time I had yearned to be both and actively worked towards them. That they still saw me that way shocked me after this year of simply coping, merely existing, sometimes feeling like a parasite on this earth. (Yep, mild depression). But the statements ‘woke me’ and pushed me towards listening to the call of the self I had lost. Hence more depth journalling and attempt to resurrect my desires.

Last week after several weeks of terrible headaches, nausea, and brain fog, I visited my GP. My last blood test from Bombay had some aberrant values and I wanted to consult her about those as well. She ordered a blood test to retest the values and asked me to monitor my pressure three times a day as it was inordinately high — beyond that the ‘white-coat syndrome’ causes — when she measured it. 

To reward myself for going to the doc, I visited the Central Library, browsed and borrowed some books, sat in the café on the 3^rd level, drank iced tea, and sketched my surroundings despite the pounding headache. Then walked over to my favourite pen shop and bought a deep indigo blue, textured, (supposed to write colour after texture) pen after trying out a few others. Ya, these are the things that make me happy and I am so glad I indulged in them that day just a week and two days ago. 

For two days later when I revisited my doctor after realising that my blood pressure values were very high and were probably responsible for the way I had been feeling, I discovered something that makes me feel paralysed. She hesitantly offered me blood pressure meds. Hesitantly because each time she had in the past told me to take meds for blood sugar or high cholesterol I had said, let me work on it for three months before I start. She had always agreed and though I need a low dose statin (bad genes), I have managed other issues with diet and exercise. I immediately said, yes please. Anything to stop that awful sensation, and at 65 I didn’t want to work hard to balance out my body. 

The blood tests she had done showed further problems particularly related to one organ of my body and I must get my values re-tested on December 22^nd. Even as I write this, I feel scared and sad. I did tell a few people that my blood pressure was high (and different reactions showed me something about the people I confided in) but I haven’t been able to talk about the other more anxiety producing issue. Something that might not be very serious after all or might alter my path in this world perhaps. I won’t say what it is until I am done with the test and have my results, post-Christmas. It took me two days to absorb the numbers I had seen and get past a mini-denial stage.

Waiting is hard. The same friend who had mentioned that I had always been self-aware had shared how a friend who had been waiting for results for a cancer test had felt enormous relief once he got them even though they were positive. The waiting had been killing for him. And it is for me. I start to do something, to read, and suddenly the thought about the tests invades. I suddenly wake up from sleep with fears and tears. It feels so isolating and I find myself withdrawing from my surroundings. But then suddenly reaching out for connection. 

What is that about — the so universal reaction of not wanting to see, the not wanting to tell, and the anxiety around waiting? Life is uncertain. Every new day, new year is shrouded in the unknown but there are moments (or weeks) when that uncertainty, the sense of not knowing is more intense than ‘normal’. Does everyone see-saw between wanting to be alone and needing the right companionship?

I’m not surprised this year is ending this way, the whole year has been about wondering, hoping, wanting, but never feeling fulfilled or even semi-resolved.

Is He Still My Brother?

November 21, 2025

Some people know I had/have a brother. A brother who walked out of our lives one morning like he was going to the office like he always did. It’s not like I deliberately hide it but I don’t have any reason to talk about it too. Or maybe I just want to not remember. 

Anyway at the end of July, after my poetry class, I wrote this. I was reading some materials shared in class, a book the teacher had mentioned that I found in the library, and this popped out, and then I forgot about it. Yesterday I was talking to a friend and I mentioned it. Today I want to share it. It is a draft and will never be revised/edited.

Untitled (yet?)

 

The last time I saw my brother he wore a dark

Blue suit. Suits should be light grey, dark grey, black.

Dark blue, Miheer’s favourite colour.

 

At one time he was my favourite person.

Born twenty months before me, 

At one time he was generous and protective,

Giving me half his allowance,

To buy a book I wanted.

 

He hadn’t told me, that this was the last time,

I’d see him, but I knew. In the way

Bears know that winter,

Is coming, and they need to find a cave

To hibernate. His wife was with him in a gaudy pink silk saree.

 

Miheer and I hadn’t been speaking,

But I lifted my hand and waved.

He raised his hand too, did he pause, 

Probably not. He turned the corner and disappeared.

I rushed the corridor and caught him,

In the lift landing. I hugged him, and he hugged me back.

 

The elevator dinged and he pried,

His arms from around me and was gone.

I stood still. I stumbled,

into our father’s study, lay down

On the carpet and shook.

There had been an earthquake in Latur few weeks ago.

 

Next week at Rusi’s, he asked 

How are you feeling?

I’m fine, it’s fine, I said.

Minutes later I put down my wine glass and rushed

To his bathroom and puked.

 

I dreamt that I saw Miheer at an airport.

He was going to New York, 

and I to Tokyo. I hid,

behind a pillar and didn’t talk to him.

 

He is alive somewhere on this earth

But is he still my brother, 

If we don’t talk anymore?

 

            Things happen, you grieve. Then more things happen and the old losses are swept away. Better they are I think? Sometimes they creep up. The more you loved someone the more deep the shock. 

            Is he still my brother?

Unexpected October in Bombay

October 10, 2025

I’m sitting on the swing in the green balcony of my childhood home and icing my knee which got severely inflamed after my flight. We used to have family lunches here on weekends when I was little. I love it here even though some of the sliding windows don’t open anymore. The pink small sofa and armchairs were added by my sister and an hefty stone I picked up on a beach in Calvi while visiting my friend Midi is placed on the sofa. Two areca palms on the two ends occupy most of the space in the balcony. Nobody uses this spot much but when I visit it is my favourite morning spot. I can keep an eye on squealer’s favourite tree from here and watch an expanse of sky and spot other flying kites. 

Only a few days left of our trip here. When we booked the tickets, my mum wasn’t having eye issues, but a few days before we flew in, she suddenly had a blank spot in her right eye after shampooing her hair. My sister acted quickly and set up an eye appointment, she had a blood clot, and on the third visit to the clinic she was administered the injection. She has trouble walking because of scoliosis, particularly climbing steps and each trip took its toll on her. Though I wanted to go she asked me to stay home and make sure lunch etc. was prepped, while my sister took her. I wasn’t offended as my sister is her primary caregiver. I wrote up questions to ask because (like many of us) my sister goes blank at the doctors, but I felt redundant and a bit like my mum didn’t trust me.

I remembered my visit last October when she had been unable to walk because of muscle loss, and unable to lift her arm because of shoulder pain. She needed help with getting out of her bed or even bathing. My sister had panicked, and so had I, and I had made an urgent trip here. When I helped mum my sister always yelled at me – be careful, don’t hurt her, you’re exerting too much force on her arm. I had blown up one day and said, she’s my mum too, I’m not torturing her. My mum had not intervened, but she was steeped in pain and was quieter and more turned inward than ever, hardly aware of the surroundings. She slept a lot more than she ever had. All this scared me immensely. But with good orthopaedic advice and physiotherapy she is stronger again and her alert self now. 

The evening before her injection I asked her again if I could go and she said no. Then later that night she asked me if I would go down to the porch when she returned to help her up the short flight of stairs to reach the level on which the elevators are. When I asked about my sister, at first mum merely said she will be carrying bags, but when I offered to go down and carry the bags so my sister could help her, she replied, no I like your strength and support. Her support is too light. 

Surprised and pleased, I realised that my mum knows what and who she needs for different things. Knowing this made the waiting at home for messages from my sister easier. 

This was the nicest part about this trip so far, but something happened that also shocked me. I’m not sure what exactly started the topic for I don’t talk politics with my family as they prefer not to know about ‘the things they cannot change’. But one morning as we drank tea mum said, we (India) needs to be careful with Muslims, what they teach in Madrassas is not known, and they hide their weapons in their Mosques. I wasn’t surprised she said the latter for I know that she had experienced bad Hindu-Muslim riots in Ahmedabad as a child before, during, and post partition. She has memories of cowering with her siblings in the dark as people ran across their roofs yelling. She has told me about swords and knives, blood and bodies. Of course to her the aggressors were Muslim men and the defenders Hindu men. 

When she remembered those stories I would say, times are different now and it’s Muslims who are threatened under a right-wing government. Most times she used to hear me out and she’d nod her head as her sharp brain integrated what I told her about current happenings. Even when I was with her when the Ram Temple in Ayodha was inaugurated and there was a frenzy about digging up more ancient mosques she told me that she was happy to see this temple but there was no need to break down old mosques. What happened then can’t be corrected by more violence and destruction now, she’d say. 

This time though she spouted a few more ‘myths’ that have been spread through the BJP IT cells. It floored me. There were population growth myths (that Muslims were now 41% of the population) and myths about how Muslims use Hindu names to fool people. She doesn’t watch news, and she barely meets people and when I asked who told her this she said, 'everyone', and 'one hears these things'. 

Not wanting to upset her I walked away. I could tell she was upset by that, but I needed to calm down. These kinds of statements set me off badly and I often find it difficult to stay connected with people who buy into the myths floating around.

Yet this was my mother. She needed care not an argument — and we’ve had plenty of those over the years. Of course, I made my peace with her later — though I took a shower first. But frankly I am still processing this as I don’t know how to be with a person who will believe and repeat these things. I guess I will find another time to investigate what has changed her moderate views. Maybe I will get some understanding about how these 'myths' take root in a person’s mind. But yes, still processing.

I haven’t been out and about and meeting people much. There are only two friends I want to connect with this trip, and I have a few days left. But spouse and I had blood tests done and the person collecting our blood brought up the topic of Modi, Ambani, and Adani. I know in 2014 the man was a firm Modi supporter but the vehemence with which he talked about how the above three, and more, have messed up the country made me feel hopeful. 

Is the tide turning? Can it? It often feels it is too late for any kind of normal change of power for now all institutions have been ‘captured’ by the BJP, and they arrest and lock up those who oppose them, journalists who ask questions are found dead. Political change will take more effort than ever but hoping it will be peaceful, unlike the recent Nepal Gen Z revolution. And I don’t know how long social/mindset change will take. 

It’s been an heartful and instructive trip, but tiring. I am waiting for the day when I can wake up in my Singy home.