How To Make Them Proud

caim

"kyem" n. 

Sanctuary; an invisible circle of protection, drawn around the body with the hand to remind one of being safe and loved, even in the darkest times. 

Dear Upa,

I feel like I'm fairly good at looking after myself. 

I mean, I care about education, I can be reasonably responsible and I'm not completely stupid. I know I'm more independent than quite a few people my age and I don't let myself be sad or stressed about anything for more than a stipulated period of time. 

Okay, fine, there are a few things, like the fact that today I realised I hadn't eaten anything in 24 hours except iced tea or that I've managed 3 hours of sleep before 9 hours of classes, but taking a holistic view, I think I can do fine alone. 

But, if I'm honest, the reason I can proudly say that I'm reasonably independent is because of my parents. 

A lot of people I meet are often of the opinion that I'm childish or insane, and all I can say is that they've never met the ones who made me this way. 

My mother is ridiculous. She steals my things and starts cleaning my room everytime she enters it. She buys a worrying amount of saris every week. She's adopted half her office staff as her own children and she argues with my dog. My dad is completely insane. He cracks the worst jokes and says the most childish things that make me laugh loudly in public. He squeals when he sees cute animals and he makes me carry all the bags. 

But my mother is invincible. Honestly, I've never seen her upset or disheartened, except when it's related to her family. She's fierce, determined, and I don't know how a person like her exists, she's magic. My dad, I can safely say that I've never seen anyone kinder or braver than he is. His life has been ridiculously tough,  and he's still the same, laughing, lighthearted person he's always been, and even before I knew what the words "role model" meant, I knew my dad was mine. 

My awkwardness extends even to my parents, and so I don't tell them how much they mean to me nearly as much as I should. 

They're the ones who've seen me at my absolute worst, and they're the ones who are constantly worried about me (except Vandu, is she counted?). Just last week, before my units began, my dad came up to me and started massaging my head and shoulders, saying "Look, the stress that's here, it's leaving" and my mom said that if I want they'll take turns to sleep in the room I would study in so I wasn't alone. 

Moments like these, I realise that no matter how much they may annoy me, despite everything, they love me no matter what, and I don't say this out loud, but I love them and I always will. 

Obviously, it's not always rosy and happy. Like all parents, they embarrass me and say pointless and rude things, and like all kids, I can be rude to them as well. I've never been the sort to worship my parents out loud anyway, but if I'm honest, I owe them everything.

Sometimes I wonder why I want to do well in life. Yeah, obviously, money is important. But it's mainly for them. Sometimes I look at them and wonder how they do it, how they can be so good at what they do and how they can possibly make me any prouder, and yet they do it everyday. 

If, one day, I'm able to make my parents even a tiny bit as proud of me as I am of them, then all of this will be worth it. One day, somehow, I will make them proud. 

I feel like I'm fairly good at looking after myself, but to be honest, my parents are pretty damn amazing at it. 

Bye for now,

Aditi. 

How to know Love

Dear Aditi, 

I can't really say this. 

It is for you to decide. 

Love is love if you choose that it is.

How to Love?

nebulous

ˈnɛbjʊləs/

(of a concept) vague, ill-defined.

Dear Upa,

A fanfic I read recently pointed out the difference between loving someone and falling in love with someone, and honestly, I was horrified. It made me realise something which wasn't exactly helpful to my already existential crisis-prone brain at all. 

...I have no idea what love is. 

And you know that, because we've discussed it on several occasions. No matter how I look at it, I don't understand what love is. 

I've always thought of myself as an awkward person. I don't show emotion at all (unless it's BTS related) and I can't let people know how much they mean to me. But even though I'm an awful excuse for a functioning human being, and I don't know what love is, I guess I do know what it feels like. 

It feels like being unable to say no to them at all because their happiness makes you feel weaker and stronger at the same time. It feels like being ready to stay up all night if it means you can help them pass an exam. It feels like looking for pictures of memories to spam someone with just because they feel like they have nothing to look forward to. It feels like looking up articles on how to get over people so that they don't hurt anymore. It feels like smiling for the first time in a day because of something dumb that person said. It feels like being exhausted but staying up anyway because talking to the person feels better. It feels like not knowing the first thing about how to take care of sick people but doing it anyway, for them. It feels like taking any opportunity to let that person sleep in because they haven't been sleeping much lately.  It feels like thinking of someone's smile to get through a horror movie. It feels like the sound of soft black paws padding across a tile floor. It feels like not having the heart to remove the Jesus stickers they put on your phone cover because it reminds you of them. 

Maybe somethings aren't meant to be understood, just felt. 

I don't know what it is to fall in love, I don't know what it is to love someone, and maybe I never will. But maybe that's not much of a problem.

Maybe some things are best left nebulous. 

Bye for now, 

Aditi. 

How to be Your Bias

Dear Aditi,

Today, one of my design teachers- Indira Ma'am looked at me and asked me what is wrong and why I looked so lost in class. Which is quite unlike me in design class, so she got worried.

And it a very Upasana style I reply- "To lose your way is the way to find the way." Now I was just being BTS Trash, but she didn't know that so she asked me, "And what is the way you am searching for?"

Now, this is the Sunday morning class. I am rarely in a normal state of mind, Sunday morning even less so. I'm not sure what she was expecting from me actually, probably like be the best designer out there, design to innovate, change the world of fashion. You get the gist.

But no, that would have been the normal way to answer something. And God knows I'm not normal. So I pointed to the front of my portfolio. Which has an A4 size picture of Kim Namjoon in freaking Gudetama onsie. Now Indira Ma'am has heard me quite a few times talking about him, and she kind of knows him. She knows he is Korean and a musician. That's about it, but you know what- that's enough. This is the same woman I tried to explain lenny to and well she reassured her believe that I am actually an insane person. 

But you know what, judging my taste in things. That's fine. I'm used to that. 

Instead she was like he is a very pretty boy, too pretty and he looks like me. According to her. Now my mom says the same thing and I don't see it, also Indira Ma'am has kind of adopted me as like a daughter even way that might be a factor. But what I picked up from this is that she thinks I am pretty, and she is very similar to my mom. 

(I have a lot of mothers at this point I have come to realise. There is Mumma, the two Saap Moms, God's Mom, and now this one. I can build a mom army now.) 

Love, 

Upa. 

How to See True Colors

iridescent

ˌɪrɪˈdɛs(ə)nt

adjective

showing luminous colours that seem to change when seen from different angles.

Dear Upa,
                 Part of this letter is directed at a certain Korean.
When I was younger and hadn't developed a thought process of my own, pink used to be my favourite colour. 

But as I grew up, I was taught that pink was a colour meant exclusively for girls and blue was a luxury only boys could enjoy. 

Pink was not just for girls, it was for girly girls, and like a lot of girls my age, I refused to be a girly girl. 

Pink, which used to be my favourite colour, was quickly demoted to my least favourite colour because I was not a typical girl. Girls were weak, and they cried a lot, and I was not weak. I was different. I was strong. I was not a girly girl, and pink was not my favourite colour. 

As I grew a little more, I began to realise that colour had no gender, and monopolising colours was just a part of the heteronormative propaganda of the ignorant. I educated myself, formed my own opinions and all that, but pink never became my favourite colour again. 

Maybe deep down I continued to  associate the colour with the childish fear of being labelled as "weak" or "ordinary". Maybe the colour itself wasn't the problem, the problem was the casual look of judgement that flashed across certain people's faces if I ever told them pink was my favourite colour. It shouldn't have mattered, and I thought it didn't. But it did. 

And then you came along, pink flip phone raised proudly in the air, and suddenly I saw colours that I didn't know existed. 

You weren't one of them, you weren't so insecure about your masculinity that you couldn't admit you loved pink. You effortlessly seemed to destroy stereotype after stereotype, so unapologetically yourself that all I could do was look at it all in awe.

Most people said you were golden, magnificent, shining with such lustre that it looked like you had a light of your own. And I agreed with them. 

Sometimes, you were pale blue. Hiding in the background like the sky on the kind of day when no one notices it. Sometimes you were grey, and on these rare occasions you showed some feeling of sadness, which to me was quite surprising because you seemed to be perpetually happy. On some days you were red, like a fire, burning brightly with all the talent and intensity some of us know you are full of, but most of us seem to miss. Sometimes you were colours I didn't know the names of. When you refused to be an adult and did the strangest, inexplicably childish things out of nowhere, you were the colour bubbles became when they reflect sunlight. When you smiled, your usually golden-looking face broke into a kaleidoscope of colours, kind of like still water turning into water with ripples dancing on it. 

And I loved every part of it. I didn't know what kind of love it was, or what it meant, all I knew was that I loved it and it was real. You made me want to be a better person.

You were iridescent. You were the most beautiful mixture of colours I had ever seen, and I couldn't place you in a box. No one could. You showed different colours from every angle people looked at you. You weren't golden, or grey, or pale blue, or even red- you were pink. 

And suddenly, just like that, pink was my favourite colour again.  



PS: I WROTE THIS TWO DAYS BEFORE HE WENT AND DYED HIS HAIR PINK.
HE DYED AND I DIED
HAHAAHA
HAHSHAH
HA

im dead rip me

how to happiness

dear aditi,

i think happiness is really fucking hard to get, one of the hardest to achieve really. and it gets worse when you want too much, but im not going to tell you to want less because i could never want less.
honestly i dont know why to not feel sad because sadness has always been a recurring theme in my life, not to say im depressed, like the psychological despressed cause i am really not. i studied that in class today, and when the teacher looked me in the eye i smirked at her. smirked. why did i do that. honestly i dont know, maybe it was because i thought she was talking shit and like all psychologist have this really narrow term for normal and anything outside that is abnormal. i have a total of four first cousins, out of which 2 have been medically treated for their different mental illnesses, and that has changed them as individuals i feel. so maybe that's my reason for being untrusting towards them. although i am a psychology student, so i plan to learn what it is before i talk shit about it completely. i had a point to all this. okay maybe i didnt. i never really have a point to anything. i just do what i have to do, and sometimes what i want to do. with age and experience, as god puts it, i have learnt two things. one all nighters are always a bad idea. and two, life will suck the happiness out of you and leave you an empty shell of a person, but then you know what, you can find new forms of happiness. like me. i am your happiness and you will be here soon. and i can hug you and smell you.
you know at this point i don't even care if im not your happiness, but you are mine and im going to be stuck to you for a long time.
love,
upa.