Going Swimingly

Old sketch from the other blog. Yes I have a few.

Pools are back, baby! And I'm back in the pool. I've been swimming better than until two years ago. And marginally faster. I've built up my stamina over 20/21 and it has helped with swimming. Not just that, my freestyle stroke has improved. I used to cross my right arm over the line of my head earlier and was a habit I couldn't seem to shake it off! Who knew a two year break would be what I needed to get rid of it... (Swimming has marginally helped with my running too!) Another thing that this break did: Made me get used to swimming goggles. I never liked wearing swimming goggles as I thought they weren't always fully water tight and would fog up and even though my eyes are sensitive, I would brave the chlorine and go about my day with sore eyes and I was ok with it. But day two of me swimming in the pool I realised that my eyes were hurting just too much and was affecting my swim as I kept stopping to try to clear my eyes. Also, I was seeing halos around brightly lit things throughout the day because of the chlorine and alum. I was done... done with hating on swimming goggles. I had to go watch a movie in the theatre that evening (theatres are open baby!) but I made it a point to buy a pair of swimming goggles which weren't too expensive. I bought the cheapest pair of speedo goggles I could find. (I watched the movie with still slightly sore eyes) The next day I went swimming wearing those goggles. They fit snugly and let no water in and I could swim non stop! Now this was something. The next day I swam a km of freestyle at a stretch. 40 lengths... no mean feat for me! I've been swimming a kilometre regularly since. I decided to finally also join a gym for strength training too! I entered a gym after a good twenty years and it has been going well... (except for the various gym trainers who have at different times and with different levels of passive aggression told me that there's a lot of work I need to do to achieve the desired body composition and weight (Whatever that means... all I want is to be consistent at this and keep feeling better. sigh...)

 
While all this was happening, my boyfriend needed to go through a major surgery. It has been physically taxing on him but it went better than expected and I'm thankful that he went through it before it could become anything too serious. He is recovering well now. The last few weeks have been a lot with work and swimming, gym, hospital trips and stuff at home, and I couldn't have gone through everything without it affecting me mentally and physically had it not been for my  improved level of fitness. I'm finding less time to while away now a days (which isn't always a bad thing, I would say.)

New babies and what new bae calls me

New Bae

My colleague Pooja had a second baby in August and I have been busy with office work in her absence. It's been intense but also a lot of fun.  Not only did I think I could manage all the office work simultaneously, I also decided it was a good time to date someone new. This is someone I knew but wasn't sure if I wanted to date. Having not dated anyone in the same city for... lets just say a considerable amount of time enough to make one feel like an avid swimmer out of the dating pool and I wanted to dive back in (Makes sense?) The point is, I always juggle a lot of things when I am busier with work than when I am not. I have even updated my blog more times in the span of a couple of weeks than I have this year yet! I've done it all (not everything of course, but you know what I mean) I don't know how efficiently, but I'm focusing more on the tasks at hand and enjoying the process extremely. Yes. The twenty three year old me will not believe the thirty seven year old me. The increased workload is manageable because of the wonderful architects and interns working with us. But I really miss Pooja during client meetings. I have to speak twice as much and I'm parched all the time.

Of the many meetings over these last two months, I was on a zoom call with a client... Let call him Akshat Malkani. I addressed him as Mr. Malkani on emails and on the call as I wasn’t sure if he was okay being on first name basis with me from the start. He asked me to call him Akshat since (his words, not mine) “Mr. Malkani is my father.” It was funny and relatable, but this point hit home when the person I'm dating started calling me by my surname endearingly and all I could say was “sure call me that, but Kulkarni was my father.” I’ve never been called by my surname much and I don’t mind it, but whenever someone calls me “Kulkarni” I imagine my father because that’s what his colleagues and friends called him. It's a warm gooey feeling in my heart and brings a smile to my face. This came spontaneously and sincerely from the bottom of my heart and my client’s comment resonated wonderfully. These two moments have made me smile whenever I think about it... and I’ve thunk about it quite a lot lately!

All in half a day's work and the redundance of an overdue apology.

I wasn't feeling too well yesterday so I took half a day off to rest, recuperate and watch a movie between house chores. But then I had enough of that and went to work around 15:30 and had a rather productive three hours. I worked more efficiently than usual. Maybe I should spend less time at work in order to be more efficient and spend more time at home subsequently getting sick of it enough to leave and go to work. What a delightfully twisted pattern to get stuck into. (I have a sliver of social life left and I try to make the most of it in between this work-home pattern...)

 

Another twisted thing happened recently, though not delightful by any stretch of the imagination. A few weeks ago, I received an apology. If it wasn't bad enough that I received it seven years too late, it came in the form of an Instagram message. I somehow knew that this person was going to make contact. He had been liking my posts and a friend of his added me on Facebook etc. And he did. To apologise, not ask for forgiveness... (his words not mine.) Yes, he is an ex who (like most exes of mine) left me abruptly with a pittance of an excuse, can't even call it an explanation and never even bothered to ask me how I felt about it or checked up to see if I was fine (I wasn't.) People apologise after long periods of absence from your lives usually looking for catharsis. And mostly because they are moving into a different phase of their lives e.g.: having kids or moving to a new country. Or they're drug addicts and apologising to people from their past is part of their rehabilitation but who know which one it is for him. I have composed elaborate and eloquent speeches in my mind about my response to  such situations but even copious amount of preparation cannot guarantee the response one wants to give. Instead, at that moment I felt nothing. A big giant nothing. he asked me if I regretted it, if I felt sad. I told him as politely as I could that I didn't have any regrets and it all was probably for the best. He told me he was aware of how much he hurt me and was terrified of my reaction. If someone thinks apologizing to me after seven years will make me feel anything, they shouldn't. It is not cathartic for me, it is not life affirming or kind, it's nothing more than an empty gesture and I would rather we just moved on instead. Yes, it takes time for me to move on, but I would take that time and look ahead than at the past.

It's a rare occasion that I quote pop culture but this dialogue from Bojack horseman really resonated with me: "Closure is a made up thing by Steven Spielberg to sell movie tickets. It, like true love and the Munich Olympics, doesn't exist in the real world. The only thing to do now is just to keep living forward."

The smell of heartbreak... and jackfruit.

It’s been a while since I’ve been through a heart break. Years... many years! But I went through another a few months ago, and I’m glad that I went through something leading me to the eventuality that is the beginning of the end of a relationship. I hadn't been in one for far too long. It was great, but long distance because- covid. But since I decided to break a few patterns I’m used to (namely, telling all my friends about it in real time instead of ages after it happens and wallowing in self pity for too long after) I saw myself handling the heartbreak much better this time around. And ready to move on. Who knew talking to people helps! Someone should have told me this fifteen years ago when I had my first real heartbreak But hindsight is 20/20... and I have to interrupt to say that this phrase has really taken a life of its own over the past year, hasn’t it?

So yea, it smells like heartbreak...

Jackfruits growing outside Auroville bakery cafe

And also jackfruit... someone gave me a jackfruit yesterday and if you’ve had a whole ripe one in your house, you know how strong and warm and lovely the smell is... but it’s not to everyone’s liking. Eg: my mum. So we’ve never even attempted cracking open a whole fruit at home. We always bought bulbs of jackfruit from the market, and just enough for me and my father. Its sweet, fleshy bulb is slimy and shiny and such a rich yellow and I love to sink my teeth into it. With this background, imagine a twenty two year old me buying a whole jackfruit just so I can cut it open. In an place I had just landed in a couple of days ago... In the warm and humid summer of Auroville, 2006. I had just arrived there for my internship, moved to a mint condition youth hostel... no kidding, I was the second  occupant after a Korean boy who was running around frantically chasing after his friend in nothing but shorts, yet stopped in his tracks to bow and say hi as he noticed me in the lobby. How bizarre?! (yet not too bizarre as my time in Auroville would eventually teach me.) And it was a Sunday so I rented a moped to visit Pondicherry, twenty kilometres away. This was a time before smartphones and google maps... or even Internet on phones, but at twenty two years old, one is - well... fearless. So armed with the memory of a four day college study trip to Auroville and Pondicherry in 2003, I ventured out to town, soaked in the sun, explored a few bakeries, bought some supplies, took a mandatory trip to the Ashram (I’m not religious or spiritual, but it has a peaceful vibe I like) and headed back to Auroville. My sense of direction was absolutely spot on, btw. So here I was, back on the streets of Auroville on my rented blue moped when I saw two local boys sitting by the road with five or six huge jackfruits to sell. I passed them by but had second thoughts and turned back. This was my chance! I had to try it out- cutting open a jackfruit. The brand new youth hostel had a well equipped brand new kitchen with brand new knifes. I found some oil, and on the stainless steel industrial kitchen bench and got to work. I thought the occupants of the hostel (three of us including the caretaker) could enjoy the jackfruit but I did such a shabby job that there wasn't much left for all of us.

 

I have never attempted to cut another jackfruit after that and always leave it to people far more skilled than me. As I enjoy these wonderful golden bulbs full of a warm sweet aroma I think of the smell of the warm, muggy late Sunday afternoon mixed with the mixed vegetation of the area, whiff of the red earth (can’t explain it, but it has a distinct smell) and ripe jackfruit from that day in 2006. That was my defining smell of Auroville.

And heartbreak... it's all too familiar, but that familiarity is also my coping mechanism now. Looking forward to the next one. Heartbreak and jackfruit both!