Category: I Am

December

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

There are some months that are not my favourites. October fills me with dread. But the month of December always makes me feel good. Since childhood, it played a very big part of my life. My best friend, Virginia, was Catholic, and I remember the Xmas tree in her house used to be really beautiful. White and full-leafed. It was placed by a window and I remember the morning sun making it glow. I remember asking my aunt, for a tree when I was around 4. I got it and the decorating of it was a family time. 

Over time, December became linked to new beginnings. A new year soon followed. The month itself brought a lot of hope and cheer – especially because i had so many references to it in the movies my family watched. I did my schooling in a convent school. So the theology presented itself easily to me, and I remember being wowed by the story of the kindness of St Theresa. She was the patron saint of my school. Lovely stories that included the quote, “what matters in life is not great deeds, but great love.” That surely left an impression on my mind. 

The school’s church was one of the best buildings I had seen as a child. A high vaulted ceiling. Walls on either side made from stained-glass. An altar that had one of the most beautiful images of Christ. I remember feeling at peace when I visited there. I thought, surely God lived in a place like this. As I grew into my atheism, I still held a place of reverence for that church. There are some places which indubitably speak of the nature of god – and what light should fill one’s being. That was one such place. 

December makes me think of those things. It makes me think of the bright lights of Hill Road, the entire month through. Stars, ornaments, garlands, gleaming at me from every stall and store. Christmas trees standing in regal splendour amidst scenes of the nativity. All of this being said, December has nothing to do with religion for me. It represents a time when things are soft and lambert. Where people generally tend to become light-hearted and festive.

I also particularly remember the winters of December, when the woollies would come out. It became the time for some warm cuddling with my favourite people. The sunsets also become spectacular in December, you know?

Slowly, family time of decorating the tree extended onto friends. As I grew up, the decorating of the tree became a tradition in the household. People would gather at my home to put up the tree, and everyone brought in some ornament or the other. Most of the ornaments now on the tree are brought by someone, and that becomes a story by itself. There are some ornaments that are decades old.

Every year, I make a visit to Hill Road. It’s the place of my childhood. Where I used to visit with my family, so many of whom have passed on. Their loss is bitterly felt and as I roam the streets of my childhood, I remember them. But those streets have changed. Skyscrapers have replaced one-storeyed bungalows and small buildings. The parks are teeming with people. They seem overpowered by the surrounding streets ballooning with luxury sedans and SUVs. But a trip to hill road over one of the Advents is just unmissable. 

I pick up ornaments each year. Pretty ones, bells, stars, fairies, santas, tassels, angel hair, crystal snowflakes and on and on. Everyone I have loved has come on a trip like this with me. That just is tradition, and it makes you a part of my clan. Christmas then isn’t just a festival for me. It’s an amalgamation of all those times I have spent with people I have loved. Who left me or passed on, but the memories linger and become crystallised as ornaments on all those trees I have had since I was a child. It’s not essentially about the birth of Christ, but everything He stands for, compassion, brotherhood, honesty, belief and love. He stood against racism, sexism, oppression and injustice. 

December isn’t just a month for me. It’s the settling down after a tumultuous year of life. Christmas isn’t just a day. It’s the link to cumulative memory and a catalyst to making another happy one. Many may not understand this, even those who love me a lot. But that is alright. I guess that’s what Christmas brings to me, a reminder that all that happened was both good and bad and neither lived on. Because there will always be another Christmas next year. 

Lazy

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

Last night, I was speaking to a friend (let’s call him Dan) and he was talking to me about his ex and their breakup. In all the turmoil and the revelations, he also let on that his ex believed that Dan would hook up with me. I admit this is not the first time I have heard shit spoken about me, and it certainly won’t be the last. Through the years, I should be used to it all. I mean I have gone through it all – the browbeating, the bullying, the dad trauma, the laughter, the taunting and the trolling of late. People around me usually state that it should get better – I should have a toughened skin now. Sticks and stones and all that shit.

Lately, a sixteen-year old boy ended his life because of online trolling. I can imagine what he must have gone through, where faceless entities rail at you to die because of who you are. Some of my friends even wrote in privately when I shared some of his posts calling out his bullies. They basically said that it was sad, but he should have understood what social media was all about. He was setting himself as bait to be trolled. I found myself looking at myself in the mirror. What had actually changed since the thirty-three years of my coming out?

Basically, people are shit. Narrow-minded and petty. They just generally cannot understand anyone who is different. If a gay friend comes to my home, and we have conversations, we must be having sex to the outside world. If I walk with a swish and a swirl, I must be the bottom in bed. If I call out religious bigotry, I should not have an opinion because I am an atheist. I cannot tell someone older than I am that they are wrong, even when they are infringing the mental peace of someone else. So very seldom, when I have no energy to explain the depth of who I am – I just say what comes the easiest by means of an explanation.

I write, sketch, photograph, blog, and can hold a conversation and an opinion. I used to be an exponent of Kathak. Furthermore, I am liked by a lot of people. I have a large following on social media. It is because of who I am. But many people do not understand how do I not wish to earn money out of the various talents that I possess. People do not understand why I do not wish to showcase these talents and do what most people would do: exhibit and earn from them.

Sigh.

So today, when a guy asked me why I didn’t put up my art and my talent out there, I say what I have learnt to say by my elders. I am lazy. I take the negative connotation and I let it rest. But then, one of my partners, who has known me now for nearly four years, says that I am lazy. Dan said something to me, because he owes me no allegiance. His ex knows nothing about me. So they can assume what they will. I told Dan last night, it doesn’t matter what the world thinks about me, it matters when the people I love do not understand me. It is terrible.

One of the reasons I left dance it was because I did not want the limelight. I was and am a brilliant dancer. There is no ego in this statement. My Guru saw that in me right at the get-go. In six months of my training, I was put up on stage. I joined dance because since my childhood I always wanted to dance. But I was never allowed to, being a boy from a Sikh household. I gave up the idea of it in my teens. But then I fell in love with a Kathak dancer and when he left he broke my heart. So I plucked up the courage and walked into my guru’s home, one evening, and asked if I could start dancing. I was just turning 22.

When I spoke to her, I told her clearly, that I just wanted to dance, and I wanted to learn it. I had no desire to perform or to be put up on stage. She didn’t understand that. If I had talent, I was meant to show it to the world. I never understood that. I still don’t. The world did not matter. I was dancing because I wanted to be close to someone I loved. So after a decade of trying to make everyone happy, I realized it mattered more to be true to myself. I gave up dancing.

I could have taken up another teacher. But I just could not.

I love sketching portraits. I had a devastating heartbreak in 2020. A month later, I struggled with anxiety and panic attacks. I tried to divert my mind with art. I began sketching a portrait of Galadriel. It’s a beautiful frame. It is when she looks upon Frodo and tells him to go on a quest and find the strength from within. I can be quite allegorical. But I could not complete it. Depression set in hard. I struggled with it…still am. It has been over three years. Whenever I get back to it, I think of the time that induced me to begin it. But when I begin something, I always finish it. So I made my very first new year resolution, in 2023. That I would complete it before the year ended.

This year however has had its own twists and turns. In comparison to the last two, this one is dulcet. But it has been a calm one, comparatively. And the problem with me is that the time I have to myself seems to be less. Especially because of the first years of a relationship. The last time I opened the sketch to complete it, I found myself holding my mechanical pencil in my hand, staring at the circlet around Galadriel’s head. The man who I loved loved The Lord of the Rings, too. But I had found love again. I finally found closure as I stared at the unfinished piece of work in front of me. I closed it and returned to daily life.

“Lazy” is such an easy word. Depression and recovery, anxiety and self-doubt, love and loss, are such difficult ones. I understand some, I try to understand others. I wish the world was not so quick to label and blame and troll. There are hearts out there, who just want to be free to live and find their own version of happiness.

But December is my favourite month. So hopefully, it helps me in my quest to fulfil a resolution.

Home Away From Home

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

When my buas were alive, I had homes outside of my own to go to. My bedroom just got painted over and the last time that happened, I had stayed in Munni Pua’s (my elder bua) house for a fortnight. She took care of me like the parent she was to everyone she knew – I shall admit that I was beloved by both my aunts. They replaced the need of a father figure, which I never had.

I would just have to tell them I need a place to stay and they would open up the doors to their homes and let me stay for however long I wanted to. If I needed a piece of furniture stored temporarily, Goodie Pua (my younger bua, who was really the man of the family as I grew up) would tell me, “send it over to mine, I have ample place to keep it.” And when I would visit her home, the same piece of furniture would be placed in her home as if it belonged there beautifully.

I miss them. Not only because I feel like a great part of my life was shaped by their presence, but because I miss their love and affection. I could joke with them, be chastised by them, love them and be loved by them. I had family! I had someone, in my extended family, I could count upon to help me at any given time. Right about now, I feel quite alone and secluded. That is the price of age and death, I suppose.

All mentors and guides have to fall away sometime, in order for one to find strength and solutions from one’s own self. But I am human, after all, and when I see my best friend having two homes, my lovers having two homes, it sometimes hits me that I now just have one, and my whole world resides in it. It is not a very great comfort and at times, of late, I miss having a larger family.

My greatest fear, let me tell you, is dying alone. With no familial support or person who cares sitting by my bed as I breathe my last. It’s not death that scares me then, it is just the thought of having no one saying they love me in my last moments. I was there as the older generation grew older and needed help in their final moments. I wonder who will be around when it is time for me to get help.

I have seen my family contract – with people falling away to death or distance. The people I loved the most have passed on and now I am left with a handful of people that I can truly count upon.

Life has shown me that I need to be aware of mortality and it is the greatest leveller in this world. I do not regret anything – I am merely sitting here, thinking, of the losses that I have garnered since the age of 19 and wondering upon the pros and cons of having a large extended family. Perhaps this is why the human race wants to procreate and see their offspring procreate some more. But that would seem to be a selfish reason to have children.

Of course, I am also a believer of bonds that are not linked by blood. It is not necessary that I have to be born into a family to call it mine. I can create my own family… and over the years, I tried to assimilate a tribe of my own. Mostly through the route of friendship, I have developed a kinship with many – but as I look back on the most recent experience of mine, no one really called me to their home and said, “stay here until your house gets painted.” That makes me think more and miss my aunts most.

I am not a believer in an after life, but I shall safely say, they have left an indelible impact on my life on this earth, and they are terribly missed, and remembered every day through the calls of my heart.