Category: I Am

My Dear Pua

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

My dear Pua,

 

Today, my family and I were going to come to your home for dinner. A couple of days ago, I had called you and I had told you of the plan we had: to have dinner at your place, once a week, every Tuesday, I said. I could feel your smile through the phone, I know how much the idea pleased you. I know you were so terribly lonely and though we popped in – at my odd hours – to check in on you and check up on your tablets and your visits to your doctors and discuss your ailments – I know you missed people around you.

 

I always called you a social butterfly. You used to wave me off and say, I just like people. And you really did. In the family, we had this joke, that Munni Pua on leaving her home would always look around her to see which people were around so that she could stop and have a conversation with them. You were a people’s person and people sure did love you.

 

I know I certainly do – using the past tense seems almost irrelevant. Love for me doesn’t really die – not if it truly existed. And I do love you. I am more like you than you will ever know. I love things neat and tidy. I love beiges and browns. I love sweets. I love entertaining. And I love my family enough to be entirely honest with them about how I feel – which at many times, is construed negatively. I get you though…I really do.

 

I didn’t really know all those years ago – twenty-five years ago to be exact – why I wrote you that letter. You were the first person in the family, after my mother, I decided to come out to, in regards to my sexuality. You wrote me a letter in reply. “It doesn’t matter to me whether you are gay or straight,” you wrote, “you are my nephew, Harpreet, and nothing will ever change that fact, or the fact that I love you.”

 

Though I have tried many times, I will never be able to fully convey what it means for someone in the family to say that to a young man of eighteen. You and I have had heart to heart conversations, a million times, and, in more ways than one, I find you to be more progressive in thought than most women your age. I will never forget how you opened the doors of your home, to over twenty gay boys, who were ousted from MacDonald’s, for having a GB meeting there. For me, it was so natural, that my aunt would do so, because I was raised in an environment which afforded me that security. And you had a great role to play in providing me with that security.

 

I remember all the times I stayed with you, in your beautiful house in Chowpatty. I remember always breaking our sojourns to the British Council Library, at your home. Goan prawn curries. Cheese pulao. Frankies. Kada. I shall never be able to eat these without thinking of you, Pua. I don’t think anyone who knows you ever can.

 

You will forever remain in my life as this goddess who bestowed shelter and food to all who came to your door. You are a generous being and I mean that in every sense of the word. Thank you for being there for me, whenever I need you. Your love has been a beacon of support in my life, and though it doesn’t burn anymore, the memory of your shining light will be enough to sustain a life time.

 

I am glad you are at peace now. Having left us, in the most Munni-Pua-like way, with nothing left to chance, everything rounded up, your loved ones met, your instructions drawn out, and your loose ends all tied up in a lovely conclusion.

 

You will be loved forever,

 

Harpreet.

Circles

Published on by Harpreet Chhachhia

I got into this thinking mood – well, when I have never been in a thinking mood – but let’s just say I got into one that made me want to write this down. I met a friend after ages. We had a falling apart and then he returned and I talked to him again and whenever he wishes to meet me, we do. I am not one to call people and ask them to meet me… unless I really feel lonely or I want to celebrate with them an occasion. So he came over and we got to chatting about our lives.

He talked about how my world view has altered and it has, I’ll be the first one to admit it, but I don’t think I have changed except for the fact that I have understood things better. I may still want the same things but I know now they either come with a price or a compromise. I have learnt that people are flawed and it is their flaws which make them who they are. Flaws can be relative too. I may have a flaw which others may think of as a virtue. Now I am not calling myself virtuous, in fact, if there was one thing that I believe is all subjective is virtue.

Now that being said, I had a heart to heart about a lot of things and I realized in our conversation that I have no patience for unilateral thought. I want to associate myself with people who have minds and who are willing to look at the world from another point of view. I have always been proud of the fact that I can do this. The moment someone is talking to me about a particular situation or person, I tend to look at the other perspective. I am the classic Devil’s advocate.

This tends to either irritate or broaden the mind I am conversing with. If the other person cannot seem to gauge what I am trying to convey, I pull back. I don’t malinger with my point of view because I have realized that I cannot have a conversation. It will be a monologue. Once that has been gauged, I am afraid I lose hope. In that moment in time, I withdraw and I make my own judgements (which I am aware of, but I am human, too) and I make a mental note to either avoid the person, or the topic of conversation – if the person cannot be avoided.

Fight or flee, they taught me in college. Well, I tend to do both. But with people I fight with, they need to be doubly aware that I do not fight with all and sundry. Fleeing is way better option with people I know don’t really matter in the larger scheme of things. Flight has helped me many a time, in fact, I envy Superman for this reason more than any other. I fight or rather, lay down my point of view, only when I know it is necessary for the person I am giving it to, understand, because I would like that person to be a part of my life and by that demarcation, have an understanding of me. I would have said an appreciation of me, but that would be pushing the buck.

Over time I have also come to realise – and which this conversation I had tonight with my long-lost friend – is that I used to want to be appreciated. I wanted people to like me. I used to go out of my way to be more than who I was – and with all modesty, I can say that that is quite a lot. People came and people left with alarming population. My home became a thouroughfare for almost a decade.

Through the age of 24 to the age of 34 – give a take maybe a year or two here and there – I met with thousands of people. After my mom went through cancer treatments, and after I lost my daughter, Zoe, I came to the healthy realization that all who come into my life were not meant to stay. They came into my life, played their part and then they left. There were a few, a number that I can say still accounts for a large one to most recluses around the world, who chose to stay in my life because of who I am and what I brought to their lives and minds.

I was just saying how I used to think that the world was my oyster. Through school and early college, I was landlocked. The bell was tolling for me, because I was insecure, self-conscious, horribly shy and crucially aware of my homosexuality. I wore all these things on my sleeve and I was tossed about – literally – even by my own father. But I came into my own, in my final years of college and yet, I couldn’t perceive that the world came to me because I was still accepting it on its own terms.

I believed what it told me. I read books and chose to live how the characters lived. I watched Julia Roberts in movies, and thought that somewhere there will be a millionaire who would climb up a fire escape for me, too. Of course, there was no millionaire, or anyone who made love to me on a piano, but I did have relationships with lovely men. The realization that I didn’t have to find Richard Gere, but become Julia, came much later in life. Even later, came the dawning that Harpreet could be Harpreet and still get someone to climb a fire escape for him – and for that matter, even if no one climbed up the damned stairs, Harpreet could climb down himself and get into that limo.

There are these concentric circles of our lives. The innermost circle has the ones I can turn to when I need love and help. There is a circle beyond that, and another, with people thriving in them, closest friends, closer friends, close friends, friends, acquaintances – all coming and going. People choose to move inward or they can choose to move outward. I don’t barricade this, I have let things remain fluid. It needs to have a life of its own. But I do know the innermost circle is unfailing in its boundary.

Faker

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

I cannot be a faker. Whatever acting I have done, I did on stage. Even then, I was being true to the character I was portraying. Being sensitive, emotions ride my life. When I feel bad, I go quiet. When I am in pain, I go quiet. I cannot smile and pretend the hurt away. I envy those who think about it and then move on to more important matters. They are sages. I am not.

There are times when I know more than I can handle. I can handle it, though. But the wisdom that allows me to do this is mistaken as strength. Maybe it is. Maybe it is something else. Maybe I have just been prepared to deal with the pain and so when it actually comes, I brace against it. Who knows? I may think this is true. Others may see me differently.

I do know that I cannot pretend that nothing is wrong when there is. I want to address the issue. But realising there is an issue is just the first step, which I do better than most. However, before addressing it, I have to sit and think. I have to actualise in my mind all the pros and cons of any retaliation. I’m so doing, I prepare for any repercussion.

I know the tragedy of Hamlet. I identify. But if the alternative is to be Othello or Macbeth, the choice is very easy for me. Let me think. To be or not to be is certainly the question!

I wish I could smile and smile and still be a villain. But if I am a villain, it is because I know I am smiling because I can see what is happening, more often than not. People make utter fools of themselves. Well, at least to me, they appear like puppets without strings. Most times. So I retract, or if I cannot get out of the situation and have been asked to confess a feeling, I smile. The smile is a betrayal of my feeling, because it relies on the intelligence of the other.

The other never gauges it correct.

And this brings me to if I am hurt – I shield myself in silence. For it is scathing language, when asked to speak. I cannot see the person who has done me an offence. I cannot look, for if I do, he will see the pain and if I look, it means he deserves my gaze. So I look away and be quiet.
I wish I could remain quiet with my thoughts and not divulge every shred of ideas from my mind. I wish I was selfish enough to stop empathising. Sympathy is much simpler. It lets you meet gazes and lets you put on a facade. And then no one questions your smile, they help the public tears.