The reports of my maut have been greatly exaggerated

Struggled for fifteen minutes on how to spell exxage-fucking-rated because Mr. Mann-Hoga-Tab-Likhunga has not written one word in the last six months, so much for operating on vibes

I mean, like, dude. Ugh. Fine, fuck it.

Let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way. To be honest, it’s not even an elephant, but more like an average sized Maruti Omni minivan that was invented to happily ferry a family of five to Lonavla on the weekend but because of underpaid CID writers is now resigned to a life of unnecessary infamy. See, we already got our first stupid and overly long metaphor in and you’re not even thinking of switching over to Instagram yet. Yes, I said I was gonna write regularly. Yes, I then proceeded to not, well, write regularly. And yes, I followed that up with a half baked apology filled with more metaphors saying how I would write regularly. To quote a coked-up news anchor on primetime television (or a UFO sighting conspiracy video, could really be either), what happened next will shock you.

So yeah, I forgot. That part isn’t entirely true, because there were points in time when I did remember that I have a newsletter where five (not to be a showoff but could very well be six also) people wait with baited breath to see what stupid squiggles my brain has to vomit on my keyboard that weekend. But I just couldn’t write. I felt like I had nothing worthy to say, and even if I did I didn’t feel like saying it. Looking back, that part feels a little bit selfish and a whole lotta stupid.

Great. Now that we’re done with the apology foreplay, let’s get to the fucking.

FUCKING: [Fuh-King] verb

The overhyped, completely unnecessary act of self-assurance where the author of the text you are reading right now proceeds to spend their useless energy into reaching a futile conclusion that will leave neither you nor him, satisfied. In accordance with its own name, fucking lasts for no more than five minutes, mostly due to the writer’s lack of skill and the reader’s non existent attention span.

I’ve been good, thanks for asking! It’s been a nice year, and quite an eventful one at that. But as of now, right this moment, I’m sick. Not the cool sick or the I’m fed up of things and I’m gonna ram into a bike sick, but like just, sick. I have the flu, which in this economy, is just a fancy way of saying gaand lag gayi bhai. I have what 99% of nurses in the country think is cured by slathering a shit ton of Vicks on someone’s forehead, and yet I can’t make it go away. I’ve been unwell for quite some time, spending the entire week on the edge of fever, like that one rocket that ignites but not quite, leaving you in a perpetual state of yeh phatega. I’ve spent the entirety of my weekend rotting in bed, thinking of better times when my spirit was free and my nose was unblocked. But as I pop Dolo 650s like chakna and ponder on how all of humanity would be collectively better if Gadar 2 (and Sunny Deol’s acting career along with it) didn’t exist, I’m drawn to a much scarier, completely original thought that I’m sure nobody before me has ever had: Am I wasting my twenties?

Being sick gives me a sense of retroactive FOMO that I can’t quite explain; I start to regret and ruminate upon all the things that I was supposed to do but I didn’t. I wish I’d gone to that concert. I wish I’d said yes to that dinner plan. I wish this, I wish that. It’s like a H&M invoice of regrets that just starts unfurling and never seems to end and by the time you get to the return counter, there’s so many items in it that you don’t even know where to start! And it always almost doesn’t matter what, because regardless of what it is, in the end, it’s just a wish. I don’t end up doing the things I want to do and then spend an eternity being remorseful over the fact that I didn’t. It’s a vicious cycle, much like Sunny Deol doing legacy sequels of old as fuck films in a quest to stay relevant.

If you’re still here (and that’s a big IF) and haven’t muttered “Gandu, yahi kadwa sachch toh bhulne hum yahan aaye the” under your breath even once yet, give yourself a pat on the back. You either have too much free time or too low a bar for content. Or both, in which case, have you thought of starting a newsletter yet?

Now that I’m twenty odd minutes into writing, I’m starting to feel bad about not writing as much over the months. I would’ve loved to talk to you guys about Oppenheimer, The Bear, just all the amazing movies and shows I saw this year, all those hours of beautiful music I’ve listened to so far, and the exactly three quarters of a book I’ve read in the eight months that have passed this year. I think writing is a daunting process until I actually sit down and do the damn thing, and then it’s suddenly not. I’ve also felt like I don’t really have a newer or fresher perspective to offer on things anymore- is that a fair reason to stop writing though? As Amitabh Bachchan, who you might recognize from critically acclaimed titles like the Kamla Pasand Paan Masala advertisements and the postmodern masterpiece that is the Kajra Re music video, once famously said: Main aur meri Tanhai, aksar aisi baatein karte hain.

Ugh okay, bohot zyada feelings ho raha hai. At this point I’m just typing stuff because I like the clackity clack sounds the keys make when I press them. But my typing speed is fast and Substack’s UI lags a lot, so while I type quickly the text on my screen takes time to load, leaving me in a weirdly frustrating state of limbo where I eventually end up slowing down my typing just so the words in front of me can sync up with my clackity clack. There is a deep metaphor about life somewhere in here but it’s 11pm on a Sunday so I guess we’ll just leave it to your imagination, mujhe sona hai abhi.

Also, I’ve been starting most of my work calls by saying Kya Bolte Company lately. Now if that says more about my professional ethics or the place I work at is your call to take, but honestly it is so much better than the usual Hi, how was your weekend? Sunny day no? polite corporate small talk schtick that we do to convince ourselves that we all deep down have no desire to slam our laptops into a wall and disappear into the mountains for two or three decades. There’s no deep meaningful reason to why I start my meetings with a Emiway Bantai lyric, I just started doing it one day out of boredom and then it felt stupid to stop. So in case your Monday has been Mondaying a lot today and you happen to have a call coming up after this, just drop in some of that Kya Bolte Compaaaany jazz. And if you get fired in the process, first drink is on me. Uske baad split kar lenge.

If you’re still reading, honestly, thanks a ton for being this patient. I hope your year’s been going like you wanted it to, and if not don’t worry, there’s still four months left, so things can always get worse! Just kidding (I know, specify karna padta hai), here’s hoping those good days come by more frequently than a delusional stranger’s online newsletters at least. I’ll see y’all next week, and as usual, here’s a tweet to cap things off.

Have a great week!