In this reflective piece titled “Scattered Memories” the author journals her experiences and feelings on a diverse range of subjects from being at home in Bombay to elections, love, nostalgia, writing, hoarding and more

At Home in Bombay

I wake up thinking about the many streets, alleyways, and homes away from home that I have loved and explored.

Taking Baba to one of my favourite little cafes in Mumbai, insisting that we walk the entire stretch, only to end up eating Bun Maska(him)and fiery ginger biscuit(me), discovering Kala Ghoda and the Delhi art Gallery and the Jehangir art Gallery with a childhood friend, sparking a million divergent conversations about public art, urban spaces, the audience as participant, and engaging in debates of austerity and opulence. 

The solitary walks across Edinburgh-still my favourite city in the world- and befriending a beautiful black tabby cat with gleaming green eyes as bagpipes played in the background.

My many conversations with a girl my age, who remains one of my most treasured friends, across continents and even time.

I often have these dreams of abandoning the city for a little garden patch, mushroom shrubs and a quieter life. But the more I think of it, the more I realise how much I will miss observing people on trains-reading books or selling vegetables – how much I will miss the artificial lights that illuminate the night sky as much as stars do, how much I will miss loud, even cringy, music on an evening where I don’t want to listen to Bach or Bade Ghulam Ali Khan.

I dream of my friend Abdul – one of the resident artists outside Kala Ghoda-who always greets me with a smile. Abdul focusses mainly on nautical paintings, and his medium of choice is watercolour.

Whenever I am outside Jehangir Art Gallery – at any time apart from the monsoons – I ask him to show me his beautiful collection of bookmarks and paintings that he showcases and sells.

I dream of fields of strawberry and sunflowers and I remember my times going strawberry picking with my sister in San Francisco and drinking many glasses of wine after a hazy whirl of colour and vigour. My tryst with picking blueberries ended with me learning to make bottles and bottles of jam.

So many of us derive strength not only from the stringent structures that keep us going, but from the communities we form the world over, and the fluidity that allows us to navigate many different worlds.

I miss my chosen home-the fisherwomen I see and smile at every single day. I miss them for chiding me for not eating enough fish, often none at all. I miss drinking coconut water and chatting with my neighbours, many of whom have perspectives to share that I would never have otherwise encountered.

Yet here we are – doing the best we can, isolated from many of our loved ones, holding on to our memories, languishing in grief at the spate of bad news and fervently hoping for better days.

But at least we have sunshine.

Thoughts During an Election

Lunch is when I tell my parents my thoughts for the day, and when they share theirs.

Today I told them that this is probably the first time some people in this generation have actually witnessed what it is like to have rations running out, to have ingredients running out. It reminded me of my time in the U.K., working on my dissertation, and simultaneously working with asylum seekers, who would travel for miles and miles and wait for nine hours in line (sometimes even more) to get one food stamp for one meal. After travelling back from Brixton, I did not even feel like looking at a meal, let alone eat it. I remember being witness to their tears, their pleas and their abject frustrations.

While I am in lockdown mode in the comfort of my own home, slum dwellers, daily wage workers and migrant labourers, are struggling with food, with shelter and are being sprayed with substances that are making them ill, completely stripped of basic human dignity. This is not a story of which party one votes for, but a story of whether one thinks that every single human being on this planet deserves to live a life of dignity. 

To not acknowledge that this is a broken world with extremely unjust systems, is just being an ostrich in the sandstorm.

A hundred years from now, most of us will likely not exist. But this will be our legacy, for our future generations. That we did not raise our voices, that we did not hold powerful people accountable, that we did not speak up for people who wanted to speak up, but couldn’t.

If politicians flagrantly abuse their power and make a mockery of human rights, how can we, with a clean conscience, want them to be a representative of us as  a people?

Thoughts on Nostalgia

Can you be nostalgic about a place you’ve never visited?

Just because someone you love feels the place in their bones?

So you reckon with someone else’s memories and begin to feel an ache and longing for a place that you have never visited until you realise that these are not your memories, but you feel so attached to the other person that they feel like your memories?

Thoughts on Love

In order for me to feel loved, cherished and visible, I need to be accepted for the inconvenient and not-so-nice, not-so-palatable parts of me, especially when those unpalatable parts are antithetical to someone else’s perception of who I am.

Conversely, as a wise person once said to me, sometimes people see you for exactly who you are, and you are not ready to confront the truth about yourself.

However, after years and years of struggling to convey how I feel in a given situation, I feel loved, cherished, seen, and understood.

Sometimes, people may be ready to love you with everything they have, and it might be you that is not ready to accept that love because you are struggling with aspects of yourself that you find unloveable.

At other times, people are disrespectful and pushy. But that isn’t love anyway, as I have come to understand. Anything devoid of trust, respect, freedom and support, is not love in my book. 

Gender, Writing and the Workplace

After almost ten years, I attended a writing workshop last weekend.

This wasn’t your run-off-the-mill workshop. It needed participants to think through ideas of power, power structures and power imbalances.

After years of trying to hone a distinctive voice for myself, but being too frightened of judgement of what other people thought of my writing, I began to shrink and almost make myself invisible. I stopped writing, and stopped trying to seek out a community. So this was a step outside of my comfort zone.

It did not help that “being professional” in a gendered context is often code for “don’t stand out too much.”

I landed my first job (a full-time job, I had been freelancing before that) at age 22, two months after I completed my Masters degree in the U.K. This means, I have been engaged in full time work, in some form or the other, for ten years now and a decade is not a short amount of time, by any means. Fighting for yourself, and being ignored is very exhausting.

Like many women in the workplace, I have had my fair share of sexism, mansplaining and gaslighting. But I’ve also had allies (some very nice colleagues irrespective of gender) who have stood up for me and believed in me, especially when the environment at my workplaces got toxic, and frankly unbearable.

What struck me about the workshop was, when I spoke about my lived experience, no one immediately jumped in to interject and say, “oh this happens to all of us. Oh you are being too touchy and sensitive. Oh let me tell you a story about MY hardships.” Instead, everyone listened to everyone. Everyone was kind. Nobody invalidated another person’s experiences. 

I had one take away from the entire workshop, outside of my insights on writing. 

As I get older, I don’t want to be in spaces or partake in conversations that diminish me, and diminish and denigrate other people, and give off an impression that we are too naive, too inexperienced, too “emotional” (another word reserved for women and almost never men), and that our voices don’t count. That kindness and empathy can be guiding forces of good leadership.

That excellence does not have to mean being ruthless and tearing other people down.

Hoarding

Being the sentimental person that I am, I always keep notes and messages and poems and letters written for me in a safe place. These are tangible evidence of fleeting moments – those of beauty, joy, and sometimes bitter-sweet anguish. My friend just shared a post about hoarding, and I realised that I am a hoarder, not just in the physical, tangible sense but also in the metaphorical sense- of hanging onto great memories. I am not someone who lives with many regrets but if I look back on my past, the only thing I ever regret is not spending enough time getting to know someone, or judging someone too quickly, or not giving someone the benefit of doubt in a moment when they truly needed me to be there for them. Over the years, as I have grown, so has my community. As a painfully shy nineteen-year-old, the number of individuals I know and interact with now, on a daily basis, would have been unfathomable.

There are distinctive moments and people who have shaped me, though. In 2010, as a lonely homesick person, the Bangladeshi uncles who took me under their wing to the point where they reminded me of my mother’s affection (and cooking!), the Professors and teachers, who through their brave choices, both in their life and their work, taught me that the freedom to imagine a better world, and to work doggedly towards what I believed in, was a right. My friends and family who stood by me at my lowest lows and cheered me on during my highest highs, my little nephews and niece who illuminate every single room they walk into with their sparkly smiles.

This past year taught me that such moments may be fleeting, but I also learnt to be happy, just blissfully happy without overthinking it. Being on the beach, being silly and unapologetically myself, laughing uncontrollably at things no one else finds funny, was utterly freeing. Memory can be a tricky thing. When I talk to my siblings, I realise that we often recount situations quite differently. Be that as it may, I hold on to my version of my memories and hold them.

Reeti Roy

Reeti is the Founder and CEO of Aglet Ink, a creative content services firm that helps craft resumes, cover letters, Linkedin profiles, website content and speechwriting services. She graduated from Jadavpur University in English Literature and pursued a Master’s Degree in Social Anthropology from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Over the years, she has been generously supported by many fellowships and grants.  Reeti considers herself a blahcksheep, probably because she doesn’t like labels, or playing by the rules and strives to live on her own terms.