WHY YOU NEED TO BELIEVE IN 2020

Every year in December, we are always filled with hope and faith for the next year. We plan big, we have exotic dreams and to-do lists and resolutions to complete. We have a three month plan, a quarterly plan, a financial plan, some thousands of calendar plans, dates blocked – so much of insane planning and booking, blocking and vacay listings.

We never for once have a plan B. We never think what if it all goes to waste? We never plan for the alternative.

2020, what a plot twist you were.

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I had so many plans this year. Looking back at it now, all my plans were centred around a growth that now feels superficial to me. A constant running without any sense of settling and loyalty. I always give myself 6 months in any situation. 6 months and I am out. 180 days and I am done.

What if 2020 was a person? Say someone who you had grown attached to, you started to like, a lot. You started to let in that energy, and then bam! You realise 2020 was just teasing you, it never meant to let you warm up, it never had any feelings or any capacity to empathise. And it was proud of that.

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It’s not even a person anymore, just a reminiscent of some good times, of a rare glimpse of what normalcy used to look like and a well schemed conspiracy by the universe to trap your heart for a while and force you to go through a spiritual cleanse. Amidst all these idiosyncrasies, when you are trying hard to keep a sense of reality, comes your misplaced sense of trust and believe.

There have been so many times that I wanted to give up. I have literally laid down on the cold tiled floor, crying straight for an hour because I was too numb and exhausted to get up and face life. To be back in the same space with no escape.

I think what truly got me going was that I wanted to believe. And I wanted each weekend to come so that I could have a good sleep knowing this week, we made it.

I know this sounds crazy because as millennials we are told abundantly to shut out any kind of feelings, to not have a warm heart, to slash people before they can hurt us – and amidst all of that I ask you to believe.

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I believe in the good.

I believe that it’s been a hell of a year and we still have 6 more months to go. I believe, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, we will all be okay.

I believe a lot of things.

I believe that sometimes when you least expect to, people can walk into your life and open up your heart. They can show you who you are now and who you are when no one is watching you, and that is important you know. I believe sometimes people can really surprise you, once you decided to let them in. They can feel like your morning coffee brewing, while you stood unmindful for a second, while a rush of peace swept over you.

I believe that sometimes old kisses can be replaced with new ones, that they would have their own taste and it would help you stop remembering old mouths. I believe that some people help you replace old memories with better ones and in that knowledge you realise what you once thought traumatic, was a farce.

And I believe that if I eat a tub of fudge, and no one sees me, the calories don’t count. And I believe that when you like someone, despite all odds, you take the risk of telling them so. I believe you should acknowledge when someone is vulnerable to you about how they feel because God knows their hands shook when they wrote that message. 

And I truly believe, that sometimes, people can be extraordinarily stupid to take a moment of love and peace, and trade it for a month of disappointment and heartbreak.

Above all, I believe that we are all capable of being kind, of falling in love with imperfections, of defying the impulse to abandon, to jump the ship.

And I believe that because You are reading this – I can tell You this and we can be okay. I believe even though we all made mistakes this year, You and I will be okay. 

I believe we survive. 

I believe that believing we survive is what makes us survive. 

XOXO

Adhisa.

THE QUARANTINE INTROSPECTION: ANSWERS I OWED TO MYSELF

Do,

Such a simple word just do, It’s harder when it’s you, Try to find a solution.

– Out Of Touch by CUT

What an unbelievable surrealistic ongoing of a madness the last 45 days have become, isn’t it? We have all adapted certain different lifestyles that we believe would help us tide over. We are all here, trying to be safe. Reminiscing the good old days and looking forward to just the simple excitement of being able to step out and raise a glass. Or just feel the wind on our skin and the sweat on our forehead.

These days, I ask myself, Adhisa, what do you really miss?.

You have always been a homebound person, someone who loves their solitary corners and doesn’t get intimidated by it. I think for people like us who genuinely enjoy being indoors, we also like to know that there is a possibility that we can step outside anytime we want. I think it’s the possibility that we miss.

The probability of things.

These days when I get bored or overthink ten to the dozen, I have started to reluctantly not dismiss those thoughts. Is it tough? Yes. To sit with your darkest thoughts and make a map out of it, it is scary. But once you do that, you know this is it. It is out of you and you can rewrite these.

This period of time has had me thinking about my days spent in Paris so much. I think Paris and me were a relationship I could never define. Paris tasted like warm crepes on a cold sunny morning, she smelled like croissants at 7 am and she felt so glamorous, even while buying a bottle of Asparagus on a drizzling afternoon in the Franprix aisle, clad in PJ’s and a jacket, hair wet enough to catch a sneeze.

The shoot I had done with Diana when I was in Paris, at the heart of the Louvre, was very special to me. I wanted to post it when it meant exactly more than just a glam moment. When there was an absolute genuine story to it.

This collaboration meant more than glamming up and posing for the camera. It was meant to prove something – and mind you it was never about anyone else, it was about me. It has always been about me.

I was in a phase where I wanted to stand out in my work, to be able to associate with a fashion project that was trying to stand out while being initiated with LGBTQ support and awareness meant differentiation and representation.

In some lonely corner of my mind, this also meant representation of someone who thought they didn’t fit in. Someone who had always been different. I think for a very long time, that idea affected me so much that I started acting out to desperately prove that I was different, that i wasn’t made to fit in. And this was what I lived through in Paris.

Paris never fit in too, she was arrogant at times, and she knew exactly how much she wanted to let people in. But unlike Paris, I still had to learn that every now and then. Paris knew how to stop amidst the flashes and slow down, she knew how to unwind, play pedestrian music and sway her hips to it and I had just about managed to dance it out from time to time.

This phase of quarantine has been a bit like my relationship with Paris.

It reminded me of the 2017 Adhisa, a bit younger, more gullible and enthusiastic Adhisa who was always trying too hard and never wanted to settle. It reminds me of how in this current phase, despite the limitations, I still want to do the same, but the way I look at these definitions have altered so much.

Do I still believe people easily, fall too hard with a thud? Of course I do.

I tell myself that without hope we are dead. Without expectations, we have nothing to look forward to. Without appreciation of the finer things in life, we will have such little unmentionable stories to look forward to.

This moment has taught me once again to find joy in those things that you would neglect on a regular day, because on a regular, normal non-pandemic day, we are rushing.

And we don’t pause.

We don’t take a moment to breathe. We try too hard to find happiness or appreciation in big moments. We redefine achievements and joys, so much so, that we lose ourselves in those definitions.

Take a moment and look around you now.

What is it that you really appreciate? Apart from your family and loved ones who are around you, what do you take away from this confinement? What are those moments that run through your head? Would you do it, all over again?

Despite the failures, would you risk your moment of truth?

The 2017 Adhisa never thought she would be able to feel a lot of things differently today. She was bitter, shut out and quite frankly, arrogant. She would be unreasonable, unforgivable and hurt people just to avoid being hurt.

But this Adhisa, the one that writes this, knows now that she was a child for dissing hope, for cancelling expectations or any form of vulnerabilities, for thinking you could win a war like that.

Look at all of us now, we are living in our shadows, at our homes, trapped in spaces that we have to revisit everyday. Despite that we are carrying on with each day, clinging to only hope and expectation for a better tomorrow. For getting that one chance with no restriction, for being able to feel free, for thinking that we are not alone, that someone somewhere is having these exact thoughts right now.

Maybe someone wants to take the next flight and see the person they love, but they can only hope for that time to come soon. You see, this whole time is going to be a gamble, and you better guess your bets right.

Because when this is over, you would want to say things loud and clear.

No more hiding in the shadows, no more dodging situations only because you think you would be wrong. I had say, take that chance, you get to be free today. Take that chance when there is no pandemic in the air, no threat that looms over us.

What is the worst than can happen beyond this? I had rather take the 2% chance of there being a probability of success of any kind, than dwell on the 98% of “what could”.

How would you and I know if we didn’t take the plunge or make the cut?

How would I have known I would stand at the Louvre one day and have that Carrie Bradshaw moment, or sit 2 years later writing this piece in absolute incoherency, because the urge to empty the words was far more compelling?

If you never try, you would never know. And next time, God forbid, there won’t be a pandemic to teach you that life cannot be lead in calculations. That life, happens.

Let it happen to you. Let people in. And you enter the house in their mind too, see how they can surprise you sometime.

I promise you it may not always be beautiful, but it would absolutely be worth it. Just 2%.

I carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) Anywhere I go you go, my dear;

And whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling
I fear no fate, for you are my fate, my sweet;

I want no world, for beautiful you are my world, my true.

I carry your heart with me – E.E Cummings

Brand Collaboration – Classy X Design by Diana Apsara

Written by,

Adhisa Ghosh