This is my newsletter #14: Mitali Bhasin
“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.”
James Baldwin
By J Marshall Smith
There are 7.8 billion of us on here. We're living, breathing, dying, being done and undone. Before this, there have been a hundred billion more who have walked the same lands as ours.
There are days I look at people and I'm almost stunned by how they continue going about life without realising the weight of the fact that they're portals to universes that carry stories and histories that connect us all to each other. This is both a reminder of my individual insignificance in the grand scheme of things and my larger belonging to the collective species that we are. This season of pandemic has only reinforced that.
Hi, my name is Mitali and there is no linear way to tell this story of me during a blip in time. But this is an attempt. So, stay and read?
From the ‘Before’ trilogy
To Read
My folks often joke about how there is a precondition to my friendship – it comes with a reading list. For every event that marks my existence, I have an article to remember it by. Thus, it comes as no surprise that when I look back at this distinctive (and ongoing) period of plague, I see it through the lens of all the words that have devoured me whole. There are themes that have dominated my lockdown experience and in order to render my thoughts, I must share what I consumed.
Friendship: On the laughter of friends. The life-saving bond of female friendships and how friendships are the greatest love. When friends turn foes.
Death: I am not always very attached to being alive. When you are helpless because you can't save the one before you. A doctor's letter to their COVID patient. Brian on his twin brother Danny.
Body: How the pandemic made us hyper-aware of our bodies. On women's bodies and what happens to them. Stuttering is a gift.
Love: After the end of an engagement. Post the death of a marriage. Dating as an interracial queer person in a white man's world. Reuniting after 75 years only to ask one question.
Internet: What happens on the very populated Instagram? Life in internet ghost towns. A journey to the tipping point of optimization.
Dissent: Moving from revolution to pandemic. Fascism is a set of actions to be fought. Open letter to Umar as he does time.
Intimacy/Sex: Cat Person. Why women are nice to men who rape them. A queer young man's search for intimacy in the world of internet porn. Sex and sobriety.
Work: This company hired anyone who applied. What does a world without jobs look like? Womxn and the radical idea of leisure.
Isolation:Writing in the middle of nowhere. Living in the middle of nowhere. When you're abandoned in the wild.
To Listen
I think music for me had been something that played in the background as life continued. But somewhere in the middle of this year, that changed. Listening to it and using it as a tool of expression became an active choice and a lot of that is to Sid's credit. Sid happened to me on 3rd July and apart from the many things he brought to being, he also got melodies. So it only made sense to ask him for some of his favourite tunes, too. These are tracks and artists we found and revisited in the last few months.
Mitali’s Jukebox:
Kammo - Hashparker | Indian lofi - Love the strange intimacy of this.
Chand si Banu (ft. Jajji Ji) - Sikandar Ka Mandar - Pulls the strings of my heart. Lovely fusion from our neighbours in Pakistan
Shikol Chhira, Kutta Bhagey by Farooque Bhai - This genre agnostic musician from Bangladesh brings so much to the table.
Bruno Major - Nothing - I knew about this song before but I think I only understood it some time back :)
Eliza - Sid left me with her. And I've stayed.
Sid’s Jukebox:
how i'm feeling now by Charli XCX - This whole album was made during lockdown, from her house. She collaborated with fans via zoom and let them in on the entire process. Apart from being her best work yet, in my opinion, it's all about the lockdown experience. My favourite track of the album is Anthems. It's this super pumped pop song, and the lyrics in contrast, read like a rant I'd go on about missing gig life.
Eugene by Arlo Parks - Was always prodigious but she really threw down the gauntlet during lockdown.
To Watch
I don't watch as much as I read but there are some visual stories that have stayed with me:
How Does Life Live? A Little Girl Wants to Know
Escaping Auschwitz: I Have a Message for You
Parting Poetry
Other Poems I’ve loved:
The Orange by Wendy Cope
Privilege: a poem for men who don't understand what we mean when we say they have it by D.A. Clarke
Asking Too Much by Andrea Gibson
6:59 am by Shane Koyczan
Poems my best friend and the very personification of poetry, Rish, recommends:
Chand Roz on bad days
Hum Dekhenge on days that call for resistance
Bluebird on bleh days
Sarah Kay’s spoken word on days I’m disappointed in person
I don't know how to end things so I'm only abandoning this with the hope that you and I, dear reader, will pick this up once again.
If you'd like to talk, please feel free to slip into the cozy corner of my inbox on Instagram. I'm at @mitalibhasin . I'd love to hear from you, really. Until that happens, I leave you with this parting thought.
Sending sunshine,
Mitali.
Thank you for this....!!!!
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