This is my newsletter #32: Anjali Menon
I grew up with the strong, rock-solid belief that life is brief, and on verge of getting over every second. That there would never be enough time to do all of the things so I must rejoice in the comfort of not even making an attempt. I had growing resentment for the city I lived in — Bombay. How can a city offer the sea, but not enough time with it?
So hello, I am Anjali. I am an artist, writer, and reader currently living in a part of Bangalore that is filled with Rain trees. On most days, everything that I have to say is about carrying the weight of being — the joy, the pain, the discomfort, and seriousness of it.
Until a few years ago, there was a rigidity to the hopelessness I lived with. It was fuelled by the hard-core conviction that time was working against me. All ice-creams at Marine Drive were eaten in a hurry, all cups of chai at Prithvi were inhaled. I knew that this was a ridiculous way to live, but I don’t think I believed that there were other options. I can declare now that on those days — when I sat at train stations with empty juice boxes in my bag, when half-eaten doughnuts bought at Juhu would rot in the fridge for weeks — I denied myself agency and ownership over my own life.
The realization that each day's 24-hour offering is abundant and more than enough is a fairly recent one. In a more renewed sense, today, personhood for me has begun to look like a home that is being lived in — where the light goes out sometimes, pipes break, sinks get clogged, wires trip, paint on the walls chips off.
Anybody in possession of a home knows that there is labor and engagement needed for the clogged sink to start functioning again. I’ve tried to run away from this labor and board a downgraded version of life plenty of times. But as someone who eventually succumbed to the emotional grooming, I’ll say this: it carves a delicate wholesomeness in you. The feeling of having an actual physical, emotional, and spiritual stake in your own existence has to be the most underrated one ever.
In this space, I hope to further the propaganda for taking up the non-linear task of healing from the world and all the conflict it cultivates. To offer my thoughts and the words that led to the mobilization of these thoughts
Read:
Rebecca Solnit’s essay on libraries and the forests around them.
Anne Lammot on the discomfort and joy of being seen. Her book on hope — Almost Everything.
Ask Polly is my favorite advice column and this piece specifically is the best cure for
heartbreak.
Alice Walker’s In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens.
This comic summed up my feelings about art school and art as profession perfectly.
A therapist, her clients, and her therapist — Lori Gottlieb’s book Maybe You Should Talk To Someone is brilliant and filled with insights.
Joan Didion’s essays: on self-respect, on being twenty-eight in New York, and on keeping a notebook.
Poetry:
Kamathipura by Namdeo Dhasal
Every Morning by Mary Oliver
Song of Myself by Walt Whitman
Listen:
The True and Hard Work of Love — Alain De Botton in conversation with Krita Trippet.
Anurag Verma in conversation with Buffalo Intellectual on caste, universities, and oppression.
I made this a while back during sunset. I usually keep all my playlists secret, but I think I’m finally ready to share some of them.
Watch:
Contrapoints diving deeply into the concept of cringe.
Had Anhad: Journeys with Ram and Kabir — A film by Shabnam Virmani on the politics of religion through song and mystic poetry.
If you haven’t already, please binge-watch Mozart in the Jungle on Amazon Prime.
I document most of my journey with words, art, and questions on my newsletter Six Impossible Things and @a_catinthesink on Instagram. Come say hi in my DM's if you feel like it.
For now, I want to leave you with love, hope, possibility, and my favorite quote by Anthony Bourdain — Your body is not a temple, it's an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.
Love
Anjali