This is my newsletter #50: Shivani Kshirsagar

Also, gender is a trap, Instagram is a hellsite, and I am sad.

Something strange happened a while ago. I was cleaning the stove post lunch, running the wipe over the cold steel, the black iron grate, when staring into the silence of the vacant stove eyes, I felt an intense urge to cry; an urge so strong that I was afraid I would not stop once I started. 

You know what unsettled me the most? The sheer absence of a cause and catalyst.

***

Sometime back, I had tweeted: 

Sadness comes in unannounced, like the bitch that she is, hoping that I have her room ready, her tea ready, her seat at the table ready, but I'm never. I'm never ready for Sadness. She never leaves. I'm never ready.

Zero likes, comments, or retweets. This is pretty much the fate of nearly all my tweets. Perhaps, that’s the price I pay for severely guarding my Twitter presence, ensuring that I am never found by anyone I know, ensuring that I am never seen like this — vulnerable and wild and helpless — by anyone I know. And hence, I chose to lose myself amidst the crowds of Twitter profiles, another face in this faceless city, and for a while, it felt nice. It felt nice to be unremarkable, to tweet whatever, and just be, because Instagram had destroyed that luxury for me; I couldn’t take up internet space without fretting over the eyes that fed on my feed¹. 

Untitled, 2021 by Pam Steenwijk

But of course, raised on the wavering yet intoxicating attention of the internet, obscurity wasn’t for me. I wanted to be liked, retweeted, commented on. I wanted someone to respond. To say something. Anything. Even a like would do. Just give me attention. 

***

I don’t remember the last time I did something without thinking about an imagined audience. Where nothing about my existence felt like an elaborate performance. The internet has conditioned us to think from the internet gaze. How would this look on the ‘Gram? How about I tweet this? How would I announce my hypothetical marriage and what would the hypothetical “perfect” caption be? 

Everything is designed and fabricated for the internet; we are both the teller and the tale. But can a tale exist without a listener, especially when the seed of the word carries a wish to be heard? 

***

What happens to your personhood when there’s no one to validate your experiences with a pithy “us” “same” “me” “i feel you” “been there” — words bereft of pity but which confer a sense of mutuality — chipping away at the lonesomeness that rests within all of us? 

To see and be seen. That’s it. That is all there is to the human condition. But it’s not as easy. Especially on the Internet.

***

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that a person oversharing on the internet is lonely as fuck and all those heartfelt admissions are a barely disguised confession of one’s isolation in a time of rampant and obsessive connectivity, where loneliness is a disease that is denied cure, and instead, asked to be managed with temporary “fixes” like Netflix and Bumble, but loneliness is a cross you are affixed to, and yet unlike Christ, you don’t rise from the dead, hale and hearty one fine Easter morning; instead, you drag and drag and drag your loneliness, whose shadow lengthens, prolongs time, and by the time you are half dead from that lonesome (and loathsome) burden, if anyone dares to free you, you’d shriek, half mad, raging, because you have forgotten what is it like to be light — who are you when you are not lonely? Who were you before Loneliness took your form, and lived as you, became you, while “you” sit in the darkness of your existence, lost; forgotten by your own self —

***

According to The Times of India, I am in the midst of a quarter life crisis. I wonder if I am experiencing a crisis because I am 24 in a time that is hyper fixated on youth, or because I am turning 25 in a pandemic, or because it’s me: a person who cannot escape the prison of her mind and body².

***

I cut my hair recently. From a glorious mane, it’s a pixie cut. It was fascinating to see the stylist hold my hair, dark thick ropes, and snip it without a thought, the weight of it gently falling into his open palm, which he lifted and gingerly placed on the stand next to me. When I gazed at myself in the mirror, I was no longer Girl With The Mane.

Girl With The Mane. That was what I had decided to name my corner of the internet when I started my blog, when I created my Instagram account, when I began my newsletter. My internet identity, much like in real life, is linked to my dark halo of hair, one of my distinctive and desirable features. 

The decision to lose the mane was mine; a decision born out of a desperate need for change, something to break the stillness of stagnation. Yet, looking at my reflection, which the stylist trimmed and pruned, I felt an odd sense of loss. Thoughts on performative femininity³ — gender is a trap! — with questions like “am I woman enough desirable enough beautiful enough?” led to reflections on male gaze, how the female body is both the surveyor and the surveyed⁴ , that escaping the male gaze is a feat in itself considering its all pervasive nature, sparing none, even as it inhabits our very being. 

I once remarked to a boy I liked that I intended on cutting my hair, to which he responded in the negative. Said, don’t. Please. At least not before I have run my hands through them. I remember reacting in three laugh emojis. Said, our meeting is fraught with uncertainty, and probably, unlikely. To which he answered, “So...never? Don’t cut your hair. At all. Why do you want to lose it, anyway? It’s so beautiful! You are so beautiful!” 

In many of our sexts, I had written about caressing his body with my hair, tantalising and passionate, the inspiration behind the fantasy being that bit about Mary Magdalene washing the feet of Christ with her hair, because love to me was a religion; the subject of my love was the object of my deep devotion. 

Much later, when the boy was no longer lingering at the doors of my heart, and Loneliness took his now deserted seat, in a moment of sharp clarity, I had written: “Maybe I give too much of myself to others to escape myself, as a way to compensate for my own unlovable self.”

Peter Weibel Self Portrait (original title: Knife as a Mirror), 1975

***

Beauty, desirability, femininity, time — concepts and constructs. I know. But that doesn’t stop us from delineating things, events, people as “ugly”⁵ or “beautiful”; persons or fashion or architecture or just about anything really as “masculine” or “feminine”; or ruing the end of Sunday, or cursing Mondays, or losing our sleep over deadlines. Concepts, yes, constructed, yes, but still very much a real, tangible part of our everyday existence.

Who am I without my hair? Who am I outside of the Gaze? Considering my lean frame, broad shoulders and narrow hips, with the barely discernible hint of breasts, when clad in oversized tees and shorts, I could easily pass for a guy. Perhaps, it’s only the sight of earrings that gives away my femininity. Or maybe the softness of my features. I don’t really know. 

It’s so fucked up, all of this. I hate being gaped and gawked at, but now, without those eyes on my form, I feel a strange sense of loss. Like I am invisible. Like I am not worthy of looking.

Who am I when I am not being surveyed? 

What am I when I am not my surveyor?

***

I have come to view my interactions and my existence as a performance. The way I move my hands when I talk; the way I arrange my features when reacting; the way I pause, and gasp and “oh-d” and “ah-d”. It’s not like I am faking it; only that I like to arouse a reaction in people. I want all eyes on me when I am on the stage. The thrill of controlling a crowd, holding it in my sway. When an interaction or a literal performance went well, I felt Nina’s dying words in The Black Swan: I was perfect. 

To be remembered. To be remarkable. Flawless. 

The internet, too, is one such stage. The opportunities to fashion a self: multiple and often. Mine was a blend of my best and favourite parts, and the internet helped concentrate its light on them. 

You see, right, how easy it is to be consumed by oneself, self obsessed and narcissistic? But unlike Narcissus, I am more concerned with others' perception and reaction to my reflection. Do they like what they see? Do they feel safe enough to throw open the doors of their heart? Is my best self good enough? Loveable enough? Enough?

I want to be needed, wanted, loved, cherished, seen — but dare I say so to the world, in these exact words, without any sense of shame for my own emotional nakedness? 

Dare I?

***

I do. I write. Poems after poems inked in my blood. Blood that is warm, raw, and in all of us. It is real. Or whatever “real” means in the age of the virtual.

But when blood falls on the icy indifference of a parasitic capitalistic entity, no matter how fast and soon you exsanguinate, it’s never enough. You are draining yourself of life along with many many many others (and it’s even encouraged. I can hear Gary Vee scream “HUSTLE HUSTLE HUSTLE!”) What are the odds of you leaving a mark, or even a stain? What are the odds of anyone dipping their fingers in your veins?

The Internet (in my case, Instagram) is a beast. I am tired of pretending I can even tame it. I am drained. But like an addict, I crave more. Internet and I: two parasites leeching off my body and mind. 

***

Love is attention; the Internet has a lot of it. But attention is not synonymous with Love. Wordplay. Life is a play. My performance is a part of it. Without applause, can I even call myself a performer? The stage is always solitary. I am solitary, no matter the fellows on the stage. Without the cheers, how do I know if I am enough? 

A question that aches with wanting. An absence that never seems to go away. 

And so, loneliness. 

***

In response to one of my newsletters, someone had written, an email that still sits unanswered, and probably will for a long long time: 

“You too must have loved your company for sometime. If so, when did it start being painful?”

***

Internet gaze. Male gaze. Female gaze. Queer gaze. “Seen”. “Read”.  “Views” — a language of sight, yet most of us have voluntarily blindfolded our eyes.

***

So I took a break from being Girl With The Mane, and from being a girl with a mane. Uninstalled Instagram. Logged out of Twitter. Changed my look. Trying to change my outlook.

***

All of us are performing on the internet. And irl. Shining our best selves, but hoping that someone loves us for the parts that stay hidden. We all do believe that love is the salve to the burning void within. Love that’ll save the day, and some day, our very selves. 

But I am not so sure about that. Maybe what I am seeking is not love. Romantic, erotic, platonic, filial. Love is fleeting. It’s nice to be held, but when in the dark, with the city asleep, while the bodies of my loved ones are still and in slumber, all I have is my own form to bear, and hold. 

Basically, what I am wanting (pun intended) is not just the love of another human being, but love from Life itself. And what is Life? I alone am my life. 

***

You’ve noticed how hard it is to keep your mind still.

You are rushing when you read, eager to reach the end than stay on the line and the ideas it carries.

Pretty much how you are dealing with Loneliness - waiting to reach the end, rather than sitting with it, and listening to what it has to say.

Listen. Listen to the clock dance in circles. Listen to your thoughts rave in circles. Listen to your anticipation and anxiety. Listen. And when you can’t, cry. Or sit in the balcony with a cup of hot tea, listening to the birds, and the larger life. Or lay down and gaze at the clouds dancing across the sky, while the sun weaves her hues onto the heavenly tapestry, the invisible stars waiting for darkness to alight.

♥ @prttythingz

if “peace” was a picture

***

I finally cried. Broke down in the bathroom during the bath. 

Something about the act of cleaning my crotch while the hot water cooled on my bare skin⁶, and my mouth flung open to release a soundless scream⁷, felt absurd. Funny, even, that I laughed, a soft quiet laugh, tears further mingling with the water on my face, my body the only witness. No, I did not feel lighter. Nor did I feel better. Instead, I said out loud, a voice heavy and light, a prayer: “There’s so much hurt. I am hurt. This is grief. There’s so much grief. It hurts. God, it hurts.” 

A black hole sits at the centre of my being, and today, I let it consume me. The black hole felt acknowledged, heard, and seen. 

Somehow that made all the difference⁸.

1. There’s this fascinating essay by Dayna Tortorici on the obsessive nature of Instagram, and how it keeps you trapped inside of yourself. Basically, it examines the workings of “peeping into other’s lives” and the algorithm on mental health and the environment, and the role it plays in further strengthening the surveillance state.

2. A sort of antithesis to the quarter life crisis article is this “Dear Sugar” column on being 20 something. Cheryl Strayed’s words are tinged with such warmth, generosity, compassion and wisdom that whenever I read it, I’m moved to tears.

3. Speaking of which, read this brilliant essay on gender and trans identity, anonymity, and sharing explorative art in the voyeuristic space of the internet. In this NL, I haven’t done an in-depth exploration on body and gender, but this essay, I feel, sheds light on the same, or more specifically, gender as performance (Judith Butler. That’s her theory.)

4. The concept of male gaze emerged in the writings of John Berger (Ways of Seeing) as part of his analysis of the treatment of women as objects in advertising and nudes in European paintings. His ideas gained traction amidst feminist scholars, resulting in British film critic Laura Mulvey’s influential essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative cinema” which not only coined the phrase “male gaze” but offered a critique on Western cinema’s representation of women. It must be noted that Berger wasn’t the first to speak of the Gaze; Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan spoke of it in the psychoanalytic context, specifically “scopophilia” or the pleasure of looking.  But it was Berger who brought in gender as a frame to unravel the nature of this “looking”: who is doing the looking? Who is being looked at? Watch this video essay by Youtuber Broey Deschanel, who examines the 2019 French film Portrait of a Lady on Fire through the “Gaze”, to gain a brief understanding of the concept.

5. Jess Zimmerman’s wonderful essay on the power of ugliness as explored through the Greek legend of Medusa has been a muse of mine for the longest time.

6. My pose later reminded me of Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, which ties in neatly with the previously mentioned ideas on desirability and beauty. That crying in a bathroom, naked, may not be considered beautiful in the “conventional sense”, but it did feel like a birth of sorts, where beauty lay in the release of one’s deepest vulnerability and humanity, bereft of voyeurism and performativity. Especially, my own.

7. Which also reminds me of Munch’s The Scream, with its eternal existential scream of anguish.

8. Ellen Bass’ “The Thing is” beautifully captures the mood of this essay, and also, my current state of mind.