July, Pineapple Pastry, Stars & Fish

I’m still trying to come to terms with how half a year has already passed — and while I’d like to say something that at least attempts to convey a sense of seasonal delight — take, for instance, phrasing that alludes to finding myself giddy in the arms of joyous July — but truth be told, I’m mostly just sweaty in July’s jaws and if I were to allow myself to borrow from Kafka, too tired. I’m writing on the bus back from the primary school, sipping my daily dose of conbini-bought green juice that I consume to convince myself how I am, in fact, conscious about eating my veggies. I don’t actually believe it to be a one-stop solution, but I think it’s better than the yoghurt drinks I usually opt for. Don’t get me wrong — I love my yoghurt drinks, I’m just appalled at how much hidden sugar they have. The interesting thing with a lot of products in Japan is that they often group added sugars with carbohydrates, which just reiterates how it’s truly hidden. My mum and I have an incorrigible sweet tooth, often finishing big bars of chocolate or eating way too much gud sandesh in one sitting, a mithai we got introduced to when my brother moved to Ahmedabad for his schooling and is arguably one of the best things we stumbled across in the city. I’m a sucker for Indian sweets, besan ke laddu probably being my biggest obsession. Nothing brings me as much joy, but I’m just trying to reconfigure my settings in a way that I am able to derive as much joy from just one laddu instead of feeling like I must eat the entire box in a go. My dadu also loved sweets but had the striking ability to be able to limit himself to two pieces of chocolate post dinner which he devoured slowly and gratefully.

At school today, my student and I were trying to write a story in Japanese about a star accidentally dropping his pair of glasses in the sea, and the moon, smitten by the star, doing a deep dive into the ocean to help the star. They make friends with some fish too and finally find the glasses. What a thoroughly entertaining tale, which also reminded me of just how vivid kids’ imaginations are. I think the only way to make sense of the world would be to humbly give up on trying to make sense of all of it. I adore my time at school for this primary reason: it helps me let myself off the hook in terms of constantly trying to make sense, taking care of tasks, ticking things off of a to-do list. My student also scored 100/100 in her kanji test which would make any teacher swell with pride, but I realized how while she’s able to write most kanji without any issues, she often does not know what the words mean. It led us to engage in a deep philosophical discussion about how shapes are just shapes unless we imbue them with meaning, and we drove this point home by discussing how I would be disappointed if I got a coloured-in cake cutout for my birthday instead of the real thing. I think Japan does cakes extraordinarily well, but if you ask me, my heart craves the simple pineapple pastry I’d often eat in India for my birthday, or Black Forest if I was feeling fancy. A brownie, at my fanciest. I’m compulsively nostalgic, but it’s also true: food is mostly memory and my most endearing memories around food are more people-centered than flavour-centered, and I would trade the fanciest cake in the whole world to eat pineapple pastry with papa (what delicious alliteration) at Crazy Bite, N1 CIDCO. It’s just the regular dose of birthday blues, Swastika, let’s not lose our minds over pineapple pastry. But what else is worth losing one’s mind over if not pineapple pastry?

I made my way to my ENT after the bus ride because my ears are being iffy, and I’m currently in the waiting room that is mostly populated with sniffling kids and their mums. Why don’t I see a single dad here? My dad did take me to the hospital — I recall the time he took me for a blood test when I was 10ish, I think, and because I dreaded needles, I dashed out of the doctor’s room straight onto the streets with my dad trying to chase me. Some people, unfortunately, thought he was trying to kidnap me and starting chasing after him. I still can’t stop wildly chuckling over this incident. I like how this clinic has a host of picture books, but I’m mildly annoyed by how they are in an area specially demarcated for children, making them inaccessible to the rest of us. I think I look like quite an oddball here, having paired my brother’s shirt with a crop top and black pants that are an awkward length for my outfit today but I’d still say this qualifies for good fashion. I remember emotionally blackmailing my brother into giving me this shirt. Poor kid. I can’t help it, though, if I fit into my entire family’s clothes — it legitimizes my being a wardrobe thief. Probably another thing I miss about home. And I love eclectic combinations, oversized clothing and loud colors. I can’t believe I’m choosing waiting time at a clinic for analyzing my fashion choices. There’s a baby next to me wearing exactly the same colors as I am, which is very validating. The baby just won’t stop staring. And the crazy thing about babies is that they don’t blink too much either. So here I am, contemplating if I should try to make funny faces at it or if that would count as rude. If my nani was here, I’m sure she’d have befriended it easily and would even be singing to it. Now I think the baby’s trying to high five me but my hands are too sweaty so I’m going to refrain. The weather is way too humid and the air conditioning here isn’t optimal, and I was worried it’s only me but this place smells like stinky socks so I’m guessing a lot of us are suffering.

I’m finally back home after my ‘diagnosis’, which is not really a diagnosis — the doctor said that my hearing has actually gotten better compared to my test results last year (yay headphones!) and whatever symptoms I’m experiencing aren’t serious. Which probably means that the reason my ears were being iffy is a simple lack of sleep, and the solution to solving most of my life’s problems is to try to get more than 4 hours of sleep a night. We’ll get there in good time.

My recent grocery shopping expedition: an attempt at more protein, and less sugar & caffeine