A premature eulogy to my messy room
After a year of living and working out of a small room at my parents’ rented home, I went to Bangalore last month. It wasn’t a vacation; I stayed at friends’ homes and did my remote work from there. It was an emergency decision I took as I was almost afraid that roots would start growing out of my body, permanently locking me in place in this room.
I used to work in Bangalore — the Big City that was accepting enough for me to feel some freedom, alienating enough for us small town people to complain about when we’ve had one drink and one less mental filter, and scary enough to make young women’s parents worry about them reaching home safely at night. In March 2020, in a COVID-induced panic, I had thrown some dirty laundry and exactly one set of clean home clothes onto a suitcase, masked up, and taken an overnight bus home to Madurai, which is a city only by administrative definition.
After two months, as things worsened, I had requested a close friend living in the city to vacate my terrace studio for me. Since then, I had thought about moving back, or just briefly travelling to Bangalore, but had been discouraged by the sudden spikes in infection cases and deaths that somehow seemed to be correlated to my intention to travel.
So when shock and wounds from the terrible second wave of COVID started to fade, and a third wave wasn’t expected yet, I booked an unnecessarily expensive flight ticket to the city, and left. Everything felt strange — taking a cab, being around human beings that weren’t my immediate family, wondering if I should sanitise my hands again for the 46th time in a day.
And when I signed into work the next day, I was asked how I feel about being back, how the weather was, and a few more questions right out of a reliable Small Talk 101 guide. And then, one of my colleagues said this: “Oh, we can say you are not at home because it’s silent around you. We can’t hear your fan.”
When you live in a region that does not know winters and only gets a tease of India’s notorious monsoons, and your household views air conditioners as luxury, the ceiling fan is your close friend. It’s always on, and is either at full speed or just one level lower. Pair that with a rather small room stuffed with cupboards, wardrobes, a bed and a table, and you get a really noisy ambience. The constant whoosh makes you feel like you bought tickets to a cheap beach “experience”.
This noisy fan had a significant role to play in my life in the last 17 months. I had managed to make two podcasts during that time; with the window shut and fan off, I had been worried I would pass out due to excessive sweating every time I recorded something. While it may have been a slightly annoying addition to my work calls, there have been times where I had been thankful for it. I always turned it all the way up when my parents fought in the other room. Raised voices are one of my triggers for anxiety, and I appreciate the part the dusty little thing does in helping me avoid it.
In the early days of the pandemic, when a lockdown was announced, the realisation that I had to stay at home with my parents (and my sister and nephew who were staying here at that time) made me lose my mind. I put out an SOS social media post asking people I barely knew to help me cope. During those days, having been woken up around 7 am by a screaming nephew or loud heated arguments over the smallest of things, I would force myself to stay in bed for a few more hours in hope that I would have to deal with less drama. And I would watch escapist television shows late into the night with a vengeance — something I got to know later as “revenge bedtime procrastination” — and the terrible sleep cycle would continue.
Within a few weeks of living through this with constantly high anxiety, I slipped into depression. It was the lowest I had been. I made myself scarce in the living room and kitchen, and shut myself up in the room at all times of the day. It slowly became my safety bubble. I would sob quietly for a long time, or take endless naps during the day, but put on a brave face when I stepped out of the door. Though I bought a table and a chair (an ergonomic one at that!) to set up a workspace in the room, I had to work from my bed on most days. It was my way of making a deal with my reluctant willpower: “I understand that you’re tired and just want to sleep today. But how about working a little bit? What if I tell you you don’t even have to move to the table?” It surprisingly worked every time!
From being kept awake all night by suicidal thoughts, many hours of therapy done over Zoom to an adult ADHD diagnosis over a few WhatsApp calls with a psychiatrist, and being told I’ll be off all depression and anxiety medications from the next month, I have come a long way since last year and this space bears witness to it. While the world paints an inspiring success story with the podcasts I made, the online courses I took, and the new language I’m learning now, this room remains as my only keeper of secrets — one who will spill all of them to anyone who looks closely. The folded wrappers of chips, chocolate and biscuits that I ate at midnight tucked between the bed and my mattress; sediments of fine dust everywhere but the path I take from my bed to the door; an overstuffed dustbin which is not ready to give up its content yet; a pricey vacuum cleaner I bought a few months ago in hopes of fixing my cleaning woes lying ignored in a corner; the ukulele I promised myself I wouldn’t leave buried inside a cupboard, but eventually did; and a habit tracker I stuck on the wall four months ago to track my everyday walks but used only for three days — they scream out my story to everyone who sets foot inside.
Which is why I strictly restrict entry. Like I do in life too. While I have a large circle of friends and acquaintances, there are hardly any people who I truly open my heart to. I’m terrified of romantic relationships and don’t believe in marriage — something that concerns my parents every day, and me once in a few days if I happen to have some free time without any work or side projects scheduled. At 27, this is one of the biggest problems for an Indian woman like me who is stuck in the unpleasant void between traditional and modern; filial piety and independence; ambition and comfort.
As this problem becomes more worrisome, I realise that I should be prepared to move out of here soon. As the arguments become more frequent, the voices grow louder, and expectations start stacking up against me, my boundaries are starting to fade. I realise that this was not my forever safe space; it was just an encampment. And it’s time to look for another one now.
