Advance notice for new year- be exceptional, strange, scary

Natasha Badhwar

TIME was more slippery than usual in 2021. It slowed down in its moments but also galloped so fast through the months that I’m not sure where whole chunks like August, September and October went. I suspect December intends to wrap up as unexpectedly as it appeared.

I feel like if I don’t start paying attention to the fast-approaching threshold of the new year, I will get distracted and find myself unprepared for the crossover. It is time to begin the prep now.

The turning of the year must be honoured. Not with false promises and gigantic resolutions, but with a conversation between fellow travellers. With a conversation with the self.

I spent a few days on the expressways of Uttar Pradesh last week and the interlude of being between places and therefore being nowhere for sometime felt like a gift. As our car sped along on wide open roads, surrounded by rice and mustard fields on both sides, we were cocooned by the music that our daughters were curating from the backseat. They switched between Adele, Taylor Swift and Coke Studio songs. We often requested Rekha Bharadwaj, AR Rahman and Kishore Kumar.

There was heartbreak, self-assertion, surrender and celebration in the themes of the songs. Something about the combination of being on the road and emotive music opens a portal to memories and connections that are otherwise dormant. I picked up my phone and began to type this column into the Notes app.

Be exceptional, strange and scary. Be in touch with sadness and loss. Be broken. Be magical.

I give myself permission to take time off from being practical and useful to others all the time. Having just spent two weeks with extended family, I am reminded that I do not need to water myself down to fit in. It is my role in the family to be comfortable in my skin. To show others that it is okay to care for your own needs with honesty. Accept your quirks without shame.

There are some things that will not get easier for me next year. Making phone calls is one of them. I will continue to communicate via text with those who I can and through telepathy with those who I cannot text. This is very inefficient when I need to call doctors, dentists and people who I need to interview for a film I am making or an article I have committed to writing. In the minutiae of the moment, I feel dysfunctional, but from a distance, I laugh at myself. I laugh with myself.

In the new year, I may break one or more pairs of spectacles. I try to be mindful towards these essential accessories, but my consciousness has its own set of priorities that I cannot predict. I apologise in advance to things I will accidentally lose or sit on. Please bear with me. Some losses are more easily repaired than others. We will learn to live with both.

Don’t try to be less distracted in 2022. Follow your distractions. Except those that involve doom scrolling on your smartphone. Find that one thing that makes you forget where your phone is lying. Follow the trail. Trust your inner wisdom, even if you are unconvinced that it exists. Trust me, it does.

Continue to do the one thing that is the hardest for you to do. You may not crack the code in 2022, but you will look back one day and find that things changed when you weren’t trying so hard to make them work. For me, this involves writing. It feels easy after it is done. It feels impossible before I start. I remain committed to it.

Neglect other strategies you have learnt to stay in control and be gentle and patient with those who are nearest to you. This includes yourself. Give yourself the space to be inefficient. Make room for being grumpy and dissatisfied. Let others feel their feelings too. Don’t take their bad moods personally. Do not take responsibility to fix things that need more time to explore their dark phase.

As I continued to type these words on the highway, my husband requested a new song on the car stereo. Our daughters searched for “Koi to Hai Jo Nizam-e-Hasti Chala Raha Hai” by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan on YouTube and found an old television studio recording.

“There must be someone who is in charge of the administration of this universe,” the father translates for the little women, as they ask him the meaning of ‘nizam-e-hasti’. “That person is God.”

“Jo Khana-e-Lashaoor Mein Jagmaga Raha Hai, Wohi Khuda Hai, Wohi Khuda Hai.” The light that shines within your subconscious, that is God.

2022 will not be a version of the last two years of the pandemic. It will not come with the promise of normalcy either. We are all changed by the loss, grief and other events of our recent past. As we start this last month of the year, may the inner light in each one of us shine bright to show us the way forward.

— The writer is a filmmaker & author.

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