Battling depression

The past few months, I have been relatively quiet – everywhere, not just on the blog. The depression is at it again. Forcing me to feel bad about myself and incompetent, and making me think of suicide. It makes me want to avoid meeting and talking to people or engage in group activities. The only thing that I have been wanting to do is to go home when I’m at work and to go to work when I’m at home.

Work keeps me engaged and the wonderful family of colleagues that I work with keep me relatively upbeat for most of the working day. Occasionally, one of them would send me an instant message asking me what’s wrong and remind me to start smiling and laughing again. At home, I spent most of the time consuming entertainment – movies, television series, sports, entertainment, social networking, etc. Nothing productive ever happens.

For the few gigs that I had during these months, I managed to work enough to just rehearse enough both by myself and with the bands. The only time I really enjoyed myself is when I was playing live in front of a receptive audience. Some of my friends in my musical circles seem to understand. But I can feel that my band mates are very frustrated with me. I avoid contact with them as much as possible and, on occasions, have postponed/canceled rehearsal sessions at the last minute.

For those who don’t know, I have broken up with Joe. Crazy stuff happened and I was depressed enough to let it happen and not take any measures to prevent the catastrophe. My nadir coincidentally coincided with the breakup.

The last time when I was such a low, Vinokur helped me out. He got in touch with my psychiatry resident friend here and asked her to prescribe something for me. She did. She put me on a cocktail. Escitalopram + Clonazepam + Haloperidol. I have been religiously adhering to the prescription for the best part of the last 3 years.

But now, I think I need a change. Maybe a new shrink. Someone who doesn’t  know me. Someone who can arrive at a diagnosis and start treatment afresh.

The first weekend

So, we sink right in to each other, literally. No major issues apart from the fact that I’m rather overwhelmed by the kindness and affection, which I have longed for so long. I had taken an off on Friday to make this a three-day weekend.

So, we do South Mumbai Friday, visiting all the usual destinations and settling for a late lunch at Léopold's. I was amazed to know that Joe wasn’t aware of the terror attacks on the city three years back. I tried to give him some background as to why the Indian public might not really dig the idea of a white person photographing their city (thanks to David Headley and Slumdog Millionaire). Then, we met my best friend Craigie and had a fun night out at a bar, where as usual, Craigie made the waiters blush with his antics. We also learned how Chicken Lollipops are made.

On Saturday, we do the essential American grocery shopping at Hypercity in the morning, again with the ever resourceful Craigie, settle to stay in for the rest of the afternoon, and go out for a romantic candle-lit dinner in the evening, where Joe tastes authentic Indian cuisine for the first time. Not bad, I thought. I realize that he’s not the kind to like extremely spicy/hot food.

On Sunday, it was newspapers + coffee + breakfast in the morning, followed by Joe’s first experience of watching a cricket match – the India v WI ODI. It went rather well, I thought. Joe showed some interest in understanding cricket, but like a typical American, was clueless about it in the first place. The most memorable part of the day was smoked cheese over crackers along with beer.

By the way, Joe is a fantastic cook and he loves cooking for me. He’s not as much of a drinker as I am but joins in. He also doesn’t hate cricket and loves hanging out. Things look good so far.

Joe arrives

I must have grown more mature, more cautious, and more realistic. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to do what I did yesterday. Joe arrived after a 24-h flight to the Mumbai airport. The flight was delayed and I hadn’t heard from him from Delhi.

Yet, I didn’t panic. My heart was not in my mouth. In fact, I kept a pretty calm head, probably distracted by the highlights of Sehwag’s fastest double century still being shown on television screens at the airport terminal that the flight was supposed to arrive at.

After an hour delay, I finally saw him going through the process of collecting his luggage and taking a loo break. He was obviously unaware that I could see him through the glass. He looked just like he looked on Skype. And finally when he walked out and saw me, I was greeted by a smile of honest satisfaction of having accomplished something improbable.

Yes, it was just over 10 weeks since we had met (September 26). It was crazy of us to meet so soon for so long (6 weeks). But going by the way the first supposedly-anxious moments went by, I think this will turn out to be an enjoyable experience.

Oh by the way, he’s by far the only interesting person that I have dated/seen/had a relationship with who’s almost as tall as me. That makes me happy in an desi way.

Wonderful Vinokur

Today, received this beautiful note from Vinokur, my ex-boyfriend. Needless to say, he made me happy like no other man has ever has, or perhaps can.

I think my ex, Kris, who lives in Mumbai, loved me more than any lover I've ever had. In fact, I think he still does. He's a wonderful person and I suspect you'd agree. Although he's a Hindu by birth and was named for Lord Krishna, he's an atheist now. He's a very fine rock musician.

Thank you, Vinokur!

Single again

Last week, I posted about getting signals from a friend of mine that he wanted to be in a relationship with me. That turned out to be a false alarm after all. Today we talked on Skype and we have come to the conclusion that it's not going to work out because of some major issues.

But we'll remain friends!

So, I'm single again. I don't know if I should be happy or not.

State of Affairs

Am I in a relationship? I would like to consider so. He is far far away and has a busy life. The maximum I can hope is to meet him twice a year when he visits India. But the crux of the matter is this - the kind of feelings that I have for him have not been reciprocated. Neither do I know if they ever will be.

These are the facts. I know for a fact that he’s not into me as I’m into him. I, actually, am almost in love with him, but I’m trying to keep my feelings in check. From what I can make out, I don’t think he has the skills/desire to keep the fire of a long-distance relationship raging on.

We talk to each other regularly – almost on all days. This is by phone – yes, long-distance calls on international calling cards. Our conversations are usually brief and we never get to a point where it gets nice and cozy. I hardly see him on Skype or Yahoo, and when I do, he is usually busy doing some chore or the other. It almost seems as if he doesn’t have time for me.

What do I feel? I feel a tad disappointed. Yet, I realize that I cannot force him to change - to propel his feelings to another level. At the same time, I feel extremely attracted to him and I think that he’s worth the bill. I would like to try to take this as far as I can and put in as much effort as possible. And I hope that we will reach a place where we can both feel happy about each other.

Of course, he will read this post some day or the other. When he does, I want to make it clear to him that this is not emotional blackmail. It’s just an honest assessment of the state of affairs.

Delhi Trip - Day 1

Waking up in the morning and catching an early flight to Delhi is stressful enough. That too, to meet a person whom you have never met is almost terrifying with the weight of expectations, how much ever you try to control them. But I wasn’t really terrified - I was happy and excited with Madonna giving me brilliant company through the trip and FaceBook threads giving me enough entertainment as a distraction.

When I got down at the Terminal 1 of the Delhi airport, it was cold and overcast. I had to find a way to get to the new Terminal 3 (T3) - I found a free inter-terminal GVM bus which was rather convenient. At T3, however, as the time of arrival of my friend’s flight drew nearer, it started raining, it got really cold, and my anxiety was almost unbearable. His flight was slightly delayed and it took some time for him to clear immigration and get out. He couldn’t find me initially - and was wandering around the couple of exists for a few minutes until I saw him.

I called out for him and he turned around and we walked toward each other. He looked even more beautiful than I had expected him to be. He came over and we hugged each other. It was a surreal experience to have met someone so special within 7 weeks of meeting each other online. We took a cab to the hotel in the cold, rainy weather. Incredibly enough, the road leading from the airport to the city was lined by various things under construction and the rain made everything blur into a muddy mess.

However, the conversation was easy and smooth I felt at ease with his company. Our senses of humor were complementary – that is why we got interested in each other in the first place – and it was obvious that we made an excellent pair intellectually. And he was crazy and eccentric – just like the clown that I had grown used to on Skype.

For some reason or the other, the cab driver took us through one of the less beautiful roads of Delhi to the dirty Pahar Ganj area, a hub for cheap hotels. We were expecting the worst when the cabbie rode up a filthy side lane into a the Arakasan road leading up to our hotel. Our hotel looked a tad better than the rest of the other neighboring hotels and we were ushered into our “Premium” room. Despite it being late in the morning, we decided to have some breakfast and ordered in the complimentary breakfast.

After resting for an hour or so, we planned to head out to the streets. The room-boys told us that it was raining heavily outside – but we didn’t want to get stuck indoors. We took an autorickshaw to Connaught Place to check out the various state emporiums and showrooms of handicrafts along the Baba Kharak Singh Marg (NH8) and picked up a couple of umbrellas from a shop.

Connaught place was an incredible mess, with the rain spoiling everything. We took some time to find out an ATM and a currency exchange vendor before having a cup of average coffee at the Madras Coffee House at P-block. We asked around for Baba Kharak Sing Marg but we got confusing responses from the people that we asked. Finally, a boy pointed us out the right way.

We went and visited almost all the emporiums on the road. He wanted to take a look at silk scarves, bracelets, necklaces etc to see if he could make a reasonable wholesale purchase. It was incredible the way he interacted with the vendors. Cracking jokes, making them smile, and making them extremely friendly! They all loved him and he loved charming them! Although we didn’t buy anything, he got an idea about the various options that he had in Delhi (as compared to the open markets in Thailand, Bali, and Burma).

We then took the Metro from Rajiv Chowk to INA and went to Delhi Haat. By this time the weather had cleared up and it was a little warmer. Although we were greeted by a message at the ticket counter that some of the stalls are closed because allotment of stalls was taking place on that day, we weren’t all that disappointed. We walked in and found an incredible array of stalls featuring products such as silk scarves, pashminas, rugs, jewlery, paintings, paper work, puppets and more. There were some food stalls too – I took him to the Kerala Tourism Development’s stall where we had appam (which is apparently called “huppers” in Sri Lanka) and vegetable stew.

We bought a few scarves at a reasonable price and also bought a couple of hanging puppets for decorating his tents – he resells all these scarves/jewelry items in the US after setting up tents at various institutions, schools etc. We then took the train back to the New Delhi where we had to wait for half an hour to get platform tickets to cross to the other side of the station where our hotel was. That was the really annoying part of the entire trip.

After reaching back the hotel all exhausted, we relaxed for a bit before taking a shower and then venturing out for dinner. The most ironic thing is that there were hardly any good restaurants in Pahar Ganj where one can have a decent dinner with drinks. We found a recently opened restro bar called Delhi Den where we had a cocktail and tandoori chicken along with rotis and palak paneer. The food was delicious – that’s Delhi’s asset, the quality of the restaurants. And we called it a night after that.

I must confess that all through the day, I felt the most at ease that I had felt with anyone that I had met in a long time. It was almost as if we had known each other for years. That concludes day one of our adventure in Delhi.

More suspense

This morning, the wonderful man that I am hopefully going to meet up with called me on Skype. He said that he couldn’t find a direct flight to Mumbai. I wasn’t quite disappointed when I heard this primarily because I was staring at his handsome face. Then a brainwave struck me. I suggested that he fly to Delhi and catch a flight to Mumbai. He said he hadn’t thought of that before. He said he’ll look into it and let me know by tomorrow morning.

All day at work, my brain was churning over about how to make this work. Then it struck me – why can’t I fly to Delhi and meet him there. Soon, I was looking up tickets to Mumbai–Delhi to-and-fro flights online and I found some really cheap fares. I was so excited that I had to call him. I did, and he answered –for the first time in a couple of weeks. I informed him about the developments. He sounded cheerful and asked me to forward the information about the flight tickets.

I forwarded the information in an e-mail and I haven’t heard back from him except for the acknowledgment of his receipt of the e-mail. The excitement/suspense is killing me. That was very evident in the office when I told my friends about what might happen. I’m so dying to wake up tomorrow morning to his call on Skype informing him about his arrival to Mumbai. More crossed appendages please!

The wait maybe over soon

A few weeks back, I had written a song about a wonderful man that I had met online. I sent the song to this funny guy who commented that he liked it but wanted more instrumentation in the song. Anyway, I thought these two lines were the weakest lines in that song.

Wishing that us and this would be real, really soon
Wishing that it would be, sooner than soon

Apparently they aren’t. He made me really happy today morning on Skype. He said that he might visit me in a couple of weeks in Mumbai. I have every paired appendage in my body crossed hoping that this would happen. Please cross yours with me. I have already applied for leave expecting his arrival and our first meeting.

The curious case of self-flagellation

As I'm resocializing and resocia-gayzing rampantly these days, I am posed one question quite frequently - a little too frequently for my comfort.

'I haven't heard from/seen you in ages! How/where have you been Kris?'

My answer always has been in either of two forms. The rather bland and gentle one goes like this — 'I've been up and down a lot, more down than up. But I'm up now!' The more edgy answer intended to hurtle a jaw or two over a cliff goes like this — 'I have been suffering from clinical depression with suicidal tendencies. Thankfully, my friends (boyfriend in particular) and dear therapist (friend) managed to help me out of it. I'm on medications now — anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, and anti-anxiety drugs. I'm much better now. Thanks! Have you ever considered suicide?'

When I say 'up and down', I mean it. I'm suffering from type 2 bipolar disorder bordering on unipolar depression. If it is indeed unipolar, the times when I surface from the depths of depression (to near normalcy) represent the manic phases of bipolarity. Either way, my phrenus is fluctuant. A status message on my office private messenger summed it up nicely — 'Kris is up and down like a BMC-repaired road'.

This weekend was an uncharacteristically typical up and down one for me. Here’s a recap.

Friday night: It was a mad night at a music awards ceremony where I hung out with friends (read superstars and rock icons), got drunk, hit on a my-type-of-hunk singing legend and gave him my number, then got dared to take off my shirt for a Bollywood/rock diva in exchange for her taking her shirt off (this incident got covered in Bombay Times today), and finally retching and throwing up on my way back in the cab and in my apartment, before crashing.

Saturday morning: Woke up with a hangover and bilious gastritis — it was as if my liver was saying 'Get a life, jerk!' Then, for the first time in a year, I welcomed one of my dear office colleagues to my apartment. She was there to give me company during the shooting of a documentary film about openly gay people — the film title 'Engayging Lives' is derived from Here’s Truly. It was supposed to be shot a month ago and I was one of the main characters in the film; well, until my depression destroyed any possibility of me being a part of it. After starting therapy and somewhat stabilizing on it, I had gotten in touch with the charming girls from Sophiya college and they gave me another chance to be a visual part of the film — I'm doing the background score for the film anyway.

Saturday evening: After that, I had a fantastic gig with Shoonyas when we performed as an opening act for Agnee at VJTI college in Matunga. We did a quite remarkable set that was a crazy mix of rock and Bollywood. Three of my dear colleagues from my workplace were there to make the evening special. I can’t believe the support I get from my office - thanks so much! That, however, was the end of the high.

Then, I was set up for a traumatic and humiliating dinner invitation that I would not like to dwell on — apart from a salad that I tossed together, and a few moments clicking two lovers making out, I felt really horrible. My pills were there in the background but the self-flagellation was severe. This must have triggered my insecurities which led to me having an intense argument with Vinokur, which pushed me to the limits of masochistic depression. I could feel myself conjuring up plots and subplots in my mind, each and every step meant to hurt me a little deeper.

Luckily, thanks to just Vinokur, I was rescued once again and we somehow managed to get me to sleep without more mutual trauma! Sleep seems to be one potent douser of my flames.

Sunday morning: I woke up feeling much better and had a nice, long Skype conversation with Vinokur. Intense multi-tasking ensued and I started feeling like my old self — capable and confident. Moreover, I agreed for a date with a rather mysterious person, which I've been procrastinating for months if not years. A walk down the Juhu beach with him and his dog, and a relaxing conversation over tea later laid the background for an interesting prospect.

Sunday evening: After the date, I went to my first GB meet in months — mainly to meet up with the dear aunt of a friend. During the entire meet, I was keying things on my PDA, not speaking unless being specifically asked to. Later, I invited my favorite aunt to be my date for Valentine's Day! On my way back, a series of incidents including self-deprecatory humor, inability to remember the name of the book that I had read (Ellie Wiesel's 'Night'), and a couple of inflammatory FB threads bared everything in me in under half an hour. I knew I was going down to self-created whiplashes from my delusional world, but couldn't stop myself.

Ironically, an FB chat with one of my erstwhile co-residents from the hospital, during which my friend proved how narrow-minded, conservative and rude Indian society could still be vis-á-vis homosexuality and a coming out situation. However, I defended valiantly without losing my calm despite my pride being at stake. This chat made me realize that I'm good after all, and that my return to practicing surgery in the myopic and treacherous environment of the hospital would be difficult if not impossible.

It's amazing how masochistic depression can almost whip you down to nothingness. For those who are suffering from the same, or those who know of people who do, please help yourself and others to overcome this!

Long-distance cross pollination

What's the most important quality that I have? Not a difficult question for me - the ability to make people laugh/smile/feel good about themselves. Vinokur has helped me hone my skills in this department. Humor comes naturally to him too. His brand of humor, which revolves around the skill to surprise people with audacity and innuendos, has seemingly seeped into me as well!

Not just humor - almost the entire psyche, including the positives and negatives, (positives way way more, of course) and negatives, appears to have somehow been injected into me. We think alike, we love alike, we fear alike, and we analyze alike. We complete each others sentences, know each others triggers, are aware of each others sensitivities, and can see and feel the other's mind. Our common friends say that we 'sound' alike in the way we present our thoughts - I guess lexicon transfer is also involved.

I wonder if such 'psychic' transference commonly occurs in intimate emotional relationships. If yes, is it good enough to be seeking - and if not, is this craziness?

For those unaware, such similarities have grown despite a tumultuous long-distance relationship! I wonder what would have happened had I and Vinokur been living together? Would the similarities have been even more evident? Would our omeletees taste the same? Or would we have had lesser cross-pollination of ideation and behavior?