Arghhh... I love Tamasha!!

Have you ever felt brave and scared at the same time? Have you ever been so free that you lose your mind thinking what the fuck should I do now?

I am feeling something similar right now as I write this thing.

Hi people! It’s been a while. Last time you heard from me was in August when I turned 25. I skipped a few months after that, rather unintentionally, because I didn’t get the time to write. I have been a bit more busy than usual.

So, what’s this issue about? Idk.

Maybe I will combine few topics I have been meaning to write about as mini essays. Let’s see how it goes.

Have you ever thought about how your life has been affected by all the small things that happen to you? I am sure a lot of you are familiar with the term “canon event” by now.

When I think about my life, I can see a lot of those things that led me to become the person I am. One of those canon events for me was watching Tamasha.

I saw it in the theatre on the day it was released, which was 27 November 2015 (yes, 8 years ago today). The show timings were 11:30 AM and I went to watch it with 3 of my best friends (at least at that time hehe).

I was 17 then and to be very honest, I was too young to understand what the movie was really about. But I remember watching it and feeling free, it was weird.

Maybe I didn’t feel it at that time but I am trying to romanticise it now? Maybe I want this to be a story that justifies why I keep watching Tamasha again and again whenever I feel lost in life. Well, it’s a possibility and I am fine with it.

But I do remember that I didn’t fall in love with Tamasha right away. It happened gradually, at different points in my life. I loved different parts of the movie and felt different type of pain every time I related my life to Ved’s.

“Tu koi aur hai” is not just a song but something I tell myself whenever I am in doubt about who the fuck I am and what am I supposed to do.

“Andar se kuch aur hi hain hum, aur bahar se majboor...” could be the tagline of my life.

My favorite scene is the one where Ved is studying and then suddenly throws away those books, screams, sits for a second, and then gets up to collect those same books and continues studying again.

If I had a dollar for every time I have felt the same level of frustration, I won’t have to write this newsletter to feel content and collect some internet points hehe. Just kidding, I love you all for reading these pakka.

But the reason I love Tamasha is not only relatability or nostalgia, I think it’s hope. It’s the hope that there’s a Tara for the Ved in me. Someone who understands me even better than I understand myself, loves me for who I am and believes in me. Someone whose belief gives strength to my delusion that I am supposed to be something special and that I can or I will be one day.

So, as I sit to complete this piece for the 100th time in the last 1 month, I read a few other newsletters I have collected in my inbox. While reading them, I realise how jealous I am of people who can carve beautiful writings about complex topics in a very simple manner. And no, it’s not just about what they say but the way they say it. It’s so fucking beautiful. I wish I had that.

Writing this piece right now is truly like freestyle. I am writing whatever is coming to my mind. I wonder if those people do the same thing.

I once read somewhere that you should write the first draft as fast as possible, no matter how bad, how incomplete or how cringe it makes you feel. Just do it and then come back to it to remove things. Your first draft should be the longest version and the final version should be way smaller with only the most useful stuff in there.

The best writer I have read online (or on Substack at least) is definitely Adam Mastroianni. I just love the way he expresses himself and how his lengthy pieces don’t feel that long. Also, how the titles sometimes have no relation to the actual content, which makes the experience on par with reading a fiction novel where you don’t know what’s going to happen next.

I am sure there are many others who write in a similar fashion and are really good at it, but I don’t read a lot of such people. Maybe because I find it hard to read things that are not fiction.

I picked up Norwegian wood this month and completed it in a few days. I won’t go into how the book is but I read it pretty fast. On the other hand, I still haven’t gotten myself to restart reading a non-fiction book I started in August. I read 15 pages of that book and that was it.

Sometimes, I feel this sense of pressure (idk if it’s peer pressure exactly, or just my expectations from myself) of reading non-fiction books and to learn things I don’t know. The catch here is that I don’t know a lot of things, which makes the list of books I am supposed to read really long, and I am scared of that.

Fiction is easy to read, I really want to keep reading fiction but I am not able to resist that pressure. Maybe some day when I will be free enough, I will have the strength to pick up as many fiction books I want while I completely skip the non-fiction section of the book store. One day.

We should end this piece with this question maybe - What else?

I am not sure. Maybe I will see you next month when I will have the answer to this what else. If not, I will definitely see you in my special piece of why 2023 sucked (or maybe it didn’t).

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