We don't have a ceiling. Tin roof, a few holes, rusted. On rainy days, it's a bit inconvenient. That's the word I'll use. People here love to trash cities. The city lifestyle. For most, it's a huge thing to go to a city, so you'd better dress your best when you go. They seem secretly scared. But not me. Maybe a little scared. But I know better. My whole life, I've been a city person, well, after I got onto the internet, maybe in my late teens. One thing about cities has always had an immense appeal to me: the indifference. People there don't care who you are in the particular way people here care. A Zomato delivery guy, off duty, is just another person there. He can have healthy skin and taste in clothes, cinema and music and intellect and other things that are hard to put in words, but they make the real difference. Here, a Zomato delivery guy is always that guy, on or off duty. A quiet child is always that quiet child; people laugh at him for not speaking much, even as an adult. And they are always there to get you. To suppress the voice if it ever comes out. The point never matters. No one cares why he doesn't like to speak. The hierarchy is set when you're a child. Your job as an adult is to disprove it by getting what they value: money, their traditions, their language, their fears. Money alone doesn't solve it. But they'll excuse you for money if you can get everything else and a stable government job.
We're considered well off here. Which means we eat. Five of us, me, my brother, his wife, mom and dad, maybe 10-15k a month to run the whole thing. We have our own home, and things are cheap here. Baggage family. You're not struggling, so you must be fine.
But I'm an individual inside this family. And I have a big ambition. Weird ambition. I want to become capable enough not to care. Right now, I act that way mostly, but the consequences are disproportionate. That's the polite version.
The people here are too nosy. There's a shape to how you're supposed to behave, and if you don't fit it, the consequences aren't clear. You just feel them with time. If you're smart enough, you eventually learn the shape, and they accept you. I'm not smart enough for that. Or I refuse to be. Not sure which.
Friends. Well, my friends are friends. Busy, clueless, and they'll eat me anytime they're hungry. I've seen it too many times not to be cautious. They ate me when they could. I'm regrowing the skin and bones as of now.
What I've figured out is that apart from your parents, who also eat you but differently, more naively, most people are waiting for an opportunity, and they move on when they're full. That's not bitterness. That's just what I've observed.
I was employed once. One year. Social media manager for a craft channel, owner earning 18+ lacs a month. I started at 7.5k, then 9k for ten months. Got frustrated, said I was quitting. He asked what it would take to stay. I said a lot, but considering our relationship, 18k. We settled on 12k. Me thinking, okay, what else will I do anyway?
Then it hurt his ego, and he fired me the next month. Someone told me he was mocking me in meetings after I was gone, saying I left because I wanted more money.
That's the kind of thing that happens.
The best job I can realistically get gives me 18-20k. My father wants me to chase a government job at 20-30k, which is a rat race of multiple lacs of candidates whose entire life goal is exactly that. Get it done, get married, have children, everyone's proud, life is sorted. I understand it. I see it. I just cannot relate. Something is off there. For me, I guess.
I have a bachelor's degree in English literature from an irrelevant government college. People from top colleges are unemployed. And me here.
My income is zero.
I bought tretinoin for 177 rupees two days ago, my mother's money, and I'm so careful with how I apply it that I don't waste a drop. I grew my hair long, mostly look homeless without styling it. A good conditioner and styling cream would be maybe 1000 rupees. Can't afford to change the display on my 18k phone. An IEM I wanted, Tanzu something lion edition, 2800 rupees. I love R&B, and I hear that IEM has fantastic bass and a wide soundstage. Can't get it. I eat chicken maybe once a month, a few hundred grams, because I don't want to be the person who burdens the household. My room doesn't have a door. I've been caught masturbating so many times that even the embarrassment is gone now.
I talk to a girl from Hyderabad. We've been together a year now, after my last breakup with another city girl. Her family earns tens of lakhs a month. Her hostel was 30k a month, forget college, forget everything else. She used to take flights from Hyderabad to Pune at night to her university. She thinks her family is poor. I get it. It makes complete sense.
I've never been inside an airport.
We used to talk for hours every day. She thinks I'm too smart. She respects me, genuinely, and it was flattering and also deeply uncomfortable in a way I still don't fully understand. The last girl was similar. City girl. I always felt this strange unease around her admiration, knowing where I come from, what my room looks like, what my ceiling looks like. But it was nice. I couldn't believe I was dating someone like that. I don't know why I phrase it that way. I don't know why I feel the need to say I couldn't believe it. But that's honest, so I'll leave it there.
My favourite YouTubers are from the US and the UK. I'm into tech. So few of them do iPhone drop tests. One vibe-coded AI chat wrapper, some developer with funding, and they can buy all my ambitions a million times over and have lunch after.
This goes on here. In this house. In this family. One member.
How many families are there? How many houses?
Some people want nothing but to tell us what to want, who we are, and what to aspire towards. And the funny part is, everyone around me accepts it. The chief minister says only drunkards go out after a certain hour at night. Says too much education kills culture. Collects the tax on alcohol himself. Not all bad, but the worst ones are always the loudest. Businesses sell us things from whatever little we have, give a little back to employees, and they're always inventing new ways to take as much as possible and return as little as possible. Their worries are different. When it rains, they probably don't have water inside their house.
One kilo of chicken is over 300 rupees.
My ambitions are to see the world. To live life. To learn. Stay fit, have healthy skin, and afford a minimal but quality lifestyle. A gym membership. Protein powder. Fast, reliable internet. I always wanted to sing. Acting improv, I think I'm a natural. Martial arts. Learning: science, computers, philosophy, and the list goes on.
But those are just my ambitions. I'm 26.
As a kid, I used to daydream looking at pictures of computers in newspapers. Private home somewhere far away, just me, a mattress, a chair and a quality table. With lights. I used to think this while cleaning my brother's broiler chicken farm after school. I used to read labels on salt packets. Who wrote this? Who knows all that science to write it? I would love to learn all that.
My brother slapped me once, asking if I'd finished my school books since I was reading packaging. But the school books didn't have the story I wanted so badly.
The salt label thing is a bit funny now.
My mother thinks I'm a genius. My father is disappointed. My mother is upset that she couldn't make my father happy through me. She is otherwise lovely. She is the only person who will literally die for me and wants nothing back except for me to be happy. I love her very much.
But everything around me makes me feel like I'm the wrong one. For noticing. For daring to want all this.
People go crazy over 20k a month. And I get it.
But I just cannot relate.
Something is off. For me, I guess.
I always had it, though. The noticing.