Regression Analysis

Driving down Marine Drive yesterday with Dad, I noticed these billboards asking people to log on to a website to share their deepest regrets, names, emails, tell their friends to do so, and I thought, "How negative."

Now, I have to mention here, I've spent the last three years of my life away from India (in phoreign) and I know, through my own sense of self, and what close family and closest friends who have known me for ages have told me, that I have changed a lot. I guess it comes from being the same person in a different environment. Different strengths and weaknesses come to the foreground; they have a chance to find themselves. I've found that I've grown in confidence, there's a can-do attitude to life, things may be challenging but there is nothing I can't cope with.

I used to be a huge whiner when I was last living here (I'm phoreign returned twice over now, thrice, if you count childhood). What is important is that I had finally knocked a whole bunch of demons out of my system; that sense of everything being 'mara-mari', 'arguments’, ‘annoyances', 'life is one big struggle','cry over spilt milk', 'if only', 'this only happens in India', 'how can I ever succeed?', 'I have no skills that count for anything tangible (they're all great and interesting, but can I put food on the table with them?)'.

So, these hoardings casually demand we feed the web with our regrets really were the pits. Feed on our defeatist worst? No thank you. They're pointless, ill thought, in bad taste, and in spite of their rather well designed minimalist text on white background (that stood miles out from the rest of the advertising blur that is Mumbai), they really should be ignored. Crap like this can't get to me. I'm beyond all that now.

Dad and I drove to where we needed to go and started to do what we needed to do. That's when Dad and I (and please know that I love him very much) had one of our usual arguments about doing it this way vs. doing it that way. I'm hell bent on one approach, he on the other, and I find the blood rushing up to my face, and going into one of those familiar patterns of familial confrontation that I haven't really had to deal with or participate in for ages. You know, the kind of aggravation that you can only feel with people who love and care for each other massively. I sensed a raucous argument over something so incredibly trivial-yet-suddenly-so-important was about to happen. I left the room. Went down to the basement garage, sat in the car, turned on the AC and waited to cool down. That’s when I felt it, right there, in the pit of my solar-plexus. The trigger. I started to think things like this wouldn't be happening if I were back in London. I could actually lead my life without every second thing I do being questioned, I could actually make decisions for myself, &c. &c. &c.

The details of the thought process aren't important; the point is I regressed massively. I sat there in that car, and every one of my demons that I thought I had knocked out of my system from the last time I was living in India came back. The less confident me, the one that whined, who always looked at others benchmarks for life’s successes. That angst ridden, unhappy creature was sitting behind the wheel, it was as if the last 3 years hadn’t existed.

Fortunately, I tend to step out of my self when things like that happen, watch it, and think, "Wtf? I'm past this. Get over it, its just a natural regression, you know that none of these things your thinking are true.” (Sure, I'm feeling every bit of the downward spin, but its like staying conscious during the panic, and knowing that its just that a momentary panic - I think its a trick I picked up during Vipassanna).

Back in the car, driving back down the Drive. I saw the billboard again. Tell us your deepest regrets. Suddenly, it felt a lot more sinister, real, pointed at me. "You thought you could just ignore my magical lure?" Not so easy to dismiss this time.

It is clear that there are going to be a few more moments like this in life. It isn’t so easy to remember that I used to have issues about things in London as well, and got past those as well. So, not really the city is it? Sure, new environment, different strengths and weaknesses will come forward, and some will get pushed under. But handling it? Handling yourself? Its not the place, its the person. So my response to theidiotswhowantustoregretstuff.in (I won't dignify by pointing out thier URL), I have none, go blend in with the rest of hoarding skyline that is Mumbai, and leave us the f*** alone.