DD Late Lateef edition

Act 1:

Dream: man is running fast as a train approaches him from behind honking at full volume as he tries to run faster and faster.

Man wakes up in his apartment alone to the increasing sound of a train honking while passing by. Sweating. It's 5:30. He switches off his 6 am alarm.

Pops a pill out of a strip of 20. It's the 2nd last. 

Goes about his whole day - office, assignments, meetings, lunch, tea, etc. Does everything before time and is praised for it.

Submits assignments before deadline, finishes lunch and resumes work before cutoff hour, comes back early from designated tea break.

Everyone's happy with him. But he looks glum.

Back home, he showers, changes into pyjamas, eats a dabba meal, and tucks into bed half an hour before his designated bedtime of 9 pm.

Act 2:

Dream: kid is running fast as a train approaches him from behind honking at full volume as he tries to run faster and faster.

Kid wakes up in his apartment to the increasing sound of a train honking while passing by. Sweating.

It's 5:30. He disables his 6 am alarm.

Mom praising him as he gets ready for school. Goes about his whole day at school - arriving early, early homework submission, back to class early during lunch break. Does everything before deadline and is praised for it.

Everyone's happy with him but he looks glum.

Back home, he changes into home clothes and goes to tuition. Reaches early. Submits tuition homework earlier than expected. Gets patted on the back.

Still gloomy. Lost in own thoughts.

Back home mom says be back by 8. He comes back by 7:30. Mom heard saying, "Sab bachchon se kitna acha hai yeh. Ekdum change ho gaya hai. Ab saari baatein sunta hai."

Designated bedtime 9 pm. He's in bed by 8:30 pm. Mom comes to his room, smiles and switches off his light.

Act 3:

Kid wakes up to loud sound of the train honking. This is the same kid, but not as we've known him. Disheveled hair, takes a long time to get out of his stupor.

Mom and dad are clearly very annoyed with him. At breakfast mom is heard saying, "Aaj bhi late. Final exam ke din. Koi seriousness hi nahi hai. Jaldi khaake nikal!"

No effect. Kid eats slowly, picks up bag slowly, and is walking out of the house.

Mom: "Voh Anoop ko hi dekho. Padhaai mein first, aur running mein bhi isko peeche chhod diya. Sports day pe first aaya voh."

Kid pauses for a moment. Angry and sad expression on his face. Walks on slowly.

On his way to school, he reaches a railway crossing. Checks time, 7:25. 5 minutes to exam. Starts running towards the perimeter wall of the crossing. Hears someone come running from behind. It's Anoop.

Kid: "Oye."

Anoop: "Chal jaldi."

Kid: "Tu late?"

Anoop: "Mummy ka alarm hi nahi Baja yaar."

Kid: "Toh chal, cross karte hain. Vahan se time lagega."

Anoop: "Pagal hai kya?"

Kid: "Bhaag lenge. Chal jaldi..."

Anoop reluctantly agrees. They line up at the tracks. Kid says, on your marks, get set, go. And he bolts across toward the other side. Hyper focused on getting to the other end, on beating Anoop, he does not notice him.

Anoop runs well, keeping up with kid until the end. Almost. Just 20m before he's able to cross over, he trips on a rail and falls down hard.

Kid doesn't see this. Or maybe sees it but it doesn't register. He wants to win this. He needs to. Izzat ka sawal hai. He keeps running. Reaches the other side. Happy with his victory. It's 7:27. School is right on the other side. He's looking at it. Smiles.

The same sound he's come to dread. The rising honk of the train. It's rising, rising. He looks to his left, no one. To his right, no one. He looks back, and there's Anoop. Regaining his composure. Limping, and just about to launch into a sprint to the finish.

Before kid is able to move his hand to signal no, Anoop has bolted towards him and taken a big leap across the final set of tracks. Either he misjudged the time it would take him to get across or just plain didn't see, but the 7:30 am Rajdhani hits him at full speed, hurtling him far across the distance at a speed so fast the kid's eyes don't even register.

Shock. Disbelief. 

Kid's in the exam hall, furtively writing his paper all sweaty. The examiner calls out, "15 minutes left." Kid slams the paper shut, caps his pen, and hands the paper over to the examiner and leaves in a hurry. Examiner looks at his wristwatch, impressed at the kid's speed. 

Act 4:

Man wakes up in his apartment. Faint sound of train passing in the distance. Pops out last pill out of the 20. Throws the empty strip in the bin.

Opens drawer. The entire chest is full of strips of that pill. He picks out a fresh one, keeps it on his counter. Takes out his phone, it's 5:30 am. He switches off the 6 am alarm and goes about his daily routine. 

DD Bollywood party edition

I'm at an event along with lots of Bollywood stars. I'm in the managing team. We've set up some kind of gaming experience for stars, who are all coming in one by one and trying out the experience.

 
Ajay Devgan is there and so is Hrithik Roshan. Srk is in a playful mood. A fat 20-something woman becomes my friend. She's also a volunteer. She asks me to remove the decorations at the end of the event. 

As we're all coming out there's a lot of noise and chaos. Someone hands me a wad of currency notes saying it's my tip for the night. Deepika and Priyanka are walking out giggling, and Deepika spots me and pulls my cheek. Simi comes running and tries to take the wad from my hand. 

DD Temple Run edition

Me, yash and tanmay bhat are sitting in tanmay's ground floor flat, chitchatting. He shows us a temple outside his window and says that's Maya Kodnani's, she lives in the next building but only comes between 3 and 4 pm. We keep on chitchatting. 

There's an event of some kind for which we're all preparing. I have a gimbal and camera, and I'm on roller skates, so I'm shooting the whole event skating from one end of the hall to the other. Sweety is making pani puri and chaat for the guests at a counter outside. Mom enters the hall. Everyone's looking at me in awe because they've never seen a videographer with a gimbal on skates. I'm embarrassed. 

ADHD, Autism, mental health // culture shift

1. Massive rise in late diagnoses. 

2. More and more people willing to introspect, learn about neurodivergence and self diagnose or search for assessors in their area. 

3. More people okay with getting on and recommending medication to help with their inattention, hyperactivity, focus, etc. 

4. More people willing to consider possibility of consistently poor mental health linked to an undiscovered disability or neurodivergence. 

5. More people seeing it as less of a ‘problem’ with their personalities but rather a disconnect with how our system favours only a small percentage of us. And that the boundaries that define that small percentage are continually narrowing. 

6. More people recognising how much of themselves they’ve been closeting to appear as one among that small percentage of people who the system pushes. 

7. How the system itself is quite dynamic in that it puts up a fight at first but bends if pushed hard enough. 

8. How more of us need to band up to push the system hard enough. 

9. More people slowly realising it might be okay to talk. That everyone has a voice, and that it might not be heard on every platform, but that if you look hard enough, there's a platform for every voice.

Weird day

A strange dream woke me up. In it, I was in a hostage situation somewhere in the outdoors, holed up in a tent, when a group of armed assailants enter. I pretend to be unconscious, and one of them says something to someone else holed up in the tent along with me. 

They take the other person out, and while leaving one of them pumps one bullet into my back, just as a way to make sure I'm dead. And I think to myself - okay, this doesn't hurt just yet. Maybe wait a while. And I'm just lying there. 

Some time later the group returns, and they pick me up by the arms and feet. One guy says to another in some foreign language, "Put him in the pyre with all the bodies." That's when I panic, and I shook myself in my sleep and woke myself up. 

Pillow and sheets were all wet with sweat. 

Slightly post noon I had this important meeting. Didn't want to drive because lately I'm just not able to do distances more than 5 - 10 km and there were no cabs available, so we took a rick. In the smouldering fucking heat. 

I'm pretty sure it was more than just a hot day. It was like a full blown heatwave. And it was extraordinarily breezy too. Suddenly my eye starts to itch uncontrollably. I scratch and scratch, and have Aditi blow into it, but nothing works. Something is stuck in my fucking eye and it's all red. So red it almost seems like I'm high. 

Then somewhere around Bandra, stuck in traffic for more than 20 mins, I have a full blown shutdown. Right before my important meeting. We reach the meeting late, kind of embarrassed because we hate to be late for most important stuff. 

Then the meeting happens. And it's just 40 minutes of awkwardness. We discuss some things, but it doesn't seem like anyone's really happy to be there. We feel small, which I hate feeling. And so we get out, completely clueless about what to make of the past 45 minutes. My eye is still itchy, so there's that to make matters worse. 

We go to a nearby cafe for a snack and a drink, and book a cab for back home. In the cab I'm trying to make some sense of the proceedings of the day while still scratching the shit out of my eye, and by now it hurts so much I can't even look left or right anymore. 

So I decide to shut my eyes and get some sleep. 

When we get home I take a cold shower, opening my eye wide and hoping the thing gets out. Nothing. I put some generic eye drops, and it burns like hell. 

We call up my mom and she suggests going to the eye doctor immediately. Aditi sits me down behind her on the scooter and we scoot off to the eye doc. He anaesthetises my eye, puts a pair of tweezers in and plucks something out. It's a black particle not more than 1mm in diameter. Fucking fuck. We get some antibiotic eye drops and get back home. 

I'm resting and scrolling through my phone. And I come across this strange bit of news: 

"Bathinda Military Station Firing: 4 Army jawans killed; missing INSAS rifle located. 4 jawans sleeping in barracks near officers' mess in Bathinda military station shot dead around 4:35 am Wednesday." 

Sounds freakishly like my dream, so that bothers me a little bit. 

But the whole day's been so weird, I don't know where the dreams start and where they end. Where I fall asleep, and where I'm awake. 

Which of the above actually happened, and which didn't. 

Then comes the night. Even more freaky. There's continuous lighting, loud thunder and heavy rain. It's like someone somewhere is mighty pissed, like something went into their eye and just wouldn't come out. 

And because of that, they've decided to pretty much ruin everyone else's day. 

Uncovering: the neurodivergent themes and motifs of Dhobi Ghat by Kiran Rao

So I recently watched 'Dhobi Ghat' by Kiran Rao, produced by Aamir Khan. A film that released in 2011, and didn't do all that well at the Box Office iirc. Not that that surprises me considering the kind of film it is, but I guess it worked out well that I only just watched it. Probably wouldn't have really understood its various themes and sub-themes (especially the ones related to neurodiversity) if I had watched it way back then. 

So it's definitely a film ahead of its time. Also, so often neurodivergent filmmakers (both Aditi and I think Kiran Rao is neurodivergent) have such a distinctly visceral style of filmmaking. So much is about sights, smells, memories, moods, textures, places, music... inherently sensorial experiences. And being able to capture these things well is also the mark of a brilliant filmmaker, which is why I have never felt that story and plot come above all else. I'm equally happy seeing a filmmaker give time to a character enjoying an activity at their leisure. 

Dhobi Ghat captures a sliver of the lives of four very different people as their paths briefly cross. The backdrop is the city of Mumbai, whose vibe pretty much dictates how the story unfolds. So much of what the story and plot are is because all of it takes place in Mumbai. And that's perhaps why Kiran Rao has said in one interview that the city is the fifth character in the film. 

There's some other elements in the form of themes and motifs that I've identified, which are quintessentially all part of the realm of neurodivergent living. 

1. Video diaries: So many of us absolutely love this format of filmmaking for the freedom it gives you, and the leeway you have in recording your thoughts, feelings and ideas. It is such an accessible and engaging form of capturing a lived experience. It took us back to AHKN S1, which was a hybrid of the video diary format and the documentary format. I really relate to Aamir Khan's character (Arun) getting taken in by the video diaries of the previous tenant (Yasmin) of the apartment he moves into, and using her as a muse for his art. 

2. Sensory seeking: It's so difficult to capture the feeling of touch, smell and sight on film. In that film is quite a neurotypical means of mass communication. But combined with the right mood, music and backdrop, instances of sensory seeking can be beautifully portrayed on film, like Kiran Rao does. There's parts where Aamir Khan goes to the sea and writes Yasmin's name in sand, then feels the sea water running through his fingers. On other occasions he smells some of her jewelry, tastes some of his paint. The way he creates his paintings is also such a stimulatory experience - using wads of sponge and smearing thick blobs of paint across his canvas. These are some very common ways in which neurodivergents make sense of their world and express themselves. 

3. Mood fluctuations: The dynamism of our personalities means every day we wake up feeling differently. Arun is shown to be in a pensive mood at the beginning of the film, right after he has a fling with Shai (Monica Dogra), possibly because he's about to move house, which could be a potential cause for anxiety (very few of us like change). But then later when he's completely entranced by Yasmin's video diaries, he's in such a good mood when Shai comes over by surprise. It's almost like he's a different person altogether. He's also not typically overcommunicative - and is, in fact, shown to be quite a recluse - but Shai's sudden appearance at his doorstep doesn't seem to bother him. Depicts a personality nuance that most would miss. 

4. Hyperfocus & special interests: Arun is shown in hyperfocus multiple times: while watching Yasmin's video diaries, painting, setting up his home. Shai's special interest is photography (and later Arun), and she goes to an under construction building to spy on him. Yasmin's special interest becomes vlogging her life, when her husband leaves her and goes away. 

5. Masked v/s unmasked: My theory is that Shai is a masked ND while Arun is an unmasked one, which is why she starts to fancy him in the first place. But Aditi doesn't agree with me. Arun masks a lot less than Shai, which also goes to show that it is a lot more acceptable for men to be unmasked (and seen as quirky or creative) than it is for women. It could just as well be that Shai is a sensitive neurotypical who falls in love with Arun because she sees the same sensitivity in him as well. Although, I found it quite telling that Shai dismisses the idea that she and Zohaib (Prateik Babbar) shouldn't be hanging out together because she's high society and he's an “uneducated washerman,” as Shai's rich friends put it. 

6. The city as a backdrop for your emotions: The murky bylanes of Mumbai, its roads, street lights, beaches, traffic, subways, trains, slums, its opulence and its poverty all come together to pilot the story. Gustavo Santaolalla provides a very minimal, Indian fusion soundtrack - headlined by the sitar and acoustic guitar - that deftly intensify the pervasive melancholy hanging over the film. 

7. A sense of attachment to places, homes, objects & complete strangers: This shines through when, towards the end, Arun finds out that Yasmin took her own life in the same apartment he's just moved into. This is a woman with whom he's bonded through her video diaries, and never even knew existed until he moved into the apartment. And yet her death leaves him more distraught than when he upset a girl (Shai) he slept with by telling her he's not looking for anything serious. Very few will get the obvious irony here, but I found this to be so telling. There's a moment when Arun looks up at the ceiling where the fan once used to be, and rushes out of the apartment bawling. He soon moves out. 

There's also a non-speaking neighbour whose significance I could not understand, but I guess her all-knowing eyes speak a lot. Nonetheless, this is a bit of casual inclusion I really appreciated. 

Lots of other small things here and there that I'm sure I missed. One thing I found really sad was that they never released a soundtrack as a music album. I wonder why that may be, considering music labels bear the cost of album release and distribution. Or maybe it was different back in the day? 

Ah, for the longest time both Aditi and I have wanted to meet Kiran Rao and figure out a collaboration on something in the non-fiction space. Manifesting it. 🤞🏻 

A Total Keeper

Before I found out I was Autistic, 

I never felt like I belonged. 

Always felt a bit different, 

But different doesn’t mean wrong. 

I feel differently, I think differently 

My ways are unlike most folx 

Quite literally, I’m not wired like you, 

It’s not all an elaborate hoax 

Often it's just all too much 

The sounds, the thoughts, the textures, the sights 

I'll pull back, until it's okay again 

Or I'll stay awake, overthinking all night 

I don't understand work politics 

I don't care for hierarchy 

I'll admire your real qualities 

Even if you think I’m quirky 

And if sometimes I can't stop talking 

About jazz music or football 

Know that it's cuz I love you 

And not cuz I'm a know-it-all 

Sometimes you'll expect me to just 'get' it 

But it’ll go right over my head 

Break it down for me and let it sink in

Don’t let things remain unsaid 

Well, if you ask me, 

I think I'm quite cool 

I've got a thousand special interests 

None of which I learnt at school 

Cuz the world's hard to understand 

It's all implied meanings and subtext 

No one's direct, everything's unplanned 

Everything’s done on some other pretext. 

Like once this guy, he said in whispers 

Don’t bring him along, he’s uncool 

I wouldn’t get it, he thought. So I said to him,

Buddy, I’m autistic… I’m not a fool. 

I can sing, I can dance, I can paint, I can write 

I can dress up and look smoldering hot 

And no matter what all the films may show you 

I'm not really like a prudish robot 

You’ve got to look deeper 

Cuz I'm funny in my own ways 

And I won’t ‘just get over it’ 

Cuz autism isn't just a phase. 

Very soon you'll find a way 

If you go on and look deeper 

To come up to me and say, 

Dude, I think you’re a total keeper. 

And now that I know I’m autistic, 

I’m celebrating the fact that I’m neurodiverse 

Accommodate me, let me self advocate 

Cuz being autistic is not a curse 

radical visibility x fashion...

Emphasizing and celebrating that which is usually obscured. 

Autistic traits - our stims, tics, laughs, facial and bodily expressions - that people might find weird are quite often obscured. This is an integral part of masking. Also takes a toll on our mental health, because these behaviors are second nature to us. 

Radical visibility deals with unabashedly laying claim to these aspects of our autistic personalities and feeling proud of the ways in which we present. It is also using attire and accessories as a conscious extension of who we are. 

To a large extent, at various different points in our lives we've fought hard to be radically visible. Whether or not we've been able to sustain it is a different matter. I've done it by continuing to work hard on 'being myself' in the face of clear resistance from neurotypical-led ideas, settings, and ways of presentation, such as in work groups and client circles. 

For a long time I was naive and believed I would get away with it, that people would eventually see things my way. I guess a lot of us do that. But I can't zero in on that exact point in time when I started to see that this might not be as easy as I think. That getting a whole majority to change the way they see the world and do things doesn't come very easily. 

And that despite putting up a strong fight, I would have to cave. 

Not that the fight to be radically visible has ended. In fact with Spectrum, it has only become more intense. But there are still aspects that I don't quite understand. 

Like clothing and accessorizing, for example. 

I don't think I quite get how to incorporate this aspect of radical visibility into my daily life. I go for comfort wear mainly, but there's situations in that necessitate a strict dress code, like meetings, presentations, sometimes shoots. Earlier I'd wear an undershirt, a shirt and a pair of simple jeans to work. But of late I've been doing just a simple cotton t shirt and a pair of loose jeans. 

While this is comfortable, it's also generic. I don't know if it brings out my personality, but I don't even know what beyond this simple attire could really reflect my personality. Don't know if my personality warrants any more. I like t shirts with quirky messages on them, which I wear every now and then. But I don't know if I want to venture beyond jeans to, say, shorts or leggings or trousers. Maybe trousers and a t shirt, because they're loose and airier than jeans, but what beyond that, if at all? 

Sometimes I want to accessorise, because why not? Dad got both his ears pierced last year, at age 64. I've been meaning to too, but just hasn't happened. So maybe earrings then? Or a nose ring? Or a tattoo? Maybe all three? All I feel I keep oscillating between is a thick beard and a clean shaven look when the hair starts getting itchy. 

Besides, I don't think my fashion sense really extends beyond the basics of everyday wear. And it's comfort-led, which means comfort is prioritized in the things I wear. Also, getting your hands on quirky stuff means spending a lot of time looking for quirky things, which, honestly, I don't have the time or patience for. 

But I'm going to work on this aspect. I'm going to mix and match, I'm going to get a lot more experimental and see what works for me and what doesn't. I'm going to stretch the boundaries of what I think fashion means for me just up until the point where it starts to affect my comfort level with the clothes I choose. 

So while prioritizing comfort, seeing what from my wardrobe goes well with what else. Might post pictures. But mostly will not. Let's see. 

Unmasking Autism: Navigating Puberty, Finding Self Identity, and Dating & Romance | Me As Me

The 2nd episode of #MeAsMe, our campaign with Ummeed CDC, came out on 31st March. This episode featured Aditi, Dan and Maitreya. More diversity, more layers to the narrative. The teams were much happier with how this one turned out. Not that the previous one wasn't good, though. 

I wish we could keep #MeAsMe going. As a series that helps NDs unmask. We could track these stories over time - and bring in new people every now and then - and see how their lives pan out. In some of the queries we get now, parents ask us how our childhood was like. What delays, etc we had, and how we were able to find accommodations for them. 

Would be good to have a longer timeline to present these slice of life stories. 

Of late...

Of late it's been a bit difficult to focus. It's been difficult to set deadlines and get stuff done. Although this hasn't affected our work, it has taken a toll on my health. I fell badly sick right after our Mangalore trip earlier last month. We got back around the 16th, and later that night had our first workshop. While S and A had already worked on most of it, AG & I had to give the presentation. So we all rehearsed and rehearsed nonstop, and the thing ended up going well.

But like the very next evening I started to feel all woozy. By that night I was running a high fever, and by the evening of the next day the thermometer read 104F. Mom panicked and took the first flight down Sunday morning. I rested Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and was all right by Thursday. We had to cancel a shoot Tuesday, which I felt really guilty about, but there was really not much we could do. 

Even after I recovered, though, the inertia never really went away. Task initiation and completion has been a major challenge. Hyperfocus still persists, so once I do start something, I can focus on it quite easily. Especially when coffee is involved. Ideation became a big stressor for me. I literally couldn't come up with any new ideas for a work thing we were planning. Eventually we did come through with the planning (full credit to the team for that) but I kind of surprised myself with how much effort it took me to contribute. 

Could've been a burnout, or a shutdown, or a combination of the two. One thing I've come to realize over the past few months is that my body does require more rest to recharge. Also, not that we don't take enough breaks on a regular work day, but I cannot completely switch off from work either because picking up where I left off is very difficult. Like a diesel engine, my brain takes really long to start up. 

It's actually the WAAD event that we went to some days ago that really jumpstarted my brain into ideation mode once again. Meeting and speaking to the community gave us a bunch of new ideas, and we came back all energized and full of renewed motivation. 

But like PS said on his episode, it's an incredibly lonely journey. More so as an entrepreneur. You're literally only ever with the few people who help you run the show, and that's about it. It's a quiet, little silo that toils away day after day, and beyond a point you're not even sure if you're in charge of it or it is in charge of you. 

On a side note, I think a lot of the ideas that we have currently would be great to implement. But we need a bigger team to handle all this work. Soon, hopefully. Working towards it, taking small strides in all directions.