On Going Missing (But Not Gone)
You only realize you’ve gone missing when someone calls your name and you don’t flinch.
I have been missing, though not in a tragic heroine way that deserves a paperback cover or a Netflix docuseries. I didn’t run off to Paris or Goa. I simply disappeared into the folds of South Delhi’s late summer—a season when Sainik Farms looks like a set designed by a trust fund kid who believes bougainvillea is an aesthetic philosophy. Every evening, I’d drive in circles, half-hoping to find some clue about myself at a roadside chai stall, half-hoping I’d run into an ex so I could prove my existential glow-up.
Instead, I collected people like they were spare buttons - useless until you lose something that matters. A lawyer cousin who dropped out to start a vegan candle brand, a college acquaintance now obsessed with gut cleanses and followers, the toxic aunt with enough Botox to paralyze a small nation. They all show up like recurring cameos in my quiet sitcom.
My mother calls me “ageing,” as if I’m a carton of milk expiring under the Gurgaon sun. “Beta, everyone is getting engaged. You can’t just write all day and expect Vishnu to send you a husband,” she says, half-praying to her temple shelf and half-praying to Dior.com. To her, I am somewhere between a social embarrassment and an abstract art project she can’t explain to the relatives.
Maybe I am ageing. Or maybe I’m just peeling off layers of expectations like a stubborn sticker on a champagne bottle. Who decides when a woman peaks? I’m 25, but according to my mother’s face at the last family luncheon, I might as well be 40 and barren with a questionable haircut.
Meanwhile, friends from law school are now engaged to men named Kabir who work in Dubai, or in “family business” (which is usually code for running vague real estate scams). It’s not that I don’t believe in love. I believe in it the way I believe in luxury skincare - expensive, exhausting, and often more marketing than reality.
The News Is Worse Than Gossip
When I wasn’t obsessing over my own so-called timeline, I found myself scrolling through news that felt like performance art. Politicians launching yet another “clean-up drive” in Delhi while garbage hills in Ghazipur tower like Himalayan peaks. Billionaires flying their dogs in private jets. Couples hosting destination weddings while half the city is gasping in smog.
The irony isn’t lost on me. It feels like we are all living in a simulation where everyone’s main job is to outdo each other’s curated happiness. Even rage has a hashtag.
The other day, I read about a woman in Noida who spent 3 lakhs on a manifestation coach to attract her “soulmate.” I laughed until I realized I’ve also burned thousands on yoga retreats and crystal grids that claim to “align your aura.” It’s all the same circus. Some of us just wear better costumes.
On God, My Quarter-Life Crisis, and Poolside Existentialism
In the past two months, I’ve written extensively on God. Not to God. Not about God. Just on God, like he’s a thesis subject I can deconstruct with enough caffeine. I wrote about Lakshmi while watching rich aunties at poolside luncheons, dripping diamonds like they were pearls of wisdom. I wrote about Shiva while sneaking cigarettes behind potted palms, hoping for a lightning bolt of transcendence that never came.
Every day feels like a rebirth, but not in a poetic way. More like waking up hungover from my own thoughts. I cling to epiphanies the way people cling to face serums, convinced this will fix me. My desire for purpose has overtaken my need to just exist. It’s like I’m constantly trying to pass an invisible exam no one is grading.
Entropy at Luncheons
The last luncheon I attended, someone whispered that I had “lost weight, but not in a good way.” I smiled. I have learned that South Delhi women speak in euphemisms: “Have you been travelling?” means “You look tired.” “Your skin is glowing” means “You’ve clearly spent a fortune on facials.” Everyone is pretending, every day. And I don’t know what would happen if we stopped.
Would social order collapse? Would we stop smiling at people we loathe? Would we finally admit that no one is actually “fine,” that life is basically an ongoing Ponzi scheme of emotional debts we never repay?
I’m not sure. But I do know that my silence, long celebrated as grace by my family - has been killing me in increments. I’m done gulping down my anger like bitter espresso just to make people comfortable. Silence might be golden, but it’s also the reason people assume you’re breakable.
Quarter-Life Madness as Normalcy
I’m beginning to suspect that my current state - this psychotic blend of clarity and exhaustion- is more normal than the life my friends parade on Instagram. Maybe we are all just bruised peaches, pretending our spots are freckles.
Some days I want to rebel against everything: against the toxic aunts, the corporate ladder, the subtle misogyny of being told “a good girl doesn’t shout.” Other days I just want to sit with my lilies, my lavender, my dog-eared books, and be left alone.
I think of Joan Didion writing about Los Angeles like it was a mirage of dreams and decay. South Delhi is my LA except it’s more likely to be a BMW honking behind a cow on the road. There is poetry in the absurdity, but it takes a certain madness to see it.
The Epilogue I’m Still Writing
I don’t know if this is a comeback or just me surfacing for air. All I know is that every time I put words down, I feel less like a carton of expired milk and more like a woman trying to understand why lilies bloom even in polluted air.
Maybe that’s enough. For now.