Mofos and hoe-bros
Arjun Mohan doesn’t know how good the natural lighting in his house is. When he’s picking at his guitar and crooning with his sexy tortured voice—then he knows which lighting and angle would endear him most broody. But selfie lighting is something Arjun Mohan is least bothered by. His camera roll is filled with pictures of lizzy, him and lizzy, some more lizzy, sports related photos, and memes. And more Liz. Selfies, hardly. I, like what I believe the average young woman today does, take selfies nearly every day.
This is the beginning of a list of negligible differences between me and Arjun Mohan — a duo which, as we discovered today, has been friends for five years.
Arjun Mohan very rarely does selfies and does not have a picture of Vinithra, his best Chennai friend, on his fridge. He blames his mother for not printing one while some Chennai faces he hasn’t spoken to in years grin up at me from the fridge. Vinithra does selfies every day and has no pictures of anyone but her and her cats at home. And celebrities, duh.
Arjun Mohan plays sports every day. Vinithra blearily wishes she could sport every day.
Arjun Mohan vapes and has lost weight — an activity that he and I have been rueing since the day we met. Vinithra smokes lesser than usual but more than she should, and is still struggling with the fitness shit. She got muscle but she also inconsistent as hell.
Vinithra listens to music “like a construction worker” in Arjun Mohan’s words, when he walked into his house and I was ready to leave with Chalte Chalte Yunhi blasting from the back-pocket of my jeans. Arjun listens to music with high levels of technique and storytelling. Dreamup Wakeupum is a jam that only Vinithra would savour.
Arjun Mohan turns around 360 degrees when he sleeps and that’s why he and Vinithra did not share a bed when she visited and crashed at his place, for the first time in five years.
This is one of the friendships that I want to call into analytics. We both cackle at dad jokes and talk about the graces and disgraces of humans between mouthfuls of mental health revelations. We enjoy music, pot and stillness. Our conversations span the universe, our feelings, our failures, Arjun Mohan teaching me math, me retorting with “well I get laid more than you so suck on yo math mofo”, relationship duress, the rules of sex, pop culture, and why lizzy is the best dog in the whole world. We are at that age where every second sentence gives way to an existential conversation. We have a lot in common and we give off a very bratty sibling vibe together.
But after five years of friendship and the first time of staying overnight together in one of the other’s houses — it is evident that we are both so individualistic that we are coming into the realization that we may not be able to bend enough to accommodate another human into our spaces. And as the last of the single folks who think they are cool to be living by themselves and lament about the fallacy of the standards they’ve set— we are the loneliest motherfuckers out there.
It’s a tough gig, to balance loneliness and independence. The both of us are eager for companionship but not so keen to compromise on the independence that broke us and made us.
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What I have in a system of great friends and a roster of dalliances, he has through his family.
I visited Arjun Mohan’s parents for the first time and they are quite cool. They live in another block in the same apartment and I envy Jun this perfect blend of access and distance that he shares with his parents. They won’t come to his place unless invited so he has great privacy — but he sees them every day. For meals, dog walks, carrom, tennis and other sports with his father and an extended family unit which is more in touch than others. A really close cousin and his parents also live in the same apartment in another block.
Last night we went up to his folks place for dinner of vegetable ramen followed by santoor kheer for desert and after that — get this — they set up the board and we played, all four of us, till 29 points. Like in the pros, eh. Uncle and I won — they said I was a fast learner, proud little Vin danced around my insides. All while Curb your Enthusiasm played on tv as Lizzy lounged within petting distance.
This morning, we went there for some righteous poha, vada and piping coffee — after which we all watched the news for a while.
I now envy Arjun Mohan more for the relationship he has with his family, proximity notwithstanding. They debate, play together, share responsibilities and more than anything else — they really know who he is.
At bedtime, Lizzy slept next to me on the bed and my heart swelled as I hugged her to sleep. I’ve never had a dog. Four cats and many strays but never a dog at home. I’ve also never had a relationship with my parents or family where we talk nearly every day filling each other in on everything and nothing, knowing what’s going on in each others’ lives.
When I feel a burgeoning need to belong somewhere, I escape into the worlds of my friends. All of whom seem to have family units that are closer and more familiar than mine. Not just Arjun Mohan. Before my trip lead to Arjun Mohan’s house in Bangalore, I was traveling with girlfriends all of whom also spoke to their families nearly every day.
I have spent the last many years trying to figure out what kind of friendship I can share with my parents.
Achan and I are those old friends who used to be super tight and popular, and shared a great joke in school. We now hold on to our frail thread of a relationship by rehashing the same joke weekly. Weakly.
Amma and I are friends who have nothing in common but love each other and are doing our very best to not become complete strangers.
This means voice notes, photos and videos — keeping in touch without needing their response to validate my life and experiences.
The most acceptable way to belong after a certain age is to have legitimacy in familial equations. Either in the one you were born into or in one that you build. Nearly everyone I know is either seeing someone or married — and I find myself being a professional third wheel.
Within the worlds of my friends’ families, I find myself rushing into the mother’s embrace and winning the father’s respect and admiration. I don’t entirely know how to feel about that but being one of the spokes in a wheel that makes up a family that unconditionally understands who you are and doesn’t make you feel the need to hide — is a far better place to be than caught unawares between couples with a mortgage and a child on the way.
So is the loneliness harder for me — who has a roster of flings and friends but no familial foundation that makes me relatable and accessible? Or is is harder for Arjun Mohan — who has the latter but not the former? Our privilege of independence allows us to mull over these questions while Arjun Mohan strums his guitar with the perfect thinking music.
On my last day at Bangalore, all five of us sat at the table for meals, Lizzy included. Father and son talked with ease about events across the world and whether India would qualify in pole vaulting. Mother and son exchanged affections and chores. Mother kept up a steady string of childish babble to Lizzy, who is the good-est most beautiful girl ever.
As for me? I watched and found myself once again desperately weaving my way into the fabric of an existing family — wanting warmth and cuddles.
Arjun Mohan and I both open our homes to other people with a certain trepidation. One that dances on the taut wire of “when will they leave” and “I hope they never do.”
Maybe this is the year we open ourselves and our spaces to more people. To each other, definitely. And maybe this is the year Arjun Mohan takes more selfies because Vinithra showed him how good the lighting in his house is, and we took one. :)
