VARSHA MENON

In her rented one-BHK apartment across town, Mithila spent her days helping her friend with blog posts and menu planning for a food app. And her nights writing meaningless content for clients. The firecrackers bursting in the distance didn’t faze her anymore, she had learned not to flinch. Her anxiety hadn’t disappeared, dysmenorrhea showed up on schedule, and sleep remained an elusive dream. In the stillness of the night, she found herself observing the rhythm of her life, defined by the honesty of its madness.

The madness wasn’t new. A faint smile curled on Mithila’s lips, the kind that appears when the past, with all its bittersweet lessons, gently taps you on the shoulder to remind you who you’ve become. Her smile deepened as her eyes caught the gifted bottle of perfumed disinfectant Ani once brought, a quiet nod to the quirks that shaped her and the friendships that understood them.

It had always been there, flowing through Kochi’s streets and slipping into her tiny PG room, a 10×10 space headlined by a ceiling fan that wheezed like a KSRTC bus on its final Nilambur route. Nights in the PG were ruled by two restless souls: Mithila, abandoned by sleep, and Ani, who treated sleep like an unnecessary luxury.

Mithila lay in the dark, her bed a quiet island. The streetlights spilling patterns on the ceiling. Through the window, she saw Ani walking. Ani’s entrances were as dramatic as her presence. She arrives at 12 am, trailing the scent of cigar smoke and secrets. The men escorting her often resembled villains from 1980s Malayalam movies, sharp suits and sharper attitudes. Rumors about Ani flew faster than Kochi’s traffic: a part-time call girl or a woman with mysterious connections to local big shots? Yet, Ani defied all narratives, cutting through the gossip with surprising honesty and a magnetic charm.

“Why are you wearing such a dull-colored kurta, Mittu?” Ani asked one weekend night, unwrapping porotta like a pro. The faint glow of the streetlight filtered through the window in the dining hall, casting shadows on the modest table where they sat.

Mithila sighed. “I’m comfortable this way.”

Ani smirked. “No, you’re invisible. Comfort is just another word for hiding.”

Under Ani’s coaching, Mithila traded her socialist kurtas for capitalist dresses, wielded kajal like a weapon of mass distraction, and accessorized her way to a newfound identity. For the first time, she felt seen, not by the world scrolling through Instagram reels, but by herself, as though she’d finally glanced into a metaphorical mirror and said, “There you are, you elusive lil narcissist.”

When Mithila’s dysmenorrhea turned her body into a battlefield, Ani sat beside her, quiet but present, offering ginger tea with unexpected tenderness. She dragged Mithila to doctors, and even tried to teach her breathing exercises.

Mithila’s life was chaos wrapped in anxiety. Sleepless nights were haunted by the shadow of Aditya, her ex, who had left her with a shattered ego and a playlist of insecurities. The dead-end gig writing motivational drive for legacy clients didn’t help either.

It was Ani who pushed her to quit.
Ani played “Now We Are Free” from Gladiator as a symbolic gesture of Mithila’s newfound freedom, a moment she had tirelessly encouraged her to embrace. As the music swelled, Mithila felt a weight lift, her laughter breaking through. “Finally! You’re free!” Ani cheered louder than a Thrissur Pooram crowd.

Freelancing wasn’t glamorous, but it paid the bills. Mithila spun words for her new clients thriving in the anonymous vibe of gig work’s nameless hustle.
Through it all, Ani remained her constant.
But one night, Mithila confronted her. “You don’t have to keep doing this, Ani. You’re smart, resourceful. Why… this?”

Ani laughed, a bitter sound that echoed like an unanswered question. In a detached way, she added, “No, thanks. Stay out of it, Mittu.”

Mithila realized then that she couldn’t stay. Ani’s world was too chaotic, and Mithila needed space to rebuild her own. As she moves out, Ani hugged her tightly. “Don’t let this city eat you alive, Mittu.”

In her solitary apartment, Mithila worked late into the night. Her life was neither calm nor easy. It was raw and relentless, but it was hers.

_{കവർ: ജ്യോതിസ് പരവൂർ}

The Government Higher Secondary School where Maya worked wasn’t so much a building as it was a passive-aggressive statement against civilization. Cracks in the walls seemed to be a symbol of overall neglect. Every morning, Maya stood at the gate holding her bag like a riot shield, bracing herself for the war of mediocrity.

The students called her “Maya Ma’am” with the sort of exaggerated respect usually reserved for their Math teacher who speaks in riddles – acknowledging her presence while secretly hoping she’d just go away.

Her first lesson in history wasn’t about ancient kings or freedom struggles. It was the truth that her job didn’t matter. And the second lesson – neither did anything else.

Comedy of errors:

Maya’s career began with a clerical error – someone in the education department must’ve been more concerned with their tea break than accuracy. She wasn’t meant to teach. Her only previous experience with authority was trying to stop her husband, Dhananjay, from wearing his outdoor slippers inside the house. The slippers always won.

When the principal – a lean man whose face looked permanently stuck between disbelief and annoyance – welcomed her, he said, “We need someone to inspire the students.” His tone suggested he needed someone to endure them instead. Maya suppressed a sigh and began mentally composing a list of reasons why she took this job in the first place, hoping it would remind her to stay positive, at least for the day.

The Classroom:

Day one in the classroom felt like stepping into the audition for a low-budget Malayalam movie directed by a clueless amateur. The overachievers in the front row sat poised like they were ready to publish a savage review the moment she faltered. The middle-row kids yawned with synchronized indifference. And the backbenchers – ready with TikTok memes and snack packets, they were the local equivalent of rebels.

“Ma’am,” one of them asked with the audacity of youth, “why should we bother with history?”
Maya paused, scanning their bored faces. Then she replied, “Because it’s the study of why people like you shouldn’t exist.” The class burst in to laughter.

Domestic Detachment:

Home wasn’t much better. “What’s for dinner?” Dhananjay asked one evening, flipping channels on the TV.
“Cyanide,” Maya uttered. She had picked up the term from a Netflix documentary, Curry and Cyanide, which had become her accidental lifeline of late.

“Add some turmeric, bell peppers and onions. It tastes better that way and good for your health” he replied without blinking. Maya stared at him, not sure whether to laugh or cry. The truth was, she didn’t feel marriage so much as secured, it felt like being the unpaid intern in a start-up called “His Life”

Their marriage wasn’t a partnership; it was a maintenance contract. Maya didn’t even feel resentment anymore – just an overwhelming urge to ghost her own life.

Medication and Tantrums:

Maya’s life was governed by a delicate balance of SSRI’s, beta blockers, and caffeine. The pills kept her upright, functional, and barely human. If she missed a dose, the withdrawal symptoms hit like a tsunami – her heart racing, her vision blurring, her mind collapsing into dark little pockets of paranoia.

One day, she forgot her meds before class. The students were halfway through reenacting a scene from Baahubali using their desks when Maya slammed her textbook onto the table. “Sit down!” she screamed, her voice cracking like old furniture.

“Ma’am, are you okay?” a boy asked, his voice infused with genuine concern.
“No,” Maya replied. “But let’s pretend I am.” The laughter that followed was the closest thing to therapy she’d had in weeks.

By month two, Maya stopped pretending to care about the syllabus. Maya’s lessons became part lecture, part stand-up comedy, and part therapy sessions. The students liked her, not because she taught well, but because she didn’t care about her own teaching. “Learning happens despite me, not because of me,” was her favorite excuse.
“History is meaningless,” she declared once. “Unless you like stories about dead people screwing up.”

“What about Gandhiji, Ma’am?” someone piped up.
Maya shrugged.“Think of him as that one person in your WhatsApp group who keeps forwarding motivational quotes.”

A backbencher shouted, “Maya Ma’am, I saw your Instagram page! You’ve shared Pakalu Papito memes – no wonder!”

Existential IBS:

Maya’s only refuge was the school toilet – ironically, the most stable part of the crumbling campus, courtesy of her IBS, but she’s not confined to the solitude. She’s got Andrew Huberman in her ears, turning a gut battle into a brain gain. Talk about making the most out of a crappy situation.

At home, Dhananjay noticed nothing. Or maybe he noticed everything and just didn’t care.
“Want a new phone?” he asked once, mid-dinner.
“No. I need a new life,” Maya shot back.
“Do they sell those on Amazon?” Dhananjay asked. He smiled, pleased with his own joke.

Maya felt like the tragic protagonist of a drama series, complete with melancholic violin music and a spotlight on her unwavering sense of inadequacy. Truly, a masterclass in self-inflicted cringe.

The Renaissance Breakdown:

The turning point came during a lecture on Michelangelo. Exhausted and unmedicated, Maya broke down mid-sentence. “Imagine painting a ceiling for years,” she moaned, “only for people to say, ‘Nice’ and move on.”

“Ma’am,” a girl hesitated, “are you saying Michelangelo wasted his life?”
“Yes, and so am I!”

The students clapped slowly at first, then louder. Maya couldn’t tell if it was mockery or solidarity. She didn’t care.

Epilogue of Absurdity:

Years later, one of her students wrote a book and dedicated it to her. “Maya Ma’am taught us that history is just humanity’s longest inside joke,” it read. She placed the book on a pile of unpaid bills, smiled faintly, and uttered, “At least someone got it.”

Then she made herself coffee, prepared some food, took her meds, and faced another day. Not heroic, not tragic – just absurdly human.

Jasmine startled awake, her breath catching in her chest. The faces she’d painted that day remained in her mind, a gallery of expressions now haunting her dreams. Some offered faint, unsettling smiles; others held a quiet judgment. She lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling, the echo of her own laughter from earlier now feeling hollow. By morning, she would shrug it off, using humor like a thin coat against the chill of memory.

It had started with Riya. The woman next door, the quiet enigma everyone spoke of in hushed tones. Riya worked as a mortuary makeup artist. A title whispered as if saying it too loudly might invite bad luck. Jasmine had always thought Riya was a little offbeat, someone who walked comfortably in places most people avoided. So when Riya called her over one afternoon and handed her a brush, Jasmine assumed it was a one-time thing. Until then, Jasmine had received some guidance from her aunt, who worked as a makeup artist in a small salon.

The room was dim and smelled of antiseptic, the air heavy with the kind of stillness only the dead bring. “Help me with this one,” Riya said, as if asking for help with any ordinary task. Jasmine stared, her stomach twisting. Her fingers trembled as she took the brush, feeling like she was crossing a line she didn’t fully understand. She muttered, “Well, at least she won’t complain if I mess up,” hoping to puncture the silence. Riya’s lips twitched, almost a smile, before she returned to work. Jasmine clung to the humor like a life raft. It kept the fear at bay.

Not everyone understood why Jasmine kept returning to Riya’s studio. When her friends asked, she’d respond with a deadpan joke: “The clientele doesn’t complain, and I’ve got job security like no other.” They’d laugh, unsure whether to be amused or horrified.

Then came the day when Riya fell ill. Jasmine received a call to handle things alone. A renowned actor, a man with his larger-than-life roles, now reduced to this silent figure. Jasmine stood over him, trying to reconcile the image she knew with the reality before her. She whispered, “You’ve got the best seat in the house for this makeover”.

That night, she dreamed of him. He sat across from her, his gaze steady and unyielding. She reached out, but her hand passed through him, and she woke with a start. The joke from earlier replayed in her head, now thin and brittle. But she leaned on it anyway; without it, she wasn’t sure how to keep going.

One afternoon, as she worked with Riya, the older woman paused, looking at her with those unflinching eyes. “Are you scared to do makeup on the dead?” she asked, her voice soft but pointed. Jasmine laughed. A quick, reflexive response. The memory came suddenly: she was a child again, sitting cross-legged with her friends as one of them spun a ghost story. Shadows, whispers, and a ghost that crept into beds. She’d laughed nervously, but when the story turned darker, she’d bolted, sprinting all the way home without stopping. Back in the present, standing in that dim room, she shook her head, an ironical smile playing on her lips. “Scared? No, not me,” she said, the lie floating somewhere between them.

In another memory, Jasmine stands beside Riya, watching her work with a calmness Jasmine couldn’t comprehend. Riya moved with an ease that seemed impossible, as if the weight of what they did barely touched her. Jasmine cracked a quiet joke, hoping it would lighten the room’s oppressive air: “Guess she won’t mind a little extra eyeliner.” Riya barely reacted, but Jasmine kept talking, each joke a small rebellion against the gravity of their work.

Over time, Jasmine’s jokes became part of her rhythm. But the faces she painted started appearing in her dreams, expressions fixed, eyes watching. She’d tell her friends, “It’s a 24-hour job when you work with the dead,” and they’d laugh, believing she was fearless. But at night, in the dark, the laughter faded, leaving her with a growing unease.

One evening, she walked alone through Fort Kochi’s quiet streets, stopping by the water’s edge. She stared at her reflection, distorted by the ripples, and muttered, “At least none of my clients ghosted me today.”

The next day, she returned to the studio. She spoke to the silent faces, quips that only she could appreciate. Her fear and humor coexisted, a fragile balance that made the work bearable, even if it didn’t make it easy.

People started to whisper about her work, about the woman who brought something indefinable to her final portraits. Her humor stayed, woven into her process, even as she kept the dreams, the anxiety, and the fragility hidden. Each dark quip, each joke whispered into the silence, became a part of her story — a reflection of the contradictions she’d come to accept.

In the end, Jasmine did it with a knowing smile. A way to keep the darkness at bay. Her craft was about breaking the silence, staring down fear, and finding room for laughter, even in the shadows.

_{Cover: Jyothis Paravoor}