The choices you make are yours after all

In the classic Sex And The City episode, ‘A Woman’s Right To Shoes’, Carrie — a successful, single writer — attends a birthday party for the child of an old friend. She is requested to remove her shoes at the door. When she goes to retrieve them as she leaves, she finds that someone with the same size and very little impulse control has strutted off in them. Specifically in $485 Manolo Blahnik heels.
After a few days, Carrie sheepishly goes back to check if the shoes may have turned up. Her friend offers to pay for them, balks at their cost, tells Carrie she finds it ridiculous and gives her less than half instead. She thoroughly shames her for what she calls an ‘extravagant lifestyle’ and compares it unfavourably against her choices: kids, houses and the like.

Carrie leaves, feels awful, and eventually comes to her senses: if she has spent large sums of money on gifts for this friend at all the ‘milestones’ of her life (most recently, her child’s party), why does her friend begrudge the achievements of hers just because they don’t involve matrimony and mortgages? She finds an ingenious way to prove her point that plays right into her friend’s bourgeois worldview.
I recently watched this episode again after many years and found myself quite emotionally invested in it. I identified with Carrie’s shame and indignation, and wished for myself her audacity in fixing the situation. Instead of stewing in a pot of polite resentment, as I’ve been doing.

In October, I had not one but two new books published: The High Priestess Never Marries and The Ammuchi Puchi. My social media feeds now alternate between the evocative red of the first’s cover and the vibrant jewel tones of the second’s pages. But each time I talk or share about my books, I feel guilty and apologetic. Because you see, ultimately, devotion to art is not seen as legitimate in the eyes of most of society. It’s the thing you do because you’re selfish. It’s the thing you do because you snub approved goalposts. It’s the thing you do because a girl like you with so much time on her hands needs a hobby. I don’t believe any of that. But I’m affected by it. What a catch-22: if I didn’t care, I wouldn’t have made the labours of love that I have made.

Why should I feel like I’m hustling when all I’m doing is showing you my heart? And my heart isn’t composed of hashtags, it isn’t crowdsourced attention, it isn’t app-friendly. My heart isn’t the hubris of overnight success, it isn’t borrowed or bought.
Not your baby’s first poop, but my baby’s first reader. Not my selfie of the day, but my selfhood woven in words. Not a smile plastered on in hungover honeymoon photos, but the tears I wasn’t afraid to let anyone see. Not a posh new address on Papa’s money, but the sanctuary I am building with my own hands and the gifts and curses life gave me.
I cheer on the choices you make. Why can’t you cheer on the chances I take?
(The Chennai-based author writes poetry, fiction and more)

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