Analogikal

I can hear the pitchforks getting loaded. I could see your eyebrows rise and you slamming the table and saying, “I knew he had more in common with Andrew Tate than questionable hairstyle and beard choices”. I wanna say, “hear me out”.

Fuck that!

This isn’t a masculinity glorification post, a juvenile behaviour justification post or an anti-feminist pivot. It is journalling.

I am not 17, 21 or 37 years old right now. I am sure of who I am and equally sure of who I am not; both those versions converge at, I won’t stop figuring out both.

The last year has been a lot to work with. However, here we are. Kind of a different version of what I was before all the relationship, cohabitation, entrepreneurship, burnout and rupture. To the disappointment of food delivery apps and to the excitement of grocery stores, I cook a lot. I know that for once in my life, I am truly comfortable with being single. A comfortable sense of inertia is setting in. I am more mindful of my time with my brother, my mother and my niece; fragments of the family I choose to keep. This isn’t context setting. This is journalling.

I have had a confusing journey in figuring out my version of masculinity. I tried being a nerd in my school days; was picked on, molested and abused by classmates. Apparently, having feminine features puts you up as fair game. During my late teens and early twenties I was fairly athletic and got the attention and camaraderie that comes with it. It made me cocky and made me a bully. I didn’t like much of who I was then.

In my mid to late 20s I embraced the artsy, book-reading performative hipster side of things. Read enough Gloria Steinem and Greyson Perry to pass off as a feminist. Read enough Murakami and Douglas Adams to be the right mix of abstract and nerdy. I just wanted to get with women. Hating on men and masculinity was necessary to get some. I complied. I got some. Had my heart broken and stuck in depression for the best part of this time. Equal part self-inflicted and whatever else my partners chose to word it as. In my 30s I really gave up on all the performance and took life as an experience and education. I don’t have to pick a side or stick to it. I was still carrying a lot of bits and pieces from the previous decades. Shrapnels of discarded versions. Cache files from applications that I don’t run any more. I had to face a lot of it over the past few weeks. This one’s an introspection into it. 

Hanumankind – 29.11.2023

I have had my mixed emotions about Hanumankind. Parts of it came from jealousy and the rest from justifying the jealousy. As my brother shared more about the person he is, I gave more consideration to the artist. I stumbled upon his track “Someone Told Me” which led me to listening to his album Monsoon Season. I have now changed my opinion about the artist and the album is on constant repeat.

The track 29.11.2023 isn’t anything remarkable to the ones who wouldn’t get it. It is a simple voice note from what sounds like his mother over a simple ethereal hip hop beat. It is something I would have branded as derivative of what Tyler did, Frank did and Kanye before them. I have appreciated the strong black mother trope. The role Donda played in Kanye’s life and the rapid decline after her demise. The way Tyler’s mother tells him “You are the light. The light is not on you, it’s in you”.

Mallu mothers are not like that. I had a problem with this. I have had my troubles with my relationship with my mother. I have struggled and fought the whole identity of mama’s boy. Because my mother wasn’t a strong, independent, feminist woman. Over the decades, my relationship with her has changed; and so has my perspective on this relationship. I was engrossed in the album when this track jumped at me out of nowhere. It sounded like a voice note I would have heard from my mum. That silent sense of disappointment and longing suppressed with a sense of compassion and consideration. In a voice that is all too familiar. I found myself tearing up. It made me face my own tryst with this relationship. The one constant in my life. It is true; I am a mama’s boy. She taught me compassion, consideration and a never-ending love for food that serves as the bedrock for my love language.

I shared this song with a handful of my friends. Everyone came back with the same thing; mums be the same eh? We are all boys raised by other boys; or so we think. Thing is, we were raised by mothers who let us think we were raised by other boys. As much as they wanted to show us off as their proud achievements and their means of living vicariously a life they couldn’t, they had to learn to let go. They let go first with a protest, then with negotiation and finally with compassion and consideration. This voice note carries it all. The quiet feeling of missing your child, on their birthday, but understanding they are doing their thing, yet you would still want to do the pooja and signing off by saying how you love them. I have received hundreds of these. At this point, being a mama’s boy isn’t a diss. It’s not the insult you think it is. It is a choice. It is mine. 

Overalls, Tattoos and Other Negotiations

I tried something recently. I am well known for my predictable style of dressing over the last 5-6 years. A solid T-shirt, plain beige shorts or blue denim. 99% of the times you would have met me, I would be in some form of this combination. I got a set of overalls, dungarees, call it what you may. I sat with it for a few days. Checked Reddit on how to style it. Realised I probably shouldn’t. Apparently it is for hipsters, LGBTQ people and toddlers. As much as my friends would say I am a toddler, I technically do not qualify as one.

Herein lies the fresh breath that comes with 2026. The parts that I have embraced. I do not live on Reddit. Fortunately, I live in the moment. In the moment I showed the overalls to my niece and her 7-year-old friend, they collapsed on the floor laughing, followed by incessant shrieks of excitement and joy. This, according to her, was the most wonderful piece of outfit. EVER! All the validation I have ever needed. All the opinion that has ever mattered. In one cacophonous, jumbled-up back and forth between Ruhi and her friend.

I wore it out for the first time to an event hosted by a client. Obviously, people were amused. I am the stoic, slightly disciplinarian consultant they are used to. They never expected the whimsy in font selection on my carefully curated slideshows would extend to wardrobe choices. Somewhere during the night, one of the boys I work with was going through pictures from the night. They were appreciating a visibly tattooed chef with a mohawk. They turned to me and went, “You should also do this. Get some badass tattoos. This would look so good on you.” The 14–22-year-old in me would have agreed with them. In fact, he would have gone one step ahead. I am not 22 years old anymore. I am not trying to be cool or have badass tattoos. My tattoos mean something to me. One is about my inherent issues that I am constantly fighting to overcome. One is for the relationship that is the only unconditional one in my life. One is for the friendship that traverses everything. I don’t want to set context or explain. I just responded saying, “I wanna be cute. Leme be cute.” We all laughed it off.

I am not subscribing to a version of masculinity, but I am not trying to run or shy away from it. I felt the need to refuse and denounce masculinity because it was toxic. It’s probably not a monolith. There are shades and grades to it. There’s nuance to it. I am learning it. Maybe the way I see it changes. For now, I am learning to sit with this. 

Vaazha 2: Biopic of a Billion Boys

I cringed at the first part. It is a movie about a billion boys. I had told myself, I am nothing like those boys. Because I was god’s special creation. Because I had embraced wokeness, feminism and everything that I thought would let me distance myself from toxic masculinity. I wasn’t like any of those boys. After all it was a movie about boys being boys with other boys. It was a movie, as my ex described, that falls into the men-doing-things-to-men genre of cinema. I had adopted this lens for a while. A friend played the movie over the weekend and I was forced to sit there to be a good host.

The movie grew on me. Then it hit far too close to home. When the two brothers patched their relationship, when another friend lost his father, and finally when the brother answers his sister’s question on “who will give the money?” with an age old joke between the two of them, “Who, but me?”. Turns out, I am not god’s special child. In a lot of ways, I am just one of the billion boys. Between a father who never turned up, a mother who loved without knowing how to communicate and extended family that told us we were never enough, we had to learn our own way of existing in the world. Some learnt how to play the game better. You can attribute our success to intelligence, privilege or everything in between. I came across a quote by Shaq the other day: “Just because I have more than them, doesn’t mean I am better than them”. I have been sitting with this for a while now.

I wrote this down because I have been caught in a whirlpool of information and reflection. This is me coming to a slow conclusion about how offering consideration and kindness is something I can extend to my fellow boys and men as well. Not everything needs to be a me vs them.

2026 has been a year of reinvention. I am relearning my relationship with myself and coincidentally I am relearning the same with my fellow men. I had lost the nuance for a little while there. Primarily because I was reduced to labels and definitions. I don’t have to be defined by my labels or by my responses to them. The truth is that the blessing and privilege in life is choosing to be who you want, need and have to be. For now, I am choosing to be a loving uncle, a caring friend, a compassionate colleague, a supportive brother and a mama’s boy. Till next time.