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Sunena Maju

@sunena_maju

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Happy end of September. 🌅 by @sunena_maju

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17 days ago

After my workout class today, I was craving orange juice. So I walked to the Trader Joe’s near my place. But, there was a line outside. I haven’t become that big of a TJ person that I’m willing to stand in a line, so I went to the Target nearby, got no-pulp orange juice (I hate pulp), grabbed the high-protein, low-fat, weird-tasting peanut butter ice cream and checked out.

But as soon as I stepped outside, I paused for a few seconds right by the exit door. The sunset was nothing like I had ever seen. Everyone on the streets had paused. People were just standing and looking up. In New York, that rarely happens. Sidewalks are one of the few places where you are really not supposed to stop. They are made for movement and movement only. The closest movie scene I can find to compare it to is one where a surprising asteroid hits the earth and the fire lights up the entire sky, and everyone just stops to look up.
We came pretty close to that collective response today, except with joy.

I took the long route home and took 27 photos of the sunset. And then it came to me: “Watch the most beautiful sunset.” It is one of the things on my bucket list.
I have seen many beautiful sunsets, in many different cities around the world. But nothing had ever made me want to cross that one off. Until today. This was it!

A sunset I accidentally saw while walking home from a Target carrying orange juice and ice cream, on a completely ordinary Friday evening, wearing workout clothes, in a place I now call home, was THE best sunset of my life.

It’s funny. Every time I plan a trip somewhere, I have this thought in the back of my head: maybe this is where I will see the best sunset of my life. And I make sure to see as many sunsets as I can in every place I visit. I always thought it would happen somewhere else. At one of those picturesque locations.

Maybe we run away looking for the most beautiful moments because every day feels so mundane. And then, in those very ordinary days do the best things happen.✨ by @sunena_maju

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22 days ago

I save a lot of reels and posts, organized into folders—recipes, places to visit, design and architecture, and one called Saved-but-not-Liked.’ The last one has all the posts that made me cry, which I never liked because the newer Instagram update lets people see what you like. Today I was reading through a reel and started thinking, “There is nothing more I want in this world than this.” But I would never want another person to know that. So I just saved it there.

Then I started thinking if this was my digital equivalent of highlighting and writing on the edges of books. I have a habit of highlighting lines I love or resonate with (also why I am overprotective about my books). I do this knowing that no one else is going to read my copy.
I sometimes get books at the libraries or second-hand bookshops with highlights and notes. I love them! It feels like an entry into another person’s mind. I once picked up a book from a library and it had an unsent letter inside. It didn’t reach who it was addressed to. But me, a stranger, read someone’s unsaid words. It is a very unique human experience, to know someone without knowing someone, and also why I would never want anyone I know to go through mine.

It feels a little embarrassing to admit that there are certain thoughts in my mind that I have never said out loud but just marked in places. My books have, for the longest time, seen my most vulnerable thoughts. In the digital world, I think that is the ‘Saved-but-not-Liked’ folder. I might want to see the Saved Posts of my loved ones so I could understand them better, but I would never want someone I know to see mine. Which feels like a very human response to not want the people you know to see your vulnerabilities or worse, emotions. Anyway, mine are saved and screenshotted. So any day Instagram updates the feature to go public, the whole folder will be respectfully deleted. The real-world equivalent of this is “Time to move to the next city.” by @sunena_maju

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a month ago

Spent the other half of August and almost the last of summer remembering La La Land. ✨ by @sunena_maju

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2 months ago

It’s Onam day back home. Here, it is just another August Wednesday. But my Instagram is filled with Onam content. This has to be the only time I feel homesick. There is nothing to replace Onam.

I was telling Diana today that it was Onam and briefly explained the story and the celebrations. Just then, I realised Onam feels a little distant. I thought to myself, “Damn. It’s been a few years since I last celebrated Onam.” So I went where I always go to find the exact dates: my Google Photos.

I thought it was maybe a year or two ago. But it turns out the last Onam I celebrated in a kasavu saree, with a pookalam, photos, and an Onam sadya was in 2021. It’s been five years.

I don’t think I get to equate my age to the calculations when I say, “Ninnakaal __ Onam kooduthal undittullatha njaan.” Because somewhere in the race of growing up, my Onam stories got replaced with watching everyone else’s.

To be frank, as much as I miss it, I haven’t really made the effort to celebrate Onam away from home either. The last two years, Diana and I went to Saravana Bhavan, had their make-believe Onam sadya, and called it a day. I dress up however I want, but make sure to wear a bindi and kanmashi (two things I used to wear a lot and now very rarely do). This happens with a “naatil povumbo aakoshikaam” thought.

Today, I woke up with a slight fever and slept in for a few more hours. All the WhatsApp groups from back home were filled with Onam messages. I didn’t reply to any. Then @sonammaju sent her Onam photos in the group. Amma shared her sadya menu too. Last night, which was Kerala morning, Amma said she was only making sambar and aviyal because it was just the two of them. But the menu that came later had 19 dishes and two payasams.

Earlier today, I read somewhere that “the entire premise of Onam is a nostalgia for a king who had to leave Kerala.” Which made me think: is Onam basically a celebration of remembering all the Keralites who had to leave Kerala?

Does that make me Mahabali-like?

(Continued in the comments) by @sunena_maju

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2 months ago

Half of August/last few days of 27 update! 🤍 by @sunena_maju

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2 months ago

Oh July, why is it that every year, you feel like the most heavy month. You are loved, long and lost, all at the same time! Also, note for the month: if you love someone, cook for them. If you are loved, someone will cook for you.🤍 by @sunena_maju

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3 months ago

Last day, I was sitting at a cafe and someone went to use the restroom. She left her phone on the table along with her laptop, bag and a book (It was ‘You Only Fall in Love Three Times’). She asked me to keep an eye on her things while she was away.

A few seconds after she left, her phone rang. I felt responsible for the call. My eyes went back and forth between her phone and the restroom door. I got anxious about her missing the call. It rang for 25 seconds and stopped.

A call ring for 25 seconds before it ends or goes to voicemail. It made me think of a call I missed a few years back.

I was sleeping. My phone was on silent. It was 11:45-ish pm. I never sleep that early, but that day I dozed off at 11:30-ish. I went into such deep sleep in 15 minutes that I didn’t hear my phone ring or vibrate, almost as if the universe did not want me to pick up. I had 25 seconds to defy that. 25 seconds to change everything that life would have been since. If, even for a second, I had woken up and seen the call, I would have picked up. There were 25 chances for that to happen. I think I was ready to give up years of my life to have those 25 seconds back. I realized just that day that all of life that happened since was determined by 25 seconds.

It’s been years, but I still wonder. Since then, I check my phone twice before I go to sleep to make sure it isn’t on silent. (Also why I pick up calls even at odd hours making people think if I ever sleep or not😂)

She came back from the restroom and thanked me. I immediately told her, “Someone called.” She looked at her phone and said, “It’s okay. I think I have a voicemail.”

I don’t think I ever checked my voicemail. by @sunena_maju

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3 months ago

Highly recommend spending a few hours away from FDNY and NYPD sirens and conducting an orchestra with the bees, and while you are at it, maybe some art too. 🐝 by @sunena_maju

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3 months ago

The other day I was taking a nap and had a dream.

I was stuck in a room. The doors were locked by a man whose face I don’t remember. The windows looked similar to the one in my grandmother’s room. The walls looked similar to that room too, but the ceiling was too high.

I was miserable there and kept looking for a way out. At some point, I started pulling the steel jaali bars out. They were those old horizontal ones you had at old houses with window shutters. They had started to rust, so they came off pretty quickly. The wooden shutters were also weak from termite infestation. The bars came off so quickly that I was surprised these weak bars were preventing me from getting out. The shutters fell apart on their own in this process. I quickly removed all of them. Now the window was a huge hole I could get out of. The window sill was only a meter or so above ground level. So I just had to step out and run away. And I did. But in the next instance, I was back in the same room, the window was open and the bars were gone, but I was waiting for the man who locked me in to come and say he was setting me free. It was almost like I wanted his permission to escape, or better yet, that he would see the window open, realise I could escape, give up, and let me go.

I woke up and remembered that I once accidentally broke one of the rusted steel bars on my grandmother’s window and got scolded for it. It broke off just as easily in my dream.

I rarely have dreams this vivid, or ones that make sense. Most of my dreams are quite weird, meaningless, or so nonsensically dreamy that I forget them when I wake up.

But this one made me uneasy enough that I got up and went for a walk to the park.

And I thought to myself, what if I already got rid of the rusty old bars and can get out, but am scared that I might not be fine if I left? What if I don’t make it on my own? What if waiting for permission keeps me in? What if the person already knows that even with the open window, I won’t leave? After all, people who lock doors rarely voluntarily open them.

So what was it that I was waiting for? by @sunena_maju

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3 months ago

May was like every other May + some more of May. Most importantly, this May was about the people who matter!🤍 by @sunena_maju

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5 months ago

*My mother read the caption and told me to delete it.😌 by @sunena_maju

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5 months ago