I Hate What I Write

By Deepansh Khurana

I Hate What I Write is a podcast by Deepansh Khurana (@thatpolymathguy) where he reads his vignettes and short prose pieces that are already up on his Instagram. The idea is akin to how writers in the... more

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FAQs about I Hate What I Write:

How many episodes does I Hate What I Write have?

The podcast currently has 8 episodes available.

I Hate What I Write episodes:

November 25, 2020 Chapter 7 - Evolving
We do weird shit when we're heartbroken, man. We get drunk. We end up in fights. No, not just with people. There was this one time I had an ongoing spat with a city. Can you believe it? An entire city, filled with hopes and dreams and people, and I hated it—all of it.

And then, another city, and then, this very town that I once called home. Then, a song I couldn't bear. The more I look at it, the more I realise that I was fucked up, man. We all were, and we all are, and we'll always be fucked up. That's the deal.

This is the first time a species is doing this—thinking. No one before us has done this, so we're bound to fuck up, and fight with pieces of music as if that makes any sense, but we do it. We do it all the time. We go out every day, finding things to live for—a job, a person, whatever—and all those dreams fail.

They fail, and then we try again. Maybe you will get what you want if you keep evolving, if you keep admitting that you are fucked up, and that you'll be okay. They went hand-in-hand, man. You had to be both at the same time. That's how it worked.

One day, as you come back home and turn the radio on, the song comes up. You pause for a second between plunging that french press, and you smile. You listen to that song. This is the first time you've done that. It's the first time you've discovered this beautiful piece of music. It cannot just be about something as petty, you shrug. It transcends all that. So, you finish making your coffee, and you realise you've evolved.

You learn that you cannot not try again because of that one time. That one time that it didn't work out, whatever it was that you wanted didn't up and land in your lap. You can't close yourself to the entire spectrum of human experience because of one time. Life is much bigger than one time.

One day and that might be today, you'll be sitting and looking back. You'll see these horrible, detestable events that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemies, but you'd also smile. You'll know you wouldn't be there, having coffee, if all that didn't happen.

You'll be glad it happened. You wouldn't have made it to the other side. You wouldn't have evolved. You won't have it any other way.
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Original piece on Instagram.
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4min
November 18, 2020 Chapter 6 - A Table For Two
When I think of love, I don't think of much. I think of you, me and our table for two. I think of the walk to the restaurant, your hand in mine. I think of the eyes on us and us giggling at them. I think of the love that was lost somewhere between when I first felt it and when I lost myself in what only felt a maze of wrong people. I think of finding that love back whenever I find you looking at me. I think of the certainty that comes with your smile; a smile so effortless, it makes me smile back almost instantly. You know, I think of love a lot these days, but I don't think of much when I do. When I think of love, I think of you, me and our table for two.
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Original Piece on Instagram.
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2min
November 15, 2020 Chapter 5 - On Writing & Irony
On most days, I hated reading anything I had written before. I'd read something I wrote years ago and I'd get this feeling of detachment. As if I hadn't written it in the first place. As if it was a vague memory that I could remember the presence of but not its details.

It stood there, like smudged marks of graphite that said something important once upon a time but are now reduced to a blur. If you looked closely, you'd see the lines etched on the paper, provided you were lucky it left a recognisable mark. Otherwise, it was lost.

I regretted sharing everything, in hindsight. Once a word was out, it wasn't my own. It was yours. It was your neighbour's. It belonged to your friend. Your sibling played with it, aimlessly. It was everyone's and it was out. It was a part of my life handed into countless hands by myself.

So, no matter how much I wanted it to be the case, on some days with some words, I often wished I'd never written them. Some things should've been my own. You should've never known of them. Of course, I can't take the words back. They were out there, forever. That was writing.

Although, I wonder if memories aged better if they were behind windows of glass or fences of metal—visible yet out of reach. I wonder if you could record them like that, keeping some parts of them with yourself, forever, never to be shared, and yet, spilling everything else.

I wonder if it was possible to write like that—without telling everyone everything. I wonder if I would ever figure it out. I'll have to keep going as I have been—giving it all away—until I do.

Tell me, what do you make of irony?
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Original piece on Instagram.
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4min
November 11, 2020 Chapter 4 - Of Chimpanzees and Life
They lay down in the grass as the pale, winter sun tried to reach their faces through the disparate leaves of the tree right above them. One of them, with his back clinging tightly to the tree, held a few blades of the grass between his fingers, turning them. The other was on the ground, one of his arms crossed below his head, and the other raised.⁣⁣
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"What are you trying to do?" The first one asked, continuing to spin those blades of grass, now bruised with being turned continually.⁣⁣
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"I'm trying to grab something," the other answered.⁣⁣
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"What?"⁣⁣
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"Life," he said. Then, opened his palm and eclipsed the flare of the sun peeking through the countless leaves on that tree. He closed his palm, as if he were grabbing that flare, and made a fist.⁣⁣
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"Did you know, chimpanzees can't climb branches?"⁣⁣
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"What do you mean? Chimpanzees live in trees."⁣⁣
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"Yeah, they do, but they can't climb branches from the get-go. They try a lot, and most of them continually hit the forest floor. Then, they get up and try again. Some die, of course, or get injuries, but many persist and become the chimpanzees we know as chimpanzees. Adept. Dexterous. I want to be a chimpanzee, man. I mean, it is so easy, just so easy to say that the world is against me, that everything conspires to make sure I couldn't get what I want. It was the easiest thing to fall down on the leaves, and blame the branch or the tree or even gravity. It was the easiest thing to do. It was so much harder, downright impossible even, to get up and climb that tree again, to believe that the world was working for me. To believe that I would make it, that I would climb my branch, whatever that may be, and that I'd swing from it and go to another. To believe that one day, I'd keep going on and on. It was hard to believe that, but it was worth it, man. I want to grab life by the throat, pull it close and whisper in its ear: I'm not afraid of falling."⁣⁣
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"You're weird, man. You know that, right?" ⁣⁣
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"Yes, I'm aware."⁣⁣
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He kept looking up, trying to take his share of the sun after the countless leaves had taken their own.

"I think that's a good thing", he smiled.
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Original piece on Instagram.
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4min
November 07, 2020 Chapter 3 - After a Long Day
Sometimes, after a long day ended, I'd just lie down on the couch. Tired but trying not to fall asleep, staying awake intentionally.

The apartment, dimly lit with lamps on the lowest brightness possible, would be on that cosy-cold — a sweet spot of eighteen degrees on the air conditioner. Some chill, electronic, rhythm and blues track would play in the background. Its low beat reverberating throughout the silent flat in a silent building in a silent neighbourhood on a silent night. A cup of freshly brewed tea would sit on a coaster on the table right near the couch, wafting its aroma towards me.

I'd have nothing but some sleep in my eyes. No dreams. No goals. Just some sleep and a lot of exhaustion. It was then that I let all that control go, and unclenched my body and mind, and let out a huge sigh. The sigh would almost always be followed by a smile. Not a full, cheerful smile but somewhere in between not smiling and smiling. It was the smile of contentment. It was the smile of enough — of I did enough, I was enough, I have enough.

Then, I stared at the ceiling and I kept staring for an hour or so. This was my moment. It was mine alone. No obligations, no things I had to do, no favours, no one who needed my help, and no chores. No one wanted me right now. No one asked for my assistance. It was in this moment that I didn't even need myself. In this moment, I could just be. I could just exist. Weightless. Powerless.

So I did just that. I'd lie there, on the couch, breathing — in and out — slowly, until I dozed off.
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Original Piece on Instagram.
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4min
November 03, 2020 Chapter 2 - The Sun
For a lot of people, and for good reasons they had on the tip of their tongues, it was the worst time to be alive. It was scary, and you could die whenever. There was chaos in the air, wafting through the ochre landscape of autumn.
It didn't matter if it was the year or just life, in itself. Life was as dreary and dry as the brown and orange leaves, but for what it's worth, they convinced themselves it was the year. It made sense too, for most of us.
For some of us, we had begun this year on a note that was a tad bit higher than our usual. For some of us—for me—I had let go of my cynicism. It was the year I was supposed to fall in love with everything I could possibly fall in love with.
I remember: on a cold January morning, ecstatic and overflowing with warmth, I felt the sun and decided to look for hope. The world had all of us by the throat, but I was going to smile anyway. That is what I had decided, and that is what I was going to do.
People were good. The world was inherently a good place. It was a mess, sure, but it has been messier before. I was done with the heralds and the news and my general belief that everyone was out to get me. Even if they were, they were fewer. There were more of us. I had to believe there were more of us. There ought to be more of us.
Then, the year passed in a blink of an eye as we stayed inside our little boxes in little buildings, given we had a box to be locked up in. Suddenly, it was autumn already, and the leaves turned auburn and started to die.
Another January was around the corner, and they said it was the worst time to be alive, and yet, I couldn't shake the sun off. I couldn't help but smile. I couldn't help but hope. It took me a lot of time to get here, you see, and I couldn't give that up. No matter what happened, this was the year I recovered from perpetual hopelessness.
You'd know what I mean if you felt it too. Hope digs deeper into those who have forgotten how selflessly the sun shines. Once its roots set in, you can't give it up that easy. It won't let you pull itself out, end of the world or otherwise.
You'd know if you knew. You'd know I wasn't going to give it up that easy. I had felt the sun.
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Original piece on Instagram.
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4min
November 01, 2020 Chapter 1 - Part-Time
"Are you going to write full-time now?" They ask me every now and then, and I don't know what to say.

I wonder if they want to know whether I'll make money off these words. If it's that then, to their disappointment and to my misfortune, these words aren't worth being printed on a page, or maybe they want me to put more words out and more often.

However, I don't keep anything to myself. It is pointless to keep something to yourself. What good will come of that? Of course, once these words are out, they're not mine anyway. They belong to everyone, as they should. They belong to them all, as they should.

Tell me, though. What good is life if not shared word-for-word?

Isn't a moment wasted if it's not turned into a metaphor? Aren't heartbreaks pointless if they don't help another heart heal? Isn't laughter unnecessary if the joke is never told? Even a breath is futile if it fails to take another's away.

With that in mind, I write. I may not always put it down, but trust me, I write.

I write when I'm doing the dishes, hating every bit of it. I write when I'm taking a walk, looking around frantically. I write when I'm making coffee, watching the water bubble over. I write when I work on a problem, pulling my hair out of frustration.

Every breath I take is noted down. Every thought I have is neatly filed in a cabinet. I curate my emotions and put them out for display.

I write when I miss my mother, and my father, and my brother. I write when I'm on the phone with a friend, longing to see their face. I write when my heart is broken every year or so. I write when I'm drunk, losing myself in crowds only to feel less alone.

I write when I'm on the floor sometimes, as the moon shines brighter than the sun does on some nights. I write when I'm so peachy, you can see me hop around in happiness.

You see, I've spent my life making sure there's always a story or two to tell, making sure there is always something to put down, hoping it helps just one person feel something, feel at home.

I don't know what to say to them when they throw the question at me every now and then.

You see, I've been writing full-time for a long time now; it is life that I've lived part-time.
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Original piece on Instagram.
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3min
November 01, 2020 Prologue
Hi, I'm Deepansh. I write as @thatpolymathguy on Instagram, and I've done that for years now. I reckoned it was a good idea to start reading my work. I'm not yet sure if it is, in fact, a good idea. Yet, I wanted to do this, and here it is. I Hate What I Write will have readings of my work from Instagram. I hope you find some entertainment in what I'm doing here, and if you like the words, see you on Instagram!
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1min

FAQs about I Hate What I Write:

How many episodes does I Hate What I Write have?

The podcast currently has 8 episodes available.