no no no..i'm not going for rehab

How are you doing?

So I finally found the answer to
How are you doing? asked with tender excruciating concern ...
The answer is (overheard at Koshys-the big nipple) is (hold your breath!).. not bad at all..

It acknowledges multiple layers ..

-- that the idiot asker may have compassion/intense curiosity about the nature of grief that you might be going through, since their lives are so dull. And how they deal with something getting over would be even duller, probably Brahminical almost. (See Jerry Pinto in Tehelka, that had me in splits)

-- it goes beyond okay ... which sounds like yeah, I’m surviving which amongst other things is just not true, because you're so much better off. If third hand reports of what Proust had to say, is anything to go by, these are the days I will remember. And considering the sudden shooting up of number of people with whom coitus has been achieved within 12 hours, these may be days that in my dotage I will treasure. And another upside, I no longer need be embarrassed playing truth and dare with gay men (or queer women either)!!!!

-- it doesn't say good .. which is just disrespectful to the grief that you might be going through, and again not true. There are moments when you have mistaken an ordinary chest ache born of over enthusiastic yoga as intense heartbreak. And that mistake has cost you many tears..

-- it sort of accepts that certain surprise within yourself that you are still standing, and not just that but laughing, eating, drinking, connecting .. maybe even far better than before. That you've learnt to live with the doors open at night, and it works for you.