The Proust Questionnaire

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Early morning quiet. Being an observer of my family doing their daily thing.
‍

What is your greatest fear?

Being forgotten.
‍

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

Inability to take myself less seriously.
‍

What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Their natural advantage.
‍

Which living person do you most admire?

Many models. To name a current one, Sridhar Vembu for being a heretic.
‍

What is your greatest extravagance?

Maybe my handbags but I don’t fully understand why I haven’t stopped indulging.
‍

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

Equality.
‍

On what occasion do you lie?

Every night to myself about the time I will rise the next morning.
‍

What do you most dislike about your appearance?

Nothing to dislike. But I have a silly thing for slender noses and shapely eyebrows.
‍

Which living person do you most despise?

The journalist-activist types.
‍

What is the quality you most like in a man?

To maintain a woman’s mood(s).
‍

What or who is the greatest love of your life?

Without a doubt, my father.
‍

When and where were you happiest?

In my gap year, in my head; enlightened, reading books on end.
‍

Which talent would you most like to have?

Photographic memory.
‍

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

Start writing regularly.
‍

If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?

An Octopus; with many hearts.
‍

Where would you most like to live?

In a quaint village perched on top of a hill, amidst nature and around people I don’t know much.
‍

What is your most treasured possession?

Scribbled margins of a collection of poems.
‍

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

A complete loss of control and fortitude to bounce back.
‍

What is your favorite occupation?

A writer, an artist, a performer—all the same.
‍

What is your most marked characteristic?

Depth of passion.
‍

What do you most value in your friends?

Their forgiveness.
‍

Who is your hero of fiction?

Bheeshma.
‍

Which historical figure do you most identify with?

Arjuna.
‍

What are your favorite names?

Dev, Kaveri, Meera.
‍

What is your greatest regret?

My sleep cycle.
‍

How would you like to die?

Consciously.
‍

What is your motto?

Be excellent. Or die trying.

‍