The first time I ever bunked school was in class 12. Being a good boy that I had always been, the concept to just bunk school and roam around and have fun was as foreign as a taxidermist’s needle. Somehow, my disagreements with school and the whole system started to really find ways to surface when I met this bunch of boys, who no teacher had any affinity towards, but I found them more relatable than the fake front seated butt-lickers. Well, I was one of the front seated butt-lickers.
We sneaked into a theatre, it was a rusty old cinema with a death certificate already signed. It was a mishap waiting to happen. We managed to find way through the mess and ended up slyly pushing ourselves in the back seats. The film on screen was 3 Idiots.
By interval, the guard came through with a flashlight bright enough to blind you, with an angry tone, physical gestures, and loads of swearing, forced us to leave. I was left stranded – both because the movie spoke intensely to me, and this novel banter from a stranger that these boys were so familiar with that they never even acknowledged the guard, and kept pushing him and his banter. For me, for the first ever day of bunking and having fun, it turned into a traumatic experience. That was the only time I ever bunked classes in school.
Few years later, I get a computer and with finally a stable internet connection, the first thing I download is a 3GP file of 3 Idiots. I sat through the whole film with my headphones on and no fear of any guard killing my vibe.
The film changed my entire perspective about life. It actually just gently acknowledged and enforced an already blooming idea that I should really follow my heart.
I got serious about music, hired a room near my college, and spent my entire days practicing, performing and writing as many songs as I could. It was liberation, freedom. In peak summers, I would have my t shirt off, there were no fan or AC, I was at the mercy of the 8×8 shop that I used as my jam room. I imagined myself shirtless on stage in front of a million people – a teenage fantasy woken up in youth.
As my practice, and ambitions grew, a subtle subconscious perfectionist also started emerging. Things that I used to love, the attempts, the demos I was so proud of once, gradually turned into constant reminders that no matter how hard I try, I would never be enough. I would put in hours practicing a take, and by the next day, all I heard were glitches and my lagging skill.
This perfectionism left unanswered, unacknowledged left a huge dent on my career as a musician. As of now, I must have around a thousand demos that I never got the courage to release. Thousand is still a decent number, if I count in the ideas and drafts; there used to be around 6 terabytes of demos before one of the hard drives broke and I lost around 5 years worth of music and recordings. This loss is a very interesting realisation, for some other time.
I realised the severity of my perfectionism only recently, in 2025. And most of the last year and 2026, I have been consciously trying to build a healthy relationship with my perfectionist self.
I know that shoving it under the rug and brute forcing myself into execution is like a sword over my head hanging thin by a thread. It is going to back fire, because one day the rug discolours and the whole house smells of rot. I need to safely integrate these tendencies in my process.
There are three pillars to this entire entourage.
The first is acknowledgement, that yes my perfectionist tendencies take over my existence and that I cannot just keep finding alternatives, or upgrades, or more lessons, or whatever it may take. I need to understand it really really well that no technological upgrade, no up-skilling, anything that has got to with the word mastery, it will not help, in fact it is only going to make it stronger and harder to resist.
This acknowledgment that my tendencies to have a perfect voice, perfect tone, and that this is doing severe damage to my process and practice as an artist. This needs to be addressed and addressed immediately.
The second is learning to read the signs.
They are so subtle, so sneaky that no matter how aware you become, you discover it too late. Because of an unrecognised perfectionist inclination, I moved in through a project and made significant changes. The signs are very hard to notice, but I can almost guess a pattern now. For example, if I don’t like a certain musical element in my song, I would change the whole production to work out a solution, and in doing so I have smothered a lot of the pure, honest energy of the first drafts. Now, before making a significant change I always backup a copy.
The third and the most important steps of me dealing with my perfectionist self is that I have to accept myself as who am I, not as someone I should be or could be or must’ve been or could’ve been. I don’t compare myself to anyone, or anything, at least I am consciously trying.
What I am talking about is actually kindness, and empathy. While being kind to a kitty, I take a pause and remind myself that if I need to practice kindness, I have to start with myself first. I have to be kind to myself.
A big part of being kind to yourself is learning to accept that you have flaws and it is okay to have them. In fact, it is these subtle flaws that separate me from everybody. It is the slight crackle of voice, the fumble, the emotional relief that makes me who I am. I cannot be another Arijit or Sinatra, and if I choose to be one, I am self-inflicting an evil, a crime.
I don’t want to lie to myself anymore; that if I practice enough, I will be at a level. Practice is not about the few hours I put in everyday, practice is about every little thing. My lovely partner keeps quoting this beautiful saying that “how you do anything is how you do everything.” My practice as an artist is not just about the moment when I am intoxicated in muse, but also about how I drink water, how I walk, it is a state of being, and expecting a state of being to be flawless, effortless and smooth is not only delusions but a critical self-harm.
I need to learn to accept myself for who I really am.
I like body hair, I like tying my turban, I like to play music softly, sometimes I get angry, I get frustrated, I even loose control.. and it is alright. All I need to do is be a little more kind to myself, a little more accepting of my faults and mishaps. It is a process that is going to take probably a lifetime, but what else should I do, become a pop-star? No, that has never been an intention, and I think it never shall be.
All I have ever associated with songs, art, writing, is an unapologetic exploration of self, discovering hidden demons, and making friends with them. And in doing so, I may have written an album, crafted some stories, wrote a poem about me being a cat. But I end up not sharing this gold-mine of realisations, just because my voice sounds thin!
It was never about the sound. “Ten Years Gone” by Led Zeppelin made my 14 year old self cry, no, it made me sob. I didn’t know what was happening, I had no deducible reasons why I was crying like a little kid; I was just so moved by the music, that the emotions that I couldn’t even understand as an adolescent surfaced and I could express them safely and with acceptance. That night proved to be incredibly influential. You have no idea how much I cried while writing “Gumaan”, the song and the process healed a long broken part of my being.
It is not me vs perfectionism, it is me vs me. I am in a constant mental battle with myself, explaining my artistic choices, trying to make things right. All if I can ever be, be honest.
Acknowledging that my perfectionism is at its peak, I know that I need to practice awareness. I need to learn to observe myself in the same way I see anyone – with a thin layer of detachment, openness to flaws, insecurities, while making peace with the idea that perfect is an illusion. Nature never uses a scale, but every single tree you will ever witness is perfection embodied.
Wabi-Sabi, while not only a homophone to my name, is also a core belief that I am trying to instil in my awareness.
I need to embrace imperfection, and this cannot be brute forced, this will not happen in a day, and I might never fully recover, but still I have to be kind to myself, I have to make space for magic, and the magic doesn’t happen under control. I need to let go.
It is not easy for a person whose entire adult life has been a constant struggle to make things perfect. It is difficult, it gets frustrating, I constantly run out of explanations, and intelligently designed self-talk. I get tired, I feel like giving up. Sometimes I spend the night wondering whether I should try running a cafe, or I don’t know what.
This struggle is real, but I cannot give up. I am happy that at least I have begun to not pursue myself as an ideal, but as someone who makes mistakes, and is going to make mistakes. Charity begins at home, and this might be the most generous I have ever been.
If you managed to come so far, I would like to thank you for your time and interest. I hope in me trying to understand myself, you get to find inspiration and strength to break on through (to the other side).
Talk to me here.
love
saby
xd
Along with writing songs and poems, I have devoted a very large chunk of my studies to learn, analyse and understand these universally acknowledged fallacies and dilemmas. If you are an artist facing a similar issue, check this out.
I think I might be able to help with designing a solution that could work for you.
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