Have you tried answering the Proust Questionnaire?

It is said to reveal your true identity.

Marcel Proust.

The French writer Marcel Proust is famous for writing and writing a lot because he was rich and had nothing better to do.

He didn’t do too bad for himself, writing a novel in seven volumes — In Search of Lost Time, which is a big, fat headache for writers, scholars, and academicians. Not discounting readers, who have all but disappeared.

The Proust Questionnaire is a set of questions one answers for an insight on self, and which Proust enjoyed responding to.

Follow this link for the question sheet: https://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2000/01/proust-questionnaire

My answers: __1.__What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Love that is reciprocated. Ek tarfa pyaar is just a lot of emojis wasted.

__2.__What is your greatest fear?

Dying before my time, I should welcome it with open arms.

__3.__What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

Procrastinating work to dwell on how to complete it faster.

__4.__What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Unpunctuality should be made a culpable crime.

__5.__Which living person do you most admire?

Michelle Obama, who I believe is more badass than goddess Beyoncé.

__6.__What is your greatest extravagance?

Books, books, books.

__7.__What is your current state of mind?

Blank when faced with this question.

__8.__What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

Abstinence is silly. More sex please.

__9.__On what occasion do you lie?

When I know it will sound better than the truth.

__10.__What do you most dislike about your appearance?

Chubby cheeks.

__11.__Which living person do you most despise?

Godmen, all of them.

__12.__What is the quality you most like in a man?

Politeness is super sexy in a man.

__13.__What is the quality you most like in a woman?

Her ability to persevere each day without killing at least one man who tries to control her.

__14.__Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

Ya Allah!

__15.__What or who is the greatest love of your life?

Poetry in dance and music.

__16.__When and where were you happiest?

Reaching the last sentence, when am writing, or reading.

__17.__Which talent would you most like to have?

To sing while playing a musical instrument, preferably a piano, bit old-fashioned.

__18.__If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

Less chubby cheeks.

__19.__What do you consider your greatest achievement?

Sharing my plate piled with food.

__20.__If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?

I’d like to come back as a woman and rule the world.

__21.__Where would you most like to live?

India, of course, for all the bling.

__22.__What is your most treasured possession?

My optimism.

__23.__What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

Idiocy.

__24.__What is your favourite occupation?

Pausing to think about the material am reading.

__25.__What is your most marked characteristic?

Soft-spoken I am told.

__26.__What do you most value in your friends?

Their generous dinners, if it includes drinking, what more to ask of life then?

__27.__Who are your favourite writers?

Several Urdu-language poets and Hindi film songwriters.

__28.__Who is your hero of fiction?

Manto, who is also the hero of his fiction.

__29.__Which historical figure do you most identify with?

Socrates, why not?

__30.__Who are your heroes in real life?

Waiters serving junk food with a smile are bonafide stars.

__31.__What are your favourite names?

Names of people I have loved and been dumped by.

__32.__What is it that you most dislike?

Hate, if it could be erased, wouldn’t we be in a better place?

__33.__What is your greatest regret?

Not having washboard abs like Shilpa Shetty, like in her song Shut Up & Bounce in Dostana.

__34.__How would you like to die?

Happily, hopefully.

__35.__What is your motto?

To rhyme, am going to make one now: “Win at lotto” — it is as life-affirming an experience as the miracle of life itself.

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