Hello

Tomorrow, I am travelling alone to Himachal Pradesh. I have never travelled alone like this before and the thought fills me with an unlikely mixture of satisfaction and excited curiosity. Satisfaction, because I have honestly acted on an impulse after a very long time and excited curiosity, because despite spending hours poring over websites, books, maps, blogs and talking endlessly to other travellers, my mind is a beautiful, snowy blank when I try to conjure feelings or images about the next fortnight of my life.

This trip is a thing of my dreams. When I thought about my itinerary, all I could think of was, "I want a river nearby." I know what I'm going after on this trip - it's that river. But what happens before, during or after - I don't know. And to know that this trip is such a mystery fills me with happiness. It is humbling and comforting to know that I desire things, but I can't design anything beyond that feeling.

I don't know everything about why I want to travel alone. A few reasons come to my mind like snapping fingers:

The freedom to go where I like, when I like, how I like.
The freedom to be lost somewhere, the freedom to go after something.
The space to choose within the choices that I create, and not choose between what I want versus what a fellow traveller wants.
The freedom to make personal, quirky travelling traditions and break unrelatable, rusty ones.
The freedom to be careful about something, and carefree about something.
The relief of being responsible just for me, the challenge of doing most things on my own.

Knowing me, other reasons why I want to travel alone at this moment may keep revealing themselves to me throughout my life. That thought makes me smile and it is a part of why I am writing this right now. I read this post recently and I was filled with a beautiful, blossoming nostalgia - a longing to be there once again, but a happiness to know that it happened, and that I was a part of it too.

Goodbye Bombay, goodbye to Vini in Bombay, and hello to the mystery that awaits me two thousand kilometres away.

Photograph of a Smooth Talker

You make me wanderlust
I don't want to stay anymore, there are
Too many little islands I've made.

I send out little paperboats
Every time I feel unsettled, I set asail
A wobbling, fearful, mute thing.

They talk behind my back
Inch by quiet inch the delirious glitter of
My lies washes upon the shore.

"The only good fight there is."

Happiness

- Anirudh Singh Chohan

Few people who can accurately claim to know me can testify that I have tried my level best to reverse-engineer happiness. I’ve tried all the ways to conjure it out of nowhere, but haven’t quite made it happen. That said, I am not even close to give up trying.

This may be a stretch of my imagination or just a bad approximation of how it would feel to be truly happy, but I will try and articulate it in the best way I know. Times when hours seem to pass like seconds and one is in a pinpoint of focus. Times when the real and surreal coincide and you live in the moment. Those very times when, there is perfect silence inside and one is alone with the gods. And there is perfect laughter. It’s truly what I find to be the only thing worth working towards. The only good fight there is. I see people meander and fumble through life standing up for nothing, growing old, just getting by and it pains me to see that the world around me seems to be too caught up in the humdrum of ‘the typical’ to actually breathe for a minute.

That is the very challenge that life throws at you. The big question: How far will you go?

This could mean not sleeping for 4 days or freezing in the cold waiting for someone. This could mean losing your lover, relatives, friends or even your mind. It could mean not leaving your seat for hours forgetting day and night. And if history says something, it could mean mockery and derision. But the place where it drops you, all of this won’t matter.

So cheers to going the full way, or not going at all.

Source

"So he gave you freedom, but you also had to be independent."

Ludovico Einaudi - Divenire

"Headphones work. REALLY WELL. Might even answer some questions of yours."

Menstruating, and what it means to me

This was originally an extensive conversation with me in the bathroom. For me, most of them either end up as amusing footnotes in Oral Bathroom Literature or in my journal. This is one of the rare times I felt like sharing it.

Menstruating for me has always been in an intense but interesting time. I feel happy, very alive and constantly in tune with what I'm physically feeling. Many times, I take my body for granted mostly because I see it as an instrument to do something, get somewhere but never as an end in itself, something which demands attention and provokes thought - not simply a reaction. There are a few things which make me think of my body, and none of them are insights, doubts, creative, exploratory or questioning in nature. They don't linger in my head for too long because they are reactions. Once they are suitably addressed, they don't raise their heads again until the time comes. There's physical pain, sexual urges, temperature differences and hunger. The most I can extend this physical self-awareness is to fatigue, feeling fresh, urges for nicotine, alcohol or particular kinds of foods/drinks, the awareness of being watched and extreme fear and anger. Another level could be added for addiction but I can't say this for myself - yet. (or maybe, I'm not aware of them)

Comparing this to how sensitive I am to my thoughts, beliefs, perspectives, judgments of people and their own of me or others - and how creative, curious, skeptical, judgmental, saddened, overjoyed, inspired, discouraged, enraged (and a universe of other emotions, many of which I'm sure I haven't experienced yet) I am by them - I feel there's been quite a lot of injustice done! Why do I never dream of my body? Why do I not engage with it as exhaustively as I do with my mind? Why is thinking as an activity restricted only to my brain? Why does society sometimes consider it girly, superficial or 'gay' if some people take extra efforts to take care of their bodies?

Whenever I have been attuned with my body, it's given me a lot of peace. Whether it's breaking out into a run, dancing or walking in the rain. (once I can get over my laziness and go for a shower, I don't want to get out!) I think what's best is having a feeling of fulfillment and release, like a high. I think people who run or exercise often know how this feels, but we've all experienced it, one time or another in our lives. I guess that's why the fascination with hallucinogenic drugs - it's another medium to experience being one with mind and body.

What happens when I menstruate, is that there's a conversation with my body for around five days straight. And since I overlook my body a lot, these days are like getting to know myself all over again. There's a slight pain, very different from any other pain, which makes itself experienced a day before they begin, and that's when I feel my body says, so hey, let's catch up tomorrow. You free right? I could think, it's not like I have a choice, or I could think, when was the last time I was so aware of my body? Let's talk! Taking the latter perspective helps not simply because it means lesser conflicts but also because you get to know so much about yourself, even as a person.

Once, my college friends and I had a long discussion about menstruation and how we felt about it. I realised my physical condition during, before or after my period matters tremendously in being able to be positive about it. I guess I'm lucky that I don't undergo deep pain and discomfort during this time. It's relatively trouble-free and mostly an enjoyable experience. I don't think I could be this carefree if I had to miss going out and stay indoors with a hot water bottle, guzzling fluids and pills to keep sane. I know friends who have to do this and it's no wonder they feel Nature has dealt with women unfairly. But I also feel it has a lot to do with our culture, because that plays an unarguably enormous part in influencing the way we approach anything.

There is an entire culture of negativity around menstruation which is another unfortunate result of living in a patriarchal society. Why 'sanitary' napkins? The whole idea of menstruating being seen as something very unclean is manifested in the fear instilled in girls and women about needing to keep the whole process as quiet and unobvious as possible. Why do we freak out so much about being caught with a 'stain' - can't it be treated with the same equanimity as a coffee stain? I'm not saying, "parade your menstrual stain with pride!" I'm saying, it's okay. Like people have coffee, women menstruate. Anybody can spill, right?

I also feel the way girls are brought up and educated has played a huge part in the way boys and men also approach menstruation. It was made such an embarrassing thing in school - you're in eighth class, a normal class is going on and suddenly, all the girls are told to make a line and walk off to the hall. Oh, it's that again. The biggest irony is that despite all the efforts taken to exclude boys, (we knew that) they knew what it was about anyway. All that this exclusivity did was reinforce the idea that menstruation and anything related was a girl thing, too embarrassing and taboo to be discussed with guys. What fart, really. Would it have hurt to take boys along as well, treat it like another lesson in biology? No, it would have made it natural, a part of a possible conversation with other men and women and a way to better understand sexuality. When we're in eighth, we're anyway looking for ways to talk with the opposite sex. Introducing menstruation to both sexes would have given us lots of food for thought to chew over with each other.


Treating menstruation so oppressively has had other offshoots as well. Female masturbation, for instance. (oh gosh, that needs another whole entry!) With this entry, I'm trying to make an effort to break free of my own inhibitions about menstruation. If you have any and want to break free of them too, let's talk about them now. It could be anything other than inhibitions too: questions, rants, sarcastic quips (though if you know me, do not expect me to get them), observations, reservations, beliefs, anything. Let's have a conversation!

"Ladies, gentlemen, and those who are yet to make up your minds.."

1. Brit comedy.
2. Something I'm unfamiliar with - fashion.
3. Whips gender stereotypes - gently.
4. Groo-oo-oovy music.

Id est?

5. Watch!

(Photo Source)