last year I really had to go to amreeka, if only for a fake shaking off of the feeling that was almost gripping me then, that feeling of being trapped in India. and so we did, filling ourselves up with the experiences, the tastes, the freedoms, and literally deep breaths of fresh air and strangers' smiles, that we missed in Delhi. we rented a cool car and drove on isolated, out of this world landscapes in Utah, for a week. drove mind you on byways where drivers do not cross over bold lines on the streets, do not suddenly swerve at you in order to get ahead of you a few feet because those are the few thrills in their sad lives. we hiked up hills on the west coast, clean hills, and walked streets without the fear of stepping into trash or shit or being shoved aside by unwitting members of an always alive mob that swarms around everywhere in India. and on my way back I spent another almost week walking around alone in Manhattan.

all that was expensive, especially for someone unemployed.

this year, I'm still trying to explain to myself why, I didn't feel like I had to all that again.

just like living far away from my country for years taught me many lessons I didn't know I lacked, coming back after being away is teaching me many others.

hubby is there and telling me every day of what he is doing. I've been to many of the places he is revisiting. but strangely I'm not experiencing fomo (the fear of missing out) that I would have expected to. instead my thoughts are more like, "how cute that life is, how protected and therefore focused on little details of where to dine today"; whereas here often those decisions are made easier for us by bigger concerns of what day and time of the week it is, what is the expected 'traffic-time' and therefore cost of getting to and back, what time of the night will it be and will someone have to sleep over just to avoid a risky late night commute, etc. etc.

as a result we have become regulars at the few cute places around our home in delhi. where bartenders recognize us and remind us not to repeat our mis-orders. where they smile at us to welcome us back, and have seen us in different moods, in arguments, laughing, even silently crying.

I never understood dancing when I was younger. yes my body didn't quite catch rythms as well too, but I also didn't understand the urge to dance or the need for it or the point of it really. although k used to quite a bit, alone in his room, with music that sounded mostly noise to me. at some rare instances, when we lived together in amreeka we started dancing together, at home, in our pyjamas, and I recorded some of these moments on my phone they were that rare and special. it is true that amreeka opened me up, especially physically; made me less conscious. but having become older, more open, and also more confident, the experience back home now is different; also to give credit to the city and people and public spaces here, they are more welcoming now. its also probably the very idea of the place being more closed than myself, that makes me even more comfortable. what I mean is this, I started swimming here (learning how to) after years of deliberation and one-day dips in the pools there that I found very intimidating, only because here I was physically more open than the women I saw at pools. I was now comfortable wearing my swimsuit, I was comfortable with my dark underarms, I was more accepting of my stretch marks, I even started wearing the bikinis that I had stowed away in the back of my closet for years. it might seem beside the point, but these are important factors when you suddenly find yourself beside a pool full of strangers and you don't even know how to float. these factors in fact help you leave your body to the mercy of the water and learn to float in five flat minutes.

and finally now I've started moving to the music here. one of our fav places nearby has some space in the middle of the building where they sometimes (fris and sats, evenings) set up a live band. one evening we found ourselves there much later than we usually visit. it was a good band. and if you've spent enough time in delhi, I needn't tell you that bands here often play bollywood songs mishmashed with rock songs from around the world, especially to show you the stolen tunes. its fun. some people slowly started moving and dancing. we did too. and then more and more. and faster and faster. dancing with strangers, when you at least have a partner you know well, is not just about dancing. its about sharing public spaces, its about making way for each other, its about looking out for each other, its about smiling at each other and acknowledging the shared moment and the joy of it, its about doing all of this without touching each other, about respecting the space that each body occupies, regardless of its gender or age, and of course thanks to everyone doing this, its about freedom of expression without the fear of judgement, ridicule, or unwanted touch and harassment.

Delhi is growing up, India is growing up, and I have many things to learn from it and to teach it.

even if on other days we apprehend a guy looking up women's skirts on an escalator at a mall, or find ourselves in an ugly argument with our neighbors who presume that they own parking spaces and also own the right to park behind cars and block their free passage.

I also recently walked for more than an hour around midnight in vasant kunj with a group of other women who shared the urgent need for us to do this simply to make a statement that women can do this and should be able to do this, without it being an assessment of their character. years ago I used to argue with women who'd say that they couldn't use the metro alone after dark, I used to argue with them to help them see that their view was simply the other side of the implicit argument that the women who do venture out late and alone are comfortable being out late only because they are of suspicious character. we were simply stuck in a bad equilibrium where no individual woman had the incentive to deviate. we are now doing so in large numbers, all together, such that the equilibrium is shifting.

cheers and salud!

my online avatar (often using data without my consent) for online ad targeting is very blurry. the only thing it is sure of being is a female. it thinks it is heterosexual, but that's only because it does so without thinking about it; it has never questioned it. it thinks it is a mother, or at least a trying to be mother. it thinks it is getting wrinkles. it thinks it has body image issues (which female doesn't), but also thinks itself plus-sized! and that's probably cos it keeps eavesdropping on store-conversations with the words "you don't have my size"!! it cannot even begin to formulate an answer to what its occupation is or is not or whether it is a student or a work-from-home scammer. it thinks its been to places that in fact it's parents have just visited. the only other thing it is beginning to guess correctly is that it is penny-wise and dollar-foolish.

when I was a young teen, I have no idea why the world thought I was very maternal, or rather, some of them told me that I would make a great mother. (later when I lived with some friends and was the only one who monitored and was after others' lives to keep the place clean, they nicknamed me 'mom' too, for very different reasons.) then, even I thought I wanted to be one someday soon. but then I didn't know yet, that those thoughts of mine weren't quite mine, they had been bequeathed to me. now, since I started to have my own thoughts (or so I think till some future me will refute this) I have always wondered why in the age of contraception do people have kids. let me rephrase: why does everyone have kids in the age of contraception? or almost everyone. the power to not have kids puts a huge responsibility on the choice to have them.

so I asked around and seemed like there were two reasons that seemed to resonate with most people. 1. kids were supposed to be fun, and great company, at least when they were babies and lil human beings dependent on parents. "joy" was the word many used. "the greatest joy in the world"; from those who hadn't seen much in the world anyway. or "I wanted someone I could call my own". love, loyalty, companionship. the need to feel needed (wanted). 2. "clock-ticking away" yes, that exact phrase. just because the choice to have a kid may no longer be available, it has to be done now. before it is too late. sort of like a prescient version of the 'you miss what you have lost'. at the base of both these reasons, somewhere deep down is also the (sometimes) unconscious desire to leave a biological part of yourself in this world that will survive past your own demise.

either way, I found both these reasons too selfish to exercise the power to create a new life - for my own satisfaction (joy or eternity) - and leave it to the mercy of this world. there is also the third reason - that which taught me to want to be a mother when I was barely a teenager - society; but let's give that its worth and ignore it here.

I therefore determined not to create lives till I could find my own reason - something not selfish - to do so. I believe I have found my reason at last.

the only real reason is to forget oneself, because 'I' am anyway an illusion that my brain creates for efficiency. in reality I am not a separate being, I am not in control, I do not really choose. that is, the only reason to make a baby is not to really make one but to give up controlling not to make one. to let things be, and to give in to what may happen and how it might change 'me'. is it true that the early years of caring for a newborn changes a human brain in ways that are similar to an infant human brain's growth in complexity?

but that doesn't mean I am ready now. far from it. I might have found my reason, but I'm still not willing to give in, I still cling to the illusion of control. I do, however, want to read some serious neuroscience, and maybe child psychology.

india is waking up (finally) to good-ish bread. bakeries actually bake now, rather than heap layers of cream and icing on generic sponge base. I have finally - after more than a year of trial and error and bayesian updating - found a source of daily bread that is not priced to somehow mimic import costs. most of last year I flitted between rare self treats of expensive sourdough loaves from L'opera outlets in VK malls and tastes-like-sand (and lacks character) factory made (i refuse to call that 'baked') bread from popular brands. despite the trashy quality these brands are oligopolies in this market. but slowly a renaissance is occurring. erstwhile cake shops are selling daily baked bread. my preferred one is Angels in the Kitchen. plain simple bread baked with flour, multigrains, salt, sugar, water, yeast, and sometimes some nuts and raisins. breakfast is a delight again. lathered with 5-seconds warmed butter in the microwave that smoothens and melts over the slices of bread, and is therefore re-lathered so it shows after absorbing in. dairy-fat on simple bread: that's my wake-up caffeine.

and by the way, sourdough is not supposed to be fancy and expensive, because it is not some special kind of bread but the oldest simplest method of turning wheat into easy to digest food with some shelf-life.

coming back to breakfast though, the perfect one cannot end there with buttered toast. is followed by a fistful of mixed nuts and raisins (and/or dried berries) with cold yogurt. yogurt is one thing you can count on anywhere in this country. thick lumpy fresh yogurt without the heaviness and creaminess of greek yogurt. but the mixed nuts must include some salted roasted cashews, without which nuts are boring. now I have had multiple conversations with people in india trying to rid them of their misconceived bias against cashews, without any success. someone has whispered into ears in this country, especially that of middle aged or retired parents - who anyway wear the mantle of authority on public knowledge - that cashews make you fat and are bad for your cholesterol levels. my personal dig into this claim has revealed it to be not just false but harmful, in that cashews are actually good for our cholesterol levels, and (just like most other nuts) release energy slowly such that they in fact reduce hunger pangs and snacking, and therefore possibly helping control overeating and obesity issues. but they won't listen to reason or scientific evidence. good for me though, I usually end up receiving a somewhat regular supply of roasted salted cashews from either set of parents in them trying to keep those gifts out of sight and out of their mouths.

and yeah, have you seen cashew shells? or probably they were a second layer of casings that cashews wear when in their natural habitat inside their shells. you can eat this layer in fact with the nut, and it gives a slight bitter tinge that kinda complements the cashew's plain-ish taste for which I eat it. thinking about it, it somewhat resembles the plain-ish-lack-of-taste kinda taste of avocados and also coconuts.

Joan Didion used to have (maybe still does) fridge-cold coca-cola and nuts (that her mom regularly sent her) for breakfast. maybe we should exchange notes.

I wonder if Joan Didion is working on something these days, if there will be another book. and I am somewhat ashamed that it took me a Netflix documentary to finally read her. Her words are so apt, so carefully chosen, so brilliantly expressive. and i donno why i felt like she is superhuman, that image of her receiving the honor from Obama and simply thanking him and walking away without one look at the crowd, walking that frail body of hers and only reaching out for that one arm of support. a tiny woman. but so big.

i want to write like her, not literally, because i dont think i could. but like her. write because without it i wouldn't be alive. because writing is a compulsion, to understand myself, to converse with myself. write because i must.

although my writing (if I will ever be able to call it that) might also be on very different subjects than hers. I'm still waiting to publish my first paper in some journal. after more than I can count or remember rejections. after the core point of the paper has changed because of the many rejections, after it got rejected many times since then. I've always known i was stubborn and i also knew it would serve me well in some way. i still dont know whether this time will be the one i've waited for or i'll wake up another morning to another "we are sorry" email. i'll cry again, angry tears. tears of hopelessness of failure of rejection. i will ignore the comments for a couple of days, still angry, still dejected. but then some fine day i will get back to it. send it to another journal or rewrite it once again with or without changing much. its funny how this one paper is still alive in me. I have almost thrown away the other two of my dissertation, one because a reviewer pointed out another paper by other authors (a working paper then; published now) that did something very similar to what i thought i was the first to do; and the other because i felt it was full of holes that couldn't be plugged. i might still pick up the latter some day and try and do a brief on it. maybe after the one i am working on now can somewhat claim to be finished.

why is it that i have never yet written about all this? is it because i doubted this to be just a phase? that i was waiting to quit one day, to finally realize that this was beyond me? i still live with that doubt though. despite it, despite being unemployed, i still work however. because i must. even though this might all be worthless crap. but till i know that : i can still dream that this is the first comprehensive analysis of the topic. that it will start a small literature; or at the very least help someone else find a clue to their answers.

the paper i am waiting to get back from the journal though - i realized a few weeks ago - has a major typo, in three different places. the same wrong word which means exactly the opposite of what it should have said. i must have been tired when i wrote it out, or simply confused as i often get - if an increase in A causes a decrease in B I can often state the opposite and get lost in my words - even though I know, even though I was the one to find it out. ah well. just hope they understand it is a typo. and if they have to reject it, how does it matter what reason they give.

coming back to Joan; her words on the flower power movement in Haight Ashbury in the 60s:

"We were seeing the desperate attempt of a handful of pathetically unequipped children to create a community in a social vacuum. Once we had seen these children, we could no longer overlook the vacuum, no longer pretend that the society's atomization could be reversed. This was not a traditional generational rebellion. At some point between 1945 and 1967 we had somehow neglected to tell these children the rules of the game we happened to be playing. Maybe we had stopped believing in the rules ourselves, maybe we were having a failure of nerves about the game. Maybe there were just too few people around to do the telling.

...

They are less in rebellion against the society than ignorant of it, able only to feed back certain of its most publicized self-doubts, Vietnam, Saran-wrap, diet pills, the Bomb.

...

As it happens I am still committed to the idea that the ability to think for one's self depends upon one's mastery of the language, and I am not optimistic about children who will settle for saying, to indicate that their mother and father do not live together, that they come from "a broken home". "

anything can go over the top.

for some months or maybe years now, I've been wondering how much waste I'm creating and how to reduce it, especially that of non-degradable materials like plastic. some thoughts here.

first, a complete abandonment of plastic and its substitution with paper products would cut down too many trees in this world, and there's nothing to suggest that that wouldn't be more catastrophic for this world than the current norm; what's important then is simply reusing bags (and other things) till their death, regardless of what those bags are made of. I now always keep shopping bags in our car, carry them to shops, and categorically refuse vendors' generous offers of numerous plastic bags or even paper bags, unless I really need to separate dirty potatoes from other vegetables. I have stopped shopping at the supermarket that individually wraps fruits and vegetables in cling wrap and throws plastic around like its dust. hubby still doesn't cooperate with my efforts on any of this.

second, most Indian households consider it 'clean' to throw out garbage every day, but it is completely unnecessary - we use large bins and throw out our garbage bags only when they are full, our habit uses considerably fewer plastic garbage bags and therefore releases less plastic waste. most people here screw their noses when they learn we don't empty out every day. this just reveals cultural ideas of what's clean and not (the same people have a daily system of their maids mopping the floors of their houses with a dirty rag that often doesn't dry after use and is never washed or cleaned beyond the little scrubs it is given by dirty hands in dirty water). even in the worst of delhi summer, our garbage rarely stinks. yeah, sometimes if its hot, we might tie out any meat waste separately and throw out earlier than the rest of the bag.

thirdly, and the point of this post, I've been worried by the amount of menstrual waste I create, and I am just one of many women on this planet. I started exploring options, cos there's also too much plastic in my pads. I found many things. the alternatives are - tampons (both organic and normal ones), organic and decompose-able pads, menstrual cups made of silicone, reusable cloth like mom did, and also surprisingly some new brands of absorbent panties that claim to lock the blood in and can be washed and reused. regardless of what excuse I come up with, I cannot bring myself to use reusable cloth or underwear. the thought itself is too much work on my part; as if managing periods in an environmentally reckless way itself is not hard enough. menstrual cups sound the least wasteful, but I find myself incapable of being able to insert it, even without trying (trust me, I know). so I tried tampons after researching them a bit. and that's why I came across TSS (toxic shock syndrome) even before I had ever used a tampon; most women who use them are oblivious to this possibility. true, that the risk of it sounds more like a Poisson possibility, especially if you follow instructions of hygiene and avoid super absorbent tampons. but then this morning I heard a woman narrate her experience of TSS when she was a 24-yr old athlete and lost her legs to the episode. now I am only human and I get scared too. and to give myself credit, I did try tampons this period after learning of TSS, and in fact, decided on alternating between them and pads (even before I heard this BBC story mentioned above) because I did not find them too comfortable - there's even some pain when it gets heavy with blood, and on my first two days that can happen in a couple of hours. don't think I'll be using them anymore. so I am left without making a change so far, and with the sole possibility of moving to environmentally friendlier sanitary pads - but won't demand for more organic cotton use up more important water than if we mixed some plastic in?? that is a question I will mull over for some time.

but talking about periods. there's this recent Netflix movie 'Soni' that is really worth a watch for its realistic portrayal of women's daily trials in this country. however, I remember strongly disagreeing with a particular scene in it, and the idea behind the scene that I felt perpetuated the shame and stigma forced upon women when they are 'down' with periods, especially if the blood leaks and their situation is revealed. instead of advising her niece to be unashamed of a bodily routine that women all over the world go through, and that is the very source of the ability to bear life, the character in the movie advises to track down the student(s) who played a dirty joke on her that highlighted the fact that she was on her period and was having a heavy flow, and demand they be punished. really? shouldn't we rather free women of the burden of shame that has been imposed upon us with regard to periods? if it leaks, so be it; I deal with mopping the blood every month for days, and you just had to see it this once and maybe some furniture needs to be cleaned up after it, you should just be thankful we bleed for the possible continuation of humanity. if you know I'm on my period, more information to you. and if I'm on my period, its just proof that I'm healthy.

when I read about a topic, I do get a lil obsessed by it and even unwittingly sometimes, related stories come my way. I read about a young woman who bled freely and ran a marathon : https://www.cosmopolitan.com/health-fitness/q-and-a/a44392/free-bleeding-marathoner-kiran-gandhi/ . and that BBC story this morning: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cswlmt . and in NPR today again, a mention of this: https://www.wfae.org/post/new-book-busts-myths-about-menstruation-spread-public-health-groups#stream/0 . referring to the last link, it is true that in the western world (or in the privileged consciousness) new for-profit firms are refurbishing old ideas like reusable cloths and underwear and selling them as sustainable period waste alternatives, while other firms (or maybe the same ones) are using non-profit organizations to change habits and sell their single use sanitary pads and tampons to women who are used to home-made reusable cloth!

by the way, facebook is earning shit ton loads of money because of all those ads I keep seeing on it. another reason to write more here rather than discuss ideas and developments on that network with disinterested people. at least here I know that viewership self selects interest too, even if both are extremely thin.

if not earlier, I'll be back next month, when I'll be bleeding buckets again. it does get creative juices flowing as well, allegedly.

last year, a lil later this month, K's grandma died. I had spent some afternoons n late evenings with her while she watched TV and i sat on her bed next to her with my computer, reading or working. sometimes we also talked, although in her last year that was increasingly becoming difficult to do as we more than often failed to understand what she was saying ; talking had evolved into her writing in her notebook and me trying to decipher her words, often scrawled on top of previously written conversation. it was the same disease that Hawking had, but Badi did not have the same technology as him. whenever i guessed correctly what she was trying to say she would smile or her eyes would do that for her, and when i failed to understand she would scowl and get mad. that was the only expectation she had from me, or anyone else those days, and i failed her often, but neither of us gave up. you cannot when there isn't an alternative.

since her death, i have come upon some of her things. i was given a small silver box of hers that i now keep some earrings in. and i was offered to take whatever of her things i wanted. i took a nightshirt i had gifted her some yrs back on a birthday. i had shipped it to her from the US. a pink one with blue figures of Indian cricketers on it. it had been world cup season i think and she was always a big fan, giving greater importance to watching entire matches than to her meals, which had become an ordeal for her to swallow. i also took a yellow soft toy turtle that i had gifted her quite some years back, a small one from Anokhi made from Indian hand dyed fabric. it now lives on our yellow sofa, camouflaging and blending in pretty well. and yday i found yet another gift i had given her on yet another birthday. we were each peeking into her books cupboard last evening wondering if we wanted any. she used to be possessive about her things apparently, according to her daughter in law. i spotted this book and immeidately wanted it back now that she is no more. i wonder if she ever read it. there are some gifts you give to people that you want them to have because they appeal to you, even though you have no idea if they will appeal to them in the same way. in fact, because you don't know what will appeal to them, you often judge by your own liking. and now these things are so much more valuable because for a while she owned them.