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.