I ultimately made a few decisions. Until a few weeks I was held up with the idea that I would visit all the places I could and not read about it from before. ( S had told me the truth about travelling and my status about it in this sentence I will never forget, with a truth that sinks in everyday with more sadness, but there are thousand other things to keep the hope afloat....'The next worst thing about never going to a place you want to is to know everything about it.'...)
Well doesn't matter. I will perhaps be a hippie next birth. (And my dreams of being a Rockstar, a Computer Hacker, a National Geographic Wildlife Photographer, A Royal Bengal Tigress, and marrying the first love of my life will happen in subsequent births, maybe one or two at a time, in no particular order). This birth, even if I don't get time to even move out of my hospital or wherever my profession takes me, I will read about all those places people have gone so far, or that my friends will go. And I will give free advise to all those like me in whitecoats who want to go to just go, pack their bags and freak out...and forget about Traveller's Diarrhoea, Agoraphobia, hygienic foods, distilled water, Cuts and bruises, Soframycin, Sunscreen, Dettol, Cervical Collar, Augmentin, Ofloxacin-Ornidazole, Sporolac, B Complex............
Went to Delhi on a one day trip ( I love going to Delhi alone, be it in freezing winter or torrid Summers, the latter gives me a migraine though.) My professor did not buy that I went to Delhi just to Subscribe to a magazine that I could have easily sent a draft to. However, being as I am, I wanted to see the interiors of Times of India Office. So I decided not to send a draft but to go and give the subscription money personally. Secondly I had a small intention of visiting Nehru Place and seeing what new Computer Peripherals have come, maybe check out the Apple Store at Ansal Plaza, and see the HP pavillion series and inquire about the notebooks Sukumar had told me have thronged US markets. So I packed my bags with cash and nothing else and went. Lonely Planet, a subscription of the Times of India group, has opened its office in Darya Ganj, a little while from the "Lohe ka Pool" in my favorite Chandni Chowk. Bel juice is still not there though, and I did not have time or intrest to try the Shikanji. Opposite Saraswati School, its a pretty Victorian setup with red carpeted stairways that must go back to the Monarchy. Booked my two years subscription, added with it a complimentary subscription of Femina ( I confess to being completely women's/men's magazine illiterate, in my room you will find scores of Computeractive lying about, but this time I decided to change the ambience level) . I found out a series of fantastic shops out there near the office on my way out, Goyal Brothers about foreign languages, The Gyaanpeeth shop where all the books that have got this award from its institution are sold, the Mothership Pustak Mahal, and General Book Depot, which gave me the books I have wanted for a long time now. Fantastic Distributors if you don't belong to the Landmark Shopper category. They are Next level.
Next stop was Gk1 where I took my ritual solitary lunch of noodles with chicken, prawn and Pork...yes the last I nodded my head to this time, all the thinking of all the Neurocysticercosis and trying to imagine how I will look with Post ictal confusion or Todd's Palsy. Lee Gardens is good that way as you wont come with a lot of familiar faces that you will get anytime in Dai Chi in South Ex. The sweetlime soda wasn't sweet, and I am not so old and single to be drinking...Shopped a bit, on a whim went back all the way to Chandni Chowk to get the books ( Will write about it later), it was nearing 7 when I got out of the book shop, loaded with books, trousers and a Chicken Roll from DePaul's for dinner...caught the bus to Rohtak...and came back to my world.
I think I am quite happy with my life. Yes the punctuations of sadness are not commas or fullstops but perhaps run a little longer to the tune of something like this......But who cares. I know what I am, I am reasonably satisfied with my stamina, I think I am honest and work hard. I am one very angry woman though. You have to see me to believe me. And a lot of that anger comes from a lot a hurt doubtless plus the lack of fear. I don't think I fear anything anymore..anything except all the reserves I keep for a few loved ones. I travel safe. and I believe that more or less, a girl can stay safe if she chooses to be sensible and sharp. And by God's grace I have mostly been safe. Even as a resident of the country's undoubtedly most masculine/chauvinistic state. I not just survive, I live. My life is at the moment contended with this. Other things don't matter. Other things I will learn with time. Other things I will perhaps want with time. But now is not the time for them.
I am firm about this. I am happy as a Lonely traveller in perhaps a Planet that is lonely. But I am sometimes sad, sometimes happy and mostly thinking and introspective in my Bus rides. I do not know how much company I would want and basically I am also at a hilarious loss who would like to give me company in my mad errands. And its perfectly okay. The solitude is irreplacable. Hence my Delhi sojourns will always be like this, and I will keep my Professor guessing what I go to Delhi for. I will still mostly be teary eyed at Red Fort, and a little teary eyed at one or two part of the journey. And smile for quite a great length of time. Thats the sad dots versus the happy sentence story. Sentences outweigh the dots. All the trips I take alone are formative experiences of my life I will always remember and cherish. I only request God to keep me safe against those I may fail to defend myself. Nothing else matters.
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