Postcards: From Care Inside Ladies Compartments to Himachal’s Hot Springs
This month in Postcards: A home-cooked meal during field reporting, the joy of public baths, cat companions, freedom found in cycles and scooters, and more
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Lost And Found: My Scooter Is A Trusty Companion
Yet again, my blue Jupiter scooter and I missed a sly left turn and were irrevocably lost. This time, we were racing through the dreaded National Highway-16 in Chennai with no U-turn or exit in sight. The universe, Google Maps, and my debatable sense of direction were snickering at me. An unending road and the choking grief at missed turns, (past regrets, my mind hinted), elusive targets – was this some metaphor for life? In an hour, we would cross Andhra Pradesh’s border and splash at Tada waterfalls.
Was this a sign to abandon it all and settle in Tada as a tour guide? Let’s rewind. Last March, a friend and I stood waiting in the government office-like TVS showroom. After months of shakily learning to ride a bicycle and coercing countless friends to be pillion-riders as I revved their scooters past traffic, this shiny blue Jupiter made its way to me. Freedom lay in my grip and unlocked wind-gushing and road-zipping joy —no more waiting for delayed buses or trains.
In Pudukkottai, 1991, scores of women learned to cycle and took to the streets in a rally, led by the Arivoli Iyakkam movement. Mobility, and independence aside, I wondered, what were their relationships with their cycles? Did they, too, take to the road in times of grief and growth? For me, Mercury was occasionally in retrograde but my Jupiter was a reassuring, albeit dusty companion, whether navigating lost lanes, floods, fury, breakups, breakdowns, or belting out Tamil songs at signals.
A perhaps slightly-illegal U-turn surfaced soon enough and the road to the city opened up. My career path as Tada’s tour guide eludes me for now. But this March, happy birthday to my Jupiter and Pudukottai Cycling Movement whose women give me extensive strength.
Archita Raghu
Viewing Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’ in New York
“Where can I see the Starry Night?” I asked the lady at the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam.
“That’s in New York”.
This was a decade ago. An entire museum dedicated to the artist and yet I had to cross the Atlantic to see one of my two favourite paintings (the other being Hokkusai’s The Great Wave of Kanagawa). So, when I had to make a trip to Michigan for a conference, tickets were promptly booked to New York City centered around a trip to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) — home to the Starry Night.
The painting has meant a lot to me. It calmed me during stressful times, and brought joy on glum days. The swirling clouds, the bright stars, the brighter Venus and the yellow moon over a sleepy village and the impressionist brush strokes are a study in movement, drama and vibrancy as if the skies are doing a gentle waltz. Yet Van Gogh’s state of mind was far from joy, perhaps indicated by the blue hues of the painting. He painted it while in an asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France, and in his letter to his brother Theo wrote, “I allowed myself to be led astray into reaching for stars that are too big – another failure – and I have had my fill of that.”
As I stood before the painting, eyes welled up, Don Mclean’s song Vincent playing in my head: “But I could have told you, Vincent, this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.”
Bhanupriya Rao
Dysmorphia, discarded: Finding Sisterhood In Public Baths
Are you, like millions of women, unhappy about the body that looks back at you in the mirror? The kamar that is kamra, as a friend jokes? There’s the postpartum tire that refuses to retire, the wobbly bits on the arm, the cellulite that hides the quads, and the secondary or tertiary chin with maybe, hair sprouting on it.
Here is a solution to your dysmorphia – a visit to a public bath.
Nearly a decade ago, a friend and I had made our way nervously into the historic Cemberlitas hammam in Istanbul. You had to strip to the barest minimum. Mortified, we swore not to look at each other till we were back in the ‘land of the clothed’. Studiously staring at the walls, we made our way into the women’s section of the gorgeous 16th century bath.
All around us, women seemed supremely unconcerned at the state of their bodies. Laid out on marble slabs like halibuts, everyone was being loofah-ed vigorously by Amazonian women attendants with the kind of vigour we use to scrub our kadhais. This was then followed by having hot and cold buckets of water flung at you. We emerged looking like freshly skinned raw prawns, considerably less bodily self-conscious.
It was an experience I was to repeat at the women’s bath at a kund, a ritual hot spring, in Himachal recently. Here were the toughened bodies of the hill women who toil all day in rarified oxygen. Real, solid, strong and not a single washboard ab. And what a riot they were having, soaking, gossiping, giggling, soaping each other’s backs. I stayed coyly submerged till the sisterhood seemed too infectious to resist. Then I too turned to a young mother next to me and asked for a back scrub. Oh the joy!
Malini Nair
A Meal at Deepmala’s Home And Her Lush Kitchen Garden
Travelling through Dhanbad on a reporting assignment, I meet Deepmala. She called me home and served me a glass of sattu sharbat, sliced fruits and homemade coconut laddoos. Though I had a train to catch that evening she insisted I stay for lunch. Quite often, on field for interviews, women call me home warmly for a meal and I find it hard to say no. So I stayed. Soon, I was sitting in front of a thali of varan bhaat (dal-rice), a spicy potato-brinjal curry, a delightful raw jackfruit sabzi, salad, tomato chutney, and pumpkin flower fritters. As if that was not enough, she packed me ladoos for my journey — what we call vanoḷa in Marathi.
Deepmala showed me her backyard garden full of bright flowers and plump vegetables revelling in spring and sunshine: cauliflower, cabbage, tomatoes, eggplants, chillies, pumpkin, jackfruit, and even beetroot, all of which goes into her cooking. For her, the satisfaction of feeding her loved ones homegrown chemical-free vegetables was extraordinary.
Deepamala also encourages women in the neighbourhood to grow a kitchen garden. Bokaro has a pall of black coal dust in the air. But amidst this, Deepmala had created a lush green world, which, even on this scorching April afternoon brought me a sense of serenity.
Priyanka Tupe
Forgetting Fear, I Pedal Towards Defiant Pleasure
It’s a quiet morning, and I’ve just returned from cycling. There’s a calmness, despite the sweltering Delhi heat (they say cities are in the grips of heatwave-like conditions already). I did three laps around my neighbourhood; the length of two songs and half a podcast on the brotherhood of tech-bros trying to govern the world.
I never enjoyed cycling. When I was younger, I was too scared to fail, fall, fumble. My fear felt strange, I felt strange. Cycling or related escapades – climbing trees, playing pranks, hiding and seeking – wasn’t for me. I was shy, quiet unlike my sister or friends who ran around with a careless abandon. I learned cycling as a reluctant skill back then, but envied people who rode with pleasure, swerving their bikes around the curbs, doing wheelies.
Last month, I went back to it on a whim. Life wasn’t making sense and maybe a new hobby could offer timely distraction. It came like muscle memory: how to balance without pedals, steer the bike, squeeze the brakes. I giggled like a child. The first few times were slow, cautious. A practiced effort. Fear was one thing but I also found that this was the only slice of time where I could take my attention and direct it where I wished. To a White Lotus podcast, to a playlist from decades ago, to birds warbling in the trees. Attention was intentional, not incidental.
I’m still petrified of fumbling, falling, failing. I don’t try new routes unless I’ve inspected the area for potholes and traffic. But there’s ease and a defiant pleasure in this practice: maybe if I look closely and patiently, I’ll understand something about myself.
Saumya Kalia
A Tale of Two Scaredy-Cats And Online Rabbit Holes
My cat, Roti, might be scared-iest cat ever. With the ring of the doorbell ring or the softest steps of a stranger, she bolts off to the most distant corner: under the bed. Here, she is safe. Until I met her, I thought I was the most afraid one. Throughout my childhood, I had been scared of animals, especially cats. I squarely blame the babysitter who used to throw her cat at me to wake me up.
Over three months of caring for this furball through childbirth, spaying, and moving houses, I have started understanding her fear. And he has destroyed mine. Each purr, eye blink, and biscuit-making move now comes with a dose of dopamine, a hit that has inadvertently made me doomscroll less. Elated but surprised at this radical change, I started reading up. Of course, there are superstitions around cats, and the “crazy cat lady” trope that is a device for shaming women who challenge gender roles.
But I was interested in how these notions crept into science, especially through inquiries around the parasite Toxoplasma gondii, which lives in cats’ stools. Since the 1990s, studies linking this parasite to changes in humans have seen an uptick. Some suggest correlations between the parasite and mental illness, car accidents, risky behaviour, and entrepreneurship. A 2020 review on evidence around the parasite said that separating causation from correlation has been a long-standing challenge and a potential issue is scientists’ and media’s reporting bias in favour of more sensational results.
Down this Internet rabbit hole of sensational claims, it was a Reddit post that made me chuckle: “Can I pet my cat during a dopamine detox, or is this instant gratification? I am being serious.”
Shreya Raman
The Quiet Care Inside Thane's Ladies Compartments
It was the night of April 13th. My friend and I boarded a fast train from Thane to Kurla, on our way to Chembur for Ambedkar Jayanti celebrations. For anyone who’s taken a train from Thane, especially the second-class ladies’ compartment, you’ll know it’s never a calm ride. It’s packed — women heading home from work, ready to switch roles and start another round of responsibilities.
There’s a routine to it, though — people push their way in, adjust bags, make space where there isn’t any, and somehow find time to share a chat by the doors. That day, the train, delayed by 10 minutes late, was already full. We squeezed in any way, as always.
Inside, a young woman gripped a baby in one arm while a small boy held onto her other hand. An older woman with her daughter, the same age as the boy, stood next to her. They didn’t know each other. But it didn’t matter. As the train started moving, the older woman told the children to hold hands and gently moved them in front of her so the young mother could manage the baby better.
Someone nearby asked, “Why’d you bring the baby in such a rush? Should’ve taken the bus.” The young mother smiled, half-tired. “I was going to… but forgot in the middle of handling these two,” she said, pointing at her children. Minutes later, the baby started crying. Without much discussion, everyone around started helping in small ways; one woman jingled her key, another guessed he might be thirsty, and a third filled the cap of her bottle and offered some water with the mother’s nod.
The baby kept crying — until the older woman lifted her water bottle and gently tapped it against the hanging metal bar. A soft, steady sound rang out. The baby stopped, looked up, and watched the bottle move. It worked. For the rest of the ride, she kept up the gentle tapping. The rest of us just smiled.
Urvi Sawant
What a Puzzler
Your monthly brain teaser about gender, care, and politics with no perfect answers
While reporting on a recent story on working women’s hostels in Tamil Nadu, we saw how these were heavily fitted with CCTV cameras. While we were exasperated at the surveillance state, women who migrated to Chennai from rural areas to cities told us that they found safety in these CCTV cameras. So help us think through this puzzler this month:
Do women feel safe or surveilled under a CCTV camera’s gaze?
Last month, we asked you for theories on women and matars. We asked: If a woman peels peas at the office in between work, does it count as work or leisure? The responses delighted us. Here are a few from our social media platforms:
@anushkabhilwar: “This would probably be the only moonlighting approved by the society.”
@prakriti.bakshi: “Work! Albeit unpaid. Would have been leisure if she was aiming the peas to go in a sleeping person’s mouth or something.”
@firef0x_: “It’s still work! She’s alternating between two types of work. One that pays, and one that doesn’t. Leisure would have been if she stepped out with a friend for a cuppa.”
Write to us with your thoughts and stay tuned to next month’s newsletter for our hypotheses about safety.
Until next time, Behans.
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