As a pre-teen in the mid-1990s and the early naughties, every time I stepped out to buy something from the nearby confectionary store, I wo...
As a pre-teen in the mid-1990s and the early naughties, every time I stepped out to buy something from the nearby confectionary store, I would be extremely aware of myself when walking. This was Kanpur, my hometown and an erstwhile industrial city in north India. From an early age I had been told to monitor, censor and diminish my outings as much as possible. I was a girl and repeatedly reminded of being one by elders.
These outdoor trips, however short, were the headlines of my days and nights then. After all these years, not much has changed and I understand that performing those walks was my instinctive reaction to being repeatedly told that I shouldn’t be outdoors. I subconsciously wanted to unmake the rules and create an act out of the few minutes I got out be outside.
My walking garnered attention. A neighbourhood boy, also a school dropout, started whistling songs meant for me. A first cousin caught me reading one of his letters. “I like you,” three precise words written in blue ink behind the wrapper of a chocolate bar.
Over the next few days, she stopped me from playing outdoors, warming me of the dire consequences. I should behave like “girls...
