There is not just one India. And what I have been privileged to experience on my recent travels, there won’t be for a long time. What is it that we do every day in cities? We wake up to an alarm, not the sun or our body clock. We rush to get dressed for work or the gym or whatever is the first appointment of the day. We spend our day in a controlled, man-made environment – air conditioning, phone screens, buildings, traffic, emails and meetings. Two weeks away from this showed me something that I never truly knew about myself. I don’t dislike travel. Everyone is so gung-ho about travel and I always found it overrated. But that might be because for the 10 years I lived in Germany, travel for me meant visiting the city centre of another European city. Cute streets, a pretty church, a peaceful river flowing by, in essence a little “same same but different”. Without a car or a driving licence, those were the only trips I managed to plan. Of everything that I saw in two weeks of...
Just as there is light at the end of the tunnel, there is sometimes an eclipse during the brightest night. From the Beti Bachao campaign slogans painted on city walls to our female athletes outperforming the men, we talk a lot about progress in society. Yet my recent encounters with the quintessential uncles of the middle class have been teaching me that our society is still far from accepting a woman who is independent and has an opinion. My joy at finally finding a new flat that suited my needs was soon marred by the drama of the move-out process. The landlord—who not only lied that I hadn’t given enough notice but also invented multiple reasons to withhold my deposit—was a case study in arrogance. It wasn’t just the blatant greed and lying that irked me; it was the disrespectful way I was treated and spoken to. This so-called “ex-army officer” spoke over and down to me the entire time, interrupting every sentence with condescension and irritation that I dared question hi...