Dear Distance

Dear distance,

Why does circumstance change the manner in which I want to measure you? Why is it that kilometers mean nothing to me anymore? Why do you take such pride in being vast, immense, cosmic, titanic, gigantic, Why?

Your latitudes and longitudes are too far apart. If only they were tightropes I could land my feet on, I’d trapeze my way over to where you became obsolete. To where my mind would no longer be incomplete.

Dear distance,

You tear me away from normalcy, seducing me with tales of things I am forever to discover. With dreams I didn’t even know I had. To places that belong only in books. To become someone who lay dormant within me like a caged bird who thought her feathers were just emotional baggage. You rip away at my way of life, showing me its flaws as though it were an onion – each layer more pungent and acidic than the first. You take me all the way to my very core, where introspection is my only defense mechanism, where my tears aren’t from ascorbic but from the heart. 

Dear distance,

You take me away from my priorities that loom large each day, through a tunnel scattered with alluring stimuli, until they look an inch high from where we are. You convince me of the importance of the ground we stand upon, of life beyond the tunnel, of the scenic route. Temptress, you always have your way with me. I wonder if I’ll ever have mine.

Dear, dear distance,

I despise your charm. Your unpredictability and gut-wrenching thirst for adventure. Your ability to twist the monotony out of life. Your constant need for privacy and solitude. I despise the ease with which you can say goodbye.

Perhaps if I could uproot smoothly, wander through life without connections, without sowing seeds of love along the way, I too could wave at the years as they went by. But I am yet to learn the art of isolation. Of separation. Of avoiding wanton desperation, or dreaming up miniscule versions of my once ginormous priorities that I could carry around in my back pocket – egging me on when times got tough. If only, my dear distance, I could be as free as you are.

P(esky) M(onthly) S(truggles)

There are mornings when I simply know

That my peace of mind is about to go

Go far away into a land unknown

A place before puberty I'd grown

These mornings are oft a monthly affair

Akin to being flung down many a-stair

They start with a heaviness absolute

Perhaps even a demented right boob

The soreness seems to penetrate 

From epicenter down to prostate

And just when I thought it couldn't get worse

A horrendous dump knocks - an intestinal curse

In a fetal position, somehow I rise

As though in my eighties I'm nearing demise

Atop the pot my limbs give way

I'm only a torso, painful passageway

With stubborn emission I huff and heave

Giving myself a headache, would you believe?

I begin to count my body parts undone

My brain, my arms, my back for one

Also, my calves and shoulders and left knee

It's all a massive pile of hormonal debris

Rising once more, now in the mold of a squat

I head straight for the bed, where get up I shall not.


~For more period rambles, look here.

Day 45 - Nicobar Diaries

22nd December 2017

I realize I write the least when I have someone to speak to regularly enough over the phone, exhausting my urgency to share with blank sheets of paper. The last few days have provided a spurt in otherwise nonexistent telecom network availability. It also makes me question the voracious writing I did during my last couple of school years.

It's now late (oh wait, it's just 8 pm?) and I have a lot to say without any of the energy or dexterity I need to put it all to paper. Damn this age that makes talking and typing so easy - at this rate, I'll lose touch with the romantic morals I uphold.

More actual thoughts tomorrow, will power willing.

Day 37 - Nicobar Diaries

14th December 2017

(I have no food on my table - plastic table and chair bought to aid work and provide one of those required surfaces upon which one can put things - and yet there are always tiny ants swarming over it. They climb over my arms while I work and then travel over the island with me.)

It took some time for things to get going once I got here. I spent two very long days on the ship, during which I had an attack of loneliness, a little breakdown when my cabin-mates weren't around and then wrote some cheesy letters to friends. It was only as the ship was approaching Campbell Bay - the three hours of crawling towards the harbour in sight - when I was introduced to Jaya and her daughter by the wonderful old man I spoke of, who chatted me up while I was looking for dolphins. Of all the introductions and meetings I've had so far, which is many, this one has truly blossomed. We've become dear friends seemingly overnight, albeit in a mother-daughter manner. She and her family (husband who works in the Stores for the Forest Department and two girls just younger than me) adopted me without taking no for an answer. They gave me a bed to sleep in while I struggled to find an empty shelter to rent for my stay.

Jaya still stresses out about my well being, especially if too long has passed since I dropped by for tea or a meal. I'll never stop being amazed by how hospitable people here can be. Coming from Mumbai where our door is often closed even to friends and family if unannounced, I wonder if I deserve such love and warmth. It's not easy being on either side of that door, and I'll be damned if I don't uphold Nicobari values well into my life.

With this family's help, a lot of asking around, riding around on my scooter, some begging and groveling, I convinced a Mr Murugan to rent out one of two shelters that had been left in his care. He said I could have the one without a working bathroom, having promised the "good" one to a family who was to arrive soon. He and his right-hand-guy promised to help me fix up the house within 3 days, during which time I moved out of the Government guesthouse and into Jaya's home. After a week of their call-dodging, false promises and my nagging, I finally received the keys to a semi-functional home. It took me some days and a trench in my stipend to set it up and clean - and I live to tell the tale.

Work-wise highlights

-- I decided to begin conducting my interviews from Govind Nagar itself, as I was still setting up home in that village and it helped to not travel too far in that time. I got my surveys printed, charged up my dictaphone and set out. My first two interviews were awkward. I realized this only later while listening to my under-confident self on the recorder. I have a terrible recorded voice, so child-like and high-pitched, why do people speak to me over the phone?

Anyway, I picked up pace, confidence and structure soon enough and have managed to complete most of my interviews for this settlement. I am much more fascinated now than I've ever been. The stories and experiences that I get to hear make me feel for both the people and monkeys. Looking at conflict through avenues that bring me closer to the affected and the affectee is hard on my thoughts about the situation here.

The interviews are varied and every home is different in the way its members respond. Some homes have enthusiastic interviewees who answer most of my questions even before they escape my lips. A couple of people have enacted their experiences or the behaviours of the visiting monkeys. Some people are willing to share, but feel their experiences aren't worth sharing. One old man was so busy cleaning rice, he took 20 seconds of contemplation to answer each question. Sometimes it's easy and fun and intriguing, and at times there are long, awkward pauses and smiles. And generally, there's chai.

Most of the non-academic details from my interviews are in a document I'm maintaining on the laptop. The optimist in me thinks there's a book to be written from all this, the potential is mind-boggling. Gently having mentioned this to Ma and Nana over the phone led to them recommending illustrators for the book I haven't yet written. The instinctive encouragement on their part makes me want to give it a shot.

-- I've nearly habituated my troop entirely and it's a humbling feeling. I don't take this trust lightly, especially since I know what it was like when I first started out. I'm following the troop near B-Quarry beach, decided to do so after piloting with 4 different ones. The others were either inaccessible in spurts or outside the anthropogenic gradient I was interested in. I think I made a wise choice with this troop, since their home range covers forest patches, clearings, human habitation and coastal areas. I'm constantly discovering new things about their behaviour that I'd enjoy delving deeper into later on. I'm keeping record of these ideas, they keep me engaged.

I met a pujari whose temple is just at the beach. He feeds the monkeys regularly, much to the dismay of some people. Sometimes he shouts out to me, informing me that they're arriving. Often I'm following them already, but I humour him and thank him heartily for the help. He's a Tamilian and chats me up whenever he gets a chance. I've now developed a short-short hand so that I can continue making observations while he tells me about his life, the monkeys and Lord Krishna. He's been inviting me to his temple for evening prayers, I think I might go one of these days.

The pujari offering some coconut prasaad to my study troop

While the macaques are a bunch of naughty goofballs in most people's eyes, I can't help but be in awe of them. At the end of the day, these are wild animals - brilliant, intelligent and full of personality. Maybe our shared mannerisms and diet make them so relatable that we overlook these things. I also realized that I underestimated the time I need with each troop - it's a combination of now wanting to delve deeper into each one and juggling the behaviour work with my social surveys. I'm wondering whether to stick to just one and get to know them intimately and reliably.

-- I had an idea for citizen science a few days ago, which Rana seemed to really like as well. I'm flying with it. I start tomorrow and am hoping ardently that it works.

Only 5 months to go.

Non-work-wise, it can get lonely. I don't mean to sound ungrateful for all that's happened so far. Many people have helped me, struck up conversations and welcomed me into their lives, but I'm ultimately on my own for the most part. What makes it harder some days is knowing that this past month has crawled past, and I know that there's 5x to come. The rational parts of my mind tell me that the first month was bound to be a stretch. I was setting up the whole project and my immediate future, stress being my side-order to every meal. Once work begins in earnest, days are bound to fly by, and maybe when they do, I'll wish they didn't. 

Keep Safe Distance: The Hebbal Project

It's been roughly nine months since I began traveling 17.5 km to get to work each day. Considering I live in Bangalore now, where distances are magnified by its tipsy traffic and where daily cab rides at office-going hours could deprive me of large swathes of my own salary, I wasted no time in procuring a hardy second-hand scooter. My deep purple Honda Activa, albeit a little wobbly, has repeatedly carried my clumsy bottom to office and back loyally. She's squeezed through tiny gaps between cars and provided me with a false sense of progress in standstill traffic. She has whizzed past trucks too large for her own good - a trusty little Scrappy Doo in the big bad Bangalore world. She's rolled over many a pointy object, throwing me at mechanic after mechanic, patching up her well-worn tires. One would think traveling 35 km a day could get boring/exhausting/frustrating/excruciating/brain-numbing, but on most days, luckily for me, I had more than my personified scooter for company. I had a Dincy.

What is a Dincy? Oh, I'm so glad you asked.

A Dincy is a curly-haired female being. A textbook nerd (thank you, Dr Seuss). She is eternally fascinated by the world around her, taking it all in one hazy phone photo at a time. She is my default pillion, seated fixedly behind me in a good-for-nothing helmet of her own choice. From there, she points out the humour hidden in traffic - funny road signs, car stickers, dogs wedged into two-wheelers and oddly-shaped helmets. Our journeys are autobiographical, with people and our immediate surroundings reminding her of various anecdotes to keep me entertained with. But, believe it or not, this post is not about Dincies (if there can even be more than one of these strange creatures). This post is about Project Hebbal - one of her many cranial gems.

All photos taken by the aforementioned Dincy

At the start of this literal and metaphorical journey in February, we were stuck somewhere along an 840 m stretch of traffic bottleneck - as we still are on most days - called the Hebbal Flyover. This flyover is strategically planted, ensuring that most traffic going to school/office/college has to crawl over it. At two inconvenient spots, more commuters pour in, causing the existing lanes of traffic to squirm awkwardly out of the way.

One such inching day, Dincy decided to time how long we took to cross over. She did it again the next day, and the next, and the next. We agreed that we could find the optimal time to cross over Hebbal if we kept meticulous note of when we reached the flyover and how long we spent on it. It became our pet project (and a convenient way to justify when we left our homes later than planned). Being the sole scooter maneuver-er across our many 'data points', I have come to claim equal authorship over our several month long academic endeavour. I present to you, our findings.

How long it took my Activa to get over the Hebbal flyover (840 m) at various starting points in the AM - a liberal scatter that is explained below.

It took us an average of 6 minutes and 21 seconds to cross over, clocking in at an incredible pace of 8 km per hour. I must admit that this was rather disappointing, because on most days it felt like half an hour, considering we were often running late as well. However, allow me to now elaborate upon the many confounds that our project is rife with.

#1. These results are only applicable to travel by scooter - a rickshaw would take 2-3 minutes more, a medium-sized car would take 3-4 minutes longer, and I'm certain that buses would inch along slower still.
#2. My scootering skills: As the days rolled by and frustration with everyday traffic increased, I got more proficient squeezing through narrow gaps and maximising on wiggle-through opportunities, shaving off more time from our data than when we began in Feb.
#3. Between April and June, we had some blissfully traffic-less days despite being tardy thanks to schools being closed for summer, reducing much of the traffic (informed speculation!).
#4. There is a second route (via Hennur) one can take to the office, bypassing the mountainous Hebbal, which is longer but allows for uninterrupted movement. I've found it usually takes even longer than if I persevered through the flyover traffic, however, it's worth it for the maintenance of sanity. Because I take a look at the vehicle pileup and reroute through Hennur, we have missed several data points that would have held us in place for 10-15 minutes. Somehow, it wasn't worth it even for science.
#5. Traffic policemen! Most of Hebbal pileup is because of the chaotic manner in which people force their way through unmoving traffic at the two inlets I mentioned earlier. On occasion, there has been a traffic cop at these points, directing traffic, helping things move along like butter. Well, semi-solid butter. This has shaved time off of our timer and proven how having someone stationed there regularly could have saved us the trouble of starting this project in the first place.

So, what do you do with this information? You can use it to determine when to leave home in order to beat the rush or simply use it to know that you're not going to beat the rush because you left late like we generally do.You could use it to ensure you don't take the flyover into the city close to 9 am unless you absolutely must. You can use this to prove to the Bangalore Traffic Police that we need to address this bottleneck because there is now somewhat hard data to prove that it should not take more than a couple of minutes to cross 800 meters of road. You could also use it to feel better about yourselves, knowing that you didn't spend enough time stuck in traffic to find an internal urge to study your time in it. The possibilities aren't limitless, but plenty.

In the meanwhile, we shall go back to navigating through incorrigible traffic, dodging people who never use indicators and overtake from the left. Dincy will keep taking photos of odd happenings and I will continue to resist the urge to honk back at the Uber driver who thinks I can make way for him in the middle of a red light.

Day 12 - Nicobar Diaries

20th November 2017, Andaman Sea

(A filler post - pieced together from incomplete jottings and to-do-lists)

Coral Queen is swanky. Okay, not swanky in the literal sense, but swanky in comparison to M. V. Campbell Bay that I took the last couple of times. It's a tinier ship, something I found endearing and novel until bad weather and halpa (the sea-equivalent of airline turbulence) hit us. When docked, it looked sturdy and bold, like a short-yet-feisty person, but appeared rocky and dainty once out at sea. Like a Victorian relic washed abroad due to torrential, tropical rain.

This journey, like the others, was a solo one, or so I thought. I had two days of solitude, a good book, a pair of binoculars and a ship full of people who'd soon be my neighbours. I was covered. Typically, I'd find myself on the deck through the daytime hours - binoculars hanging around my neck and book in hand - scanning the seaface for cetaceans or any marine life between chapters, or leaning over to look at the tip of the ship as it breaks water, sending flying fish in panic-stricken directions. The latter wasn't as possible as I was accustomed to. Owing to the tininess of the ship, a thick rope boundary was drawn between the railings and the passengers, leaving a wide berth of tempting deckage restricted. So, I shared bum space with many more people per square foot than anticipated, striking up conversation between sentences. 

An elderly man - thin and distinguished grey, with the slightest slouch of the shoulders - walked up to me and asked me if I was the 'scientist type' - he had seen me writing and reading for a day. I gave him the modest truth, being careful to sprinkle the word 'student' into my description generously. He asked me if I had a place to stay when I got to the island. Fact was, I didn't. I was going to spend a few nights in the Forest Guesthouse while I scouted the area for a place to rent and turn into a field base. He insisted that I meet Jaya.

Jaya was the center of a small group of 5 women, draped in a bright blue saree with her short hair tied up tight, not a single strand out of place. Once he pointed her out to me, I couldn't help but notice her and her exuberance. She was loud, high-pitched and had a smile plastered on her face constantly. He introduced us and I was whisked away, into the group of chattering women. We went to the dining area, where they were sharing a 15 rupee packet of banana chips, and a barrage of questions followed. They were bored on this long journey and there I was, a serendipitous source of entertainment and intrigue. Who was I? Where was I from? What was I going to do there? Why am I traveling alone? Wasn't I scared? Do I get paid to do such outrageous things?

Providing honest answers, I've found, paves the way to receive more information than I imagined/wanted/needed. Nonetheless, it builds relationships, and I didn't realize what a rock-solid family I was steadily becoming a part of that first evening aboard Coral Queen.

Over the next two weeks, Jaya Aunty became something between my islandic older sister and mother. She put a roof over my head and food in my plate for two weeks while I scrounged the place for a house to rent, began scouting for field work and steadily began conducting my interviews. She also gave me the seeds of a few vessels to make tea and rice, a plate to eat out of and a mat to sleep on when I finally found a place. 

When I first walked into it, it was extremely dusty, had fungus all over its plywood walls, a fan hanging precariously on its hinges and several broken pipes. It hadn't seen electricity coursing through its wires for months, and it was hard to believe that it was ever occupied. It took several trying calls, personal visits and more scrounging to find resources and people who could help me restore it to a place I could spend six months in. It's hard to have a sense of urgency in a place that seems to function along its own timescale, moving imperceptibly in the Andaman Sea. With my scooter as a sole assistant, I steadily put together a field base, set up in Tsunami Shelter 6A of Govind Nagar, Campbell Bay. Its large hall had but a plastic Nilkamal table and chair. One bedroom lay empty and the other held everything that I brought with me in my rucksack, neatly piled around my sleep-mat. The kitchen started bare, but appeared lived-in as days went by. I shared my outdoors bathroom with 3 friendly chickens, 4-5 goats, my neighbour's cow (who kept trying to worm her way into my kitchen) and, occasionally, the ranging macaques.

A week into living alone in my tsunami shelter, two neighbourhood dogs - Pandu and Chotu - began living with me. I had a home.

Day 10 - Nicobar Diaries

18th November 2017, Haddo Warf

This was my last day in Port Blair before heading off to Campbell Bay in Great Nicobar, and it was a long one. I started the day making long lists of things to do, buy and pack before getting on that ship. I also had to find good network and internet to send some emails to the officials at Campbell Bay confirming my arrival dates (now that I had tickets) and follow them up with phone calls to account for all bureaucratic and internet-related inefficiencies in Great Nic.

I had also discovered two things:
1. My scooter was giving me great mileage.
2. I wouldn't be allowed to load my scooter onto the ship if it still had petrol swishing inside its fuel tank.

I decided to set out early and run all my errands in a non-parsimonious order so as to use up maximum fuel since I filled her up entirely like a fool yesterday. Since I didn't know about photocopy machines and printers in Campbell Bay just yet, I also got some data sheets and permit letters in place. Since the island authorities keep track of every new person to set foot on the island, I also got my photo taken, so I could attach it to my application. It turned out blurry-eyed and sweaty, with large patches under my pits thanks to the sweltering day and my running around.

The cargo ticket said I needed to be at the loading docks by 5 pm. I hurriedly finished all my work by then and reached Haddo. This is a fairly large dockyard from which the heavier passenger and cargo vessels leave. It has multiple entries - all leading up to the same places - but open at varying times. It has broad walkways and cement platforms, large enough for trucks and cranes of immense girth to pass through. Having to walk from one end of the docks to the other takes forever, and the expanse of platform seems never ending. It's got 30-foot-long shipping containers piled up in colourful columns to one side, which I've only been trained to look at as a potential site for an action/horror film shoot.

I had to sign myself and the scooter into the docks, providing the necessary paperwork, and was then let in. Once I got there, though, I found four others with their two-wheelers, making multiple rounds of the wharf to use up their remainder petrol. My tank was so far from empty, I felt even sillier. I needed to find a way to manually empty it there itself, now that I had done the long-drawn entry procedures. In addition, I was told that it would easily be another three hours before the crew would get around to loading our bikes. These would be the last cargo to go in, after all the other inter-island supplies, that came with their own sarkari paperwork which had to be checked by the Captain.

In all that time waiting and twiddling thumbs at the dock, I made conversation (dare I say friends?) with the Captain and few men from the crew. They were all pretty helpful and sympathetic about everything taking so long. Two others who had a little too much fuel in their tank used mine (with the most petrol) to scout for pipes and bottles that we could use to suck out the excess. I had nearly two liters still inside, which was great news for mileage and scooter potential, but a real pain at the docks that evening. The yellow fluid was like precious gold, and everyone stood clutching theirs cautiously so as not to mix it up and end up with less than their rightful share. Once the accessible petrol had been drained, we left our scooters on and running to burn up any traces that may still be there. The Captain would walk by, rock our bikes side to side and give us a disapproving shake of his head if he felt any swivel. My conscience burned with the petrol.

It was past 8:30 and very dark by the time our tanks were dry and in line to be loaded. I walked the scooter up a narrow, angled plank into the bottom of the ship, now filled with vegetables, fruits, mechanical parts, fish stock and other supplies. After watching these things being transported into the ship's hold for nearly four hours, I was amazed to see so much room still available. I then strapped my scooter in with scrap ropes to some potato crates and left after saying hearty byes to the crew and others at the dock, as though I'd known them for years.

Since it was already so late, I had long missed the last bus heading home. I requested Ravi, ANET's trusty cabbie, to come and get me. I got back to the base at nearly 10. I gave Sachin (another researcher) all my extra free fuel for which he gave me a rare smile, had some cold dinner, packed up my bags and crashed.

Lots to come.

PCOS - Periodic Curtailment of Sanity

It's now been twelve years since I was diagnosed with PCOS. While I've come to accept and live with it wholeheartedly, I still send a loving barrage of disappointed expletives to my uterus every month. Or every other month. Or every few months. Or twice a month. All dependent on how often my ovaries choose to throw a physiological tantrum.

PCOS, or Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome is a complex hormonal disorder which affects about 1 in 5 women in India, albeit in very different ways. Even though it's something so frightfully common (where mentioning I have PCOS triggers multiple, "so do I!" responses among my female friend circles) it is widely misunderstood, or simply not understood. Put lightly, PCOS is an imbalance in the release of 'male' and 'female' hormones. Often those with PCOS have higher levels of androgen and testosterone which throws the regular 28-day menstrual cycle off whack. Periods become irregular or may not come at all. The ovaries often collect fluid in and around their developing eggs, forming cysts. Because of this, the cysterhood of eggs stick together and may not release into the uterus in a timely manner.

This syndrome (or way of life, as I have come to know it) could occur due to increased androgen levels or genetics (brought to you by sexual-selection-avoiding humans). Both these leave you predisposed to PCOS, at times manageable through stringently maintained, painfully healthy lifestyles.

While it's difficult to explain exactly what's going on inside my body to someone who's never had to deal with PCOS - or in the case of men, with periods itself - it's actually pretty straight forward. PCOS could lead to irregular/scanty/heavy/no periods. It could manifest as acne, hair loss, weight gain (hello, my puberty), facial hair or the inability to conceive. However, it doesn't mean every woman has to put up with them all. I have to deal with weight gain, hair loss and severe cramping regardless of whether an egg descends from my ovaries that month or not. Someone else may break out with acne despite being twenty years out of their teenager phase and still have just the right amount of adipose. Fact of the matter is, it's a pain and we don't know what's going on with our bodies either. Sadly, in the long run, PCOS isn't just a monthly bother. It could pave the way to obesity, heart disease, infertility or diabetes.

While my reproductive organs down there are taking holidays and see-sawing on imbalanced hormones, my brain wallows in confusion and disorientation. PCOS causes mental and physiological stress, since the body is constantly trying to cope with unpredictable cycles, fluctuations and discomfort. In addition, it leaves one vulnerable to depression, anxiety and eating disorders. I've been battling with societal depictions of what the ideal woman ought to look and feel like for years on end, and body positivity does not come easily. How can I love my body when it feels like it doesn't love me? It's a cyclic conundrum, just like my primary dysmenorrhea (the uterus never stops throwing curve balls).

Having symptoms crop up through the cycle (or another non-round shape) each month has taken me down many a Google search, desperate for answers, solutions or comfort. But all this has ever done is is feed my reason for worry. I've assumed the worst, like ovarian cancer, convinced myself of parthenogenic pregnancy or thought I was abnormally messed up in the lady parts. Fact of the matter remains that a gynecologist is always the one to provide maximum emotional comfort - provided you find a non-judgmental one. Since PCOS affects each woman so differently, it's terribly hard to find universal symptoms online - or even the right combination - to fit everything you're going through perfectly. Only a gynecologist can listen to your woes, look you in the ovaries and assure you that it'll be alright (maybe with a little customised treatment and exercise). No matter how much inertia there may be, it helps to visit one, just for the peace of mind if not solutions. You'll be okay. I'll be okay. The entire cysterhood will be okay. Not great, but we'll take what we get, just like our PCOS.