Girl, interrupted

While I mostly rant about my love for travel, I chose to begin this year's blogging with my dislike for interruptions in my travel. There are many things about civilised behaviour that I cannot comprehend. For months fellow backpackers on the road greet me with a friendly smile and a so-where-are-you-from, and I am jolted back to the norms of society the minute I meet people I know whose first reaction is 'Oh you look miserable' or 'Oh you've put on weight, have you been travelling at all?'. Ho hum. I could have done with a how-have-you-been instead. I mean, when did I last bother to ask you whether you ate brown bread or burgers with deep fried cutlets? Why do I fail to notice that precious displacement of a couple of grams? After coming back from Kerala last year, I had received a lot of queries (flak?) for my tan. So this time round, after my Base camp trek wherein I had been sunburnt beyond recognition, I stayed an extra month in the comforting anonymity of hoards of similarly damaged trekkers. The understanding and acceptance I found in the lanes of Kathmandu's Thamel was welcome, rather than the endless recoiling in horror of familiar people and the 'ohmigosh do something about it!!'. I didn't wish to explain how time is the bext healer, even for sunburns. While I would have have had to mask my face to step out in the city, I proudly wore the patchy tan like a badge and received nods of approval from people who knew the work of art could only have resulted from one hell of a journey. My faithful floaters that have stood the test of time and tough roads could be a misfit in the clatter of Bandra heels, but they too find company when they travel, in other travellers' battered sneakers and chappals that could tell tales of round-the-world adventures. While a chat over coffee here could lead to my bushy eyebrows being pointed out that I would be psychologically pressurised to get threaded the next day, conversations generally steer to higher planes when you travel. I would perhaps be deeply engrossed in discussing the similarities between Ladakhi and Mongolian plains with an Argetinian girl furrowing her equally unkempt eyebrows. The whole travel bug has given new meaning to 'beauty aint skin deep', and helped me discover that there IS a section of society that revels in truly being themselves and judges you by that alone. I have been good humouredly accused of living in a bubble, but I suggest you try stepping in sometime to see that it's a truly mind-boggling world in it, and you'd never want to burst that bubble.