Freedom also means this

I wasn’t allowed to take any public transport, especially on my own. Worst case scenario, I could take the metro, if it is the only option left. I was either driven around or had to take an Uber. I hated it. Delhi traffic is maddening. It is better to travel by public transport than getting stuck forever in the traffic. No amount of logic changed that rule for me. It was for my own safety, I was told. Truth be told, I found taking metro at night much more safer than taking an Uber all alone, driving through often deserted roads. It just didn’t make any sense. On top, I had to be on phone, talking through the journey, which was tiresome.

Since the breakup, I have travelled by metro, auto, taxi (kali pili), local train, and today, after almost 20 years, I travelled by a public bus!

I was in the hospital with my sis-in-law for a couple of days. It was easier for me to commute to Rohini in the metro. To reach home, I was to take an auto from the station, but there wasn’t any. Delhi Metro has these nice AC electric buses and there was one parked right outside the station. Baba had told me that you could take the bus, it will drop you near our house. As I kept looking at the digital dashboard to understand the route, the conductor asked me about my destination. Once he confirmed that the bus will indeed take me to my desired stop, I decided to give it a try. It was a low-floor nice bus, unlike the rickety DTC buses of yore or the horrendous blue lines. Being an AC bus, the fellow travellers were good too. I had a comfortable and smooth ride.

It was only when I bought my ticket, I realized that I had never even considered these buses as an option, solely because I wasn’t allowed to do so. It felt so strange at that realization. If I were to tell my ex about what I had done today, I would have been subjected to an hour-long lecture. However, not anymore. I am not answerable anymore. And that’s fucking awesome.

And you know what more is awesome? Not carrying my mobile phone with me everywhere. Till recently, I had to carry my phone even to the loo at home. I wasn’t allowed to miss a call. It used to be nightmare if I missed subsequent calls. Now, I put my phone on charge and forget about it for more than an hour, especially post-office hours. I am not answerable anymore.

In this allowing and not-allowing, one thing that I was allowed to do was to wear whatever I wanted to. Yes, I was allowed, and it was proudly pronounced how someone is allowing me to do so, and that I don’t take advantage of this allowance. I feel clothes are for comfort, one should wear what one is comfortable in. I like to dress in a certain manner. I have my own choice of colors and I know how to mix-and-match and experiment with my look. I don’t like to particularly go for shopping and buy clothes. It is taxing and too much of pressure. I usually pick things on instinct. I don’t like to keep looking for options. I mostly go inside a shop, take a round and pick what I like instinctively, try it and buy. If I find myself taking time to decide whether to buy something or not, I usually don’t buy it. I have clothes in different varieties that I can wear for the entire month without repeating a single one of them! I am one of those who always have something to wear for every occasion. I have never said this, looking at my wardrobe while deciding what to wear – “I don’t have anything to wear.”

I know I am being smug, but why not, after all I have been termed as a fashion disaster and had been repeatedly told that I was taught about fashion by a particular someone. I don’t know why I could never counteract by pointing to the fact that as a teenager I used to give designs for my clothes to the local tailor. I had a gotten a three-piece skirt, top and waist coat stitched after watching Urmila Matondkar wearing one in Masoom. I made mom give her old silk sarees so that I could get some nice fitted A-line churidar kurta stitched. As our school didn’t have any uniform, at least till the time we were in junior school, I raised a hue and cry every time mom tried to make me wear the same cloth twice during the week. And, I was termed as a fashion disaster!

I know it’s all a rant, and all these things seem stupid, but how will anyone know what I felt today if they were never asked not to do something and suddenly they got the freedom to do that.

There is certain ownership to that feeling. I no longer need any allowance. I won’t lie that I am not feeling terrible for myself as well. I shouldn’t have been this person. I could have been much more than what I am today.

However, no point looking back. If yesterday I couldn’t be, today I will be and tomorrow I will win a bit more. I love myself.