No tips on walking here

Frangipani always finds me. The first time, they were strewn over my pillows at a Colombo hotel. I had no memory of seeing the flowers before and I fell in love with the fragrance, the fleshy petals, generous just so. Then I never saw them again until I started my life in Chiang Mai.

I lived in a gated community, where the avenues were lined with frangipani trees. When Mona and P’Champ took me around house hunting, I zeroed in on houses that had frangipani trees. I eventually had to settle for one with a wall of tall strands of birds of paradise, instead. But there were frangipani trees the moment I stepped out of my gate lining the roads, meeting me everywhere I went. They felt like friends.

Read also: We used to be flowering trees, Pratibha Tuladhar

In November 2024, they found me in Goa.

I showed up in Pilerne, a village in the north of Goa, to spend alone time at my friend V’s stowed away house. The idea was to learn to make peace with myself. And to finish unfinished assignments.

I cannot remember where I picked such a habit, but since the time I was a child, I’ve always had to bury myself in solitude. By the time I had grown into a woman, the need had sort of leveled up and found me sitting at cafes buzzing with strangers for hours, and/or holed up in strange hotel rooms so I could just be. One time in Thamel, the receptionist looked at me searchingly. He was probably not used to girls renting rooms for a day to be on their own.

And now, well into my 40s, the question still gets thrown at me. In Goa, at V’s house, the caretakers of Casa Pilerne were curious about me. Why had I chosen to come live in isolation? How did it feel to be the sole resident in a colony of fifteen houses? What did I do for a living? Where had I come from? Where would I go next?

On my first day in the village, the housing manager had told me to strictly follow a bunch of rules. Not to leave the house alone after 5PM. Not to loiter in the village alone as feral dogs were likely to gang up on me. Not to wear shorts.

No, I did not wear shorts during my walks. Even in Goa heat. And I tried to keep to the 4-5PM walking slot. On my first day, my legs were aching for a long stride and took me further than I had planned, all the way to the nearest highway. The road is scenic, and is a reminder of some scenes from a Bollywood movie Dear Jindagi, lined with coconut trees on both sides, making way for the golden fields.

 

I stopped when I saw birds, to listen, took pictures and walked some more. When a car started to follow me, I didn’t realise. Three men in a white car, they rolled down the window and tried to make signs at me and talk to me. I tried not to look at them and I kept walking ahead, my skin crawling and the air suddenly feeling very hot and humid. I walked on until a bus came towards us from the other end, and then a scooter with two boys riding on it yelled and waved at me. Then the car made a U-turn and left.

I just walked on. So fast, I didn’t even stop to glance at the man from Rukum, who ran a small convenience store by the road and had earlier sold me a nail-cutter. 

The feral dogs probably caught sense of the fear emanating from my body. And then it happened. Five of them came at me at once! They barked, snarled and surrounded me. And at this point, I just froze and stood very still. The only people in sight, a couple seated at the bus stand, did not leave their seats to come help me. But an elderly man, carrying heavy iron tools, the kind you use to work the roads, showed up and shouted at the dogs. Chal chal!

Chalejao! I shouted my loudest. He brandished his tools at them and they dispersed. He told me not to worry and to keep walking. And I walked at the same pace, barely breathing until I reached the casa.

I learned that day to bring a stick with me during my walks. It scathed the dog-lover hubris in me to be wielding a stick to protect myself from dogs. But it was the only way.

The village roads were mostly deserted. Every few metres, I was likely to run into a passerby returning from work or school. They would glance at my stick and look away-- I probably became known as the woman who walks with a stick.

Pilerne is a lovely old Portuguese settlement with large, sprawling colonial era houses, and frangipani trees everywhere. Most of the old houses have been abandoned as the residents have mostly moved to Portugal, following a fading bloodline.

The incidents with men did not end with the car stalkers. I would encounter a young man near a church every evening, playing on his mobile phone, trying to make conversation with me. Then a man would follow me while calling out to me. And a small group of men on motorbikes would park at the same place every evening and watch me. And everytime, I would step up my stick game. I would stop by a big tree outside the colony, to find a better stick. Everytime I needed reassurance, I would wave the stick in the air a little.

Read also: Memories of a country in transition, Pratibha Tuladhar

In two weeks of walking the same road to and fro five times to keep up with my steps count, I had learned by heart the nooks and corners of the Pilerne road, the colour of the houses, the smell of the trees, the voice of a certain man from Pondicherry who lives in a yellow bungalow with two frangipani trees that bear pink flowers. And I had learned by heart, the smile of the gardener who used to be out tending to the garden with a massive frangipani in the front yard. He became, sort of, my only acquaintance in the village.

By the time I was ready to say goodbye to Pilerne, we had started to wave at each other. And I was no longer as terrified of walking in the village. 

Suburban Tales is a monthly column in Nepali Times based on real people (with some names changed) in Pratibha’s life.