Ashna to Ash

This is an eccentric story of a girl born and bred in New Delhi who questioned EVERYTHING and built her life anew with her own principles/values. There is the basic beginning of a girl born into a family of too many boys, battled with aunties and uncles who were watching her movements like a hawk, had acne and therefore too many insecurities, refused to cook rotis or do the household chores without good reasoning, was academically talented by Indian standards (those that rely on good scores regardless of the practicality of the antiquate concepts — reason why I could escape from cooking rotis also) but the ending is not so basic (ending referring to the present situation).

There’s a lot that comes in between but to give a little idea of where things are at — she’s comfortably settled in Australia with a set of friends who are the family she chose, with her loving boyfriend (in a live-in relationship FYI which is heresy in my society), following her dreams shamelessly in a culture that respects it and unlearning all of what society has taught her so far to build her life based on trial/error of her own principles/values. This blog will contain a lot of explicit content (or so considered in our culture) so discretion is advised. I hope my journey can resonate with another sister out there who keeps questioning “Is this it to life?” but doesn’t know where to look for the answer. My little life of 27 years has revealed that all I’ve learned about making a content life lay outside the cultural lens I was given as my tool as I was born. I hope we can be inspired to break out of traditions and rules that don’t resonate with our souls and instead of heedlessly rebelling or killing that wild spirit, we give it direction with an open mind.

The start c. 1995 -

I’d like to think I’m an open book but the kind of book that gets banned by the Indian government. I grew up in a middle class household of Delhi, India. Some of my fondest childhood memories include electricity outages where I’d find myself running to the neighbors to confirm if their electricity was out too and be on the phone with the MCD department with my mom for hours, sneak the keys of the terrace from the top-floor tenants to lie under the stars with a picnic basket which constituted of choorma and lays, run across the street to buy lays every day and have it accounted in the credit book, drink banta on the staircase with my colony friends, force my friends to play “Arrow” so we could take rounds of the colony with a boy I had a massive crush on, play Holi with eggs/tomatoes/everything that could possibly be thrown then spend days looking like Shrek till the colors washed off, browsing Pinkworld secretly while constantly watching out for the door and you know all the basics in between.

I was educated in really good schools where my friends were highly blessed with houses spanning over 3 floors, parents who bought them phones at the age of 12, who could afford iPods, who had cars to drive them around everywhere and could have birthday parties at clubs in GK and all the posh suburbs of Delhi. For myself, I was always trying to fit in with my tiny house that I never invited them to (was my worst nightmare at the time), never had a phone up until the age of 16 (had to pretend I was getting really sick because my parents wouldn’t concede), had a dad who prided himself over driving me around everywhere in his little Matiz or i10 (he did upgrade once Matiz refused to walk a step further after years of abuse), had to fight for a birthday because my parents didn’t see the point of so much excitement for something that came around every year, cut my full length clothes to show skin patches thinking they could look like the tops my friends were wearing — so you get the dynamics of my life. I was also pretty tall up until the age of 13 ( a common thing a lot of us girls stuck at the ceiling of 5 feet something say but I can prove it with photos where I’m towering over all my elf classmates ). This also meant I wasn’t able to look girly or cute like a lot of my other friends — I was seen as another boy by the boys I fancied — I towered over them and couldn’t speak in a cute tone even when I tried to change my voice by sounding more nasal (you know what I mean!).

I grew up fairly confident despite my limited means given my father deliberately reminded us whenever he got a chance of how lucky we were to have everything we had. I know this could’ve gone either of the ways — either you turn out to be extremely resentful of all that you don’t have and your friends do or you become surprisingly accepting of all you have which is what happened in my case — don’t get me wrong, that still wasn’t enough of a reason to call my friends home.

Life took a real turn when I entered college — I joined one of the most prestigious colleges in Delhi University and a year later realized, it wasn’t for me. I moved to Australia in hopes of being educated to solve real-world problems than cramming all the books and being scored on precise reproduction of them. Hereon, began my journey of questioning the society and doing things in precisely the opposite manner as prescribed by the school of society. It gives me immense joy to share my story, hoping someone can be inspired to question the ways of the society and find their true selves through exploring the unexplored and foraying into all that’s taboo and not regarded as acceptable in the society. It’s really when you start building your own principles from the ground up rather than taking what’s been handed down by society that you come closer to becoming the person you were always meant to become. So join me while I take you on a wild ride.

Warning: Keep an open mind, withhold judgement and choose to resonate with parts that truly resonate with you, leaving the rest behind. Let’s unite in our shared purpose of exploring life for all that it has to offer!