“I had a profound desire to be alone... because only alone, lost, silent, on foot, can I recognise things, said Pier Paolo Pasolini.
Walk has gender. The act of walking that Pasolini has mentioned is not a physical activity but has got a political and economic side to it. It will be facile to pretend otherwise. I walk. I walk alone. I walk early hours. I walk late hours. When I walk, I do not walk with intent. I see more when I walk. I saw the fish bone-shaped stamens of the unassuming flowers of adathoda. On them I wrote a poem later, on my walks.
Only when I lost my access to safe, solitary walks as I moved back to my hometown in Kerala did I realise that the safe walks that I enjoyed where I lived so far has been a privilege. My hometown, which proudly offers tantalising copious green spaces, belongs only to the other gender in its stark divide.
