‘I was transgressing a boundary’: What went on in a woman’s mind as she ‘loitered’ in Kalimpong

It was a book called Flaneuse by Lauren Elkin that led me to associate walking with leisure and adventure. I had heard the word “flaneur” before, which meant male wanderer, loiterer, loafer or aloof observer of urban society. But to think of a woman walking, wandering, loitering, while transgressing the safety of her domestic life, was, to me, a different matter – a revolutionary act in itself.

Is a flaneuse a good woman or a bad one? The more I pondered this question, the more questions it threw up. Elkin, in her book, has written mainly about European women on the streets, who live vastly different lives from the women of the country to which I belong. Notwithstanding this difference, I still wondered whether a woman could walk freely on the streets of India.

The title of another book on women loitering starts with the question “Why loiter?”, which is also the title of the book. The authors, Shilpa Phadke, Sameera Khan and Shilpa Ranade, try to answer this question in the book, searching for the answers primarily on the streets of Mumbai, one of India’s largest cosmopolitan cities. What stands out, however, is the question of why women are not walking enough.

For a long time, I wanted to explore Kalimpong, a small Himalayan town in northern West Bengal. My heart had desired to understand the place more closely and in the kind of intricate detail that no tourism pamphlets could offer. Therefore, I set out on my quest, fully aware that my interest in becoming a female wanderer meant I was transgressing a boundary.

I wanted to document stories through both words and images, but it was not easy for me to loiter around the town with a camera in hand. My female gaze was no longer lowered to the ground but positioned behind the lens of a camera as I clicked men and boys occupying the public spaces of the little town.

However, I found myself unable to reach or wander in and out of the interiors of tall buildings that could be seen from a café that I entered to relax with a masala chai. I saw a man sitting by the window and a woman looking out into the world. I was curious and wished to navigate those spaces that felt mysterious because of the many windows through which people looked out, often in deep contemplation. I could hardly see any doors, which added to the mystery.

My womanhood, or rather my social conditioning as a woman, stopped me from going inside the buildings, even though my curiosity had risen to its peak. I stopped myself because I cared about how men would perceive me. Would my character as a woman be questioned? Would I be considered a “loose” woman? Seeing a woman loitering alone is a rarity, almost anywhere. Usually, women can be seen walking in twos or groups like a gaggle of geese, laughing and giggling (or at least, that is the stereotype). It is seldom that one sees a woman wandering alone – is she even allowed to walk alone and observe? That day, as I walked around Kalimpong, I looked for more women doing the same. I only came across old and elderly women, abandoned and begging on the streets, whereas young and vibrant women who were alone didn’t have the time to wander. They had a purpose, a destination to reach and not once did they pause to peek and wonder.

It is difficult for me to explain where I come from. When I say “Jaigaon,” people look at me in surprise, the way one would expect them to react to “Papua New Guinea.” I tell them that Jaigaon is in the Duars region of West Bengal, a small Indo-Bhutan border town where Nepali-speaking people were once the majority. Nevertheless, I have spent most of my adolescence in Kalimpong which, unlike Jaigaon, is a close-knit town where people are connected in such a way that they don’t think twice about embracing one another amidst the bustle of the market. This made me wonder about life in the town, how slow it was.

A warm waft of momos hit my nostrils when I passed by the main road, reminding me of the quintessential fragrance of the hills. In Damber Chowk, a clock tower chimes at timely intervals, perhaps to remind people that life can be jubilant too. The “chowk” or the roundabout was named after Damber Singh Gurung, who founded the Akhil Bharatiya Gorkha League, a political party which gave voice and impetus to the Nepali-speaking Gorkha population of Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts. People from all walks of life gathered around Damber Chowk for “guff ” or gossip.

In my adventure as a flaneuse, I observed what might have been overlooked before. I noticed people’s love for saag, leafy mustard greens that they carry like bouquets. Tibetan prayer flags and saffron flags carrying the face of Hanuman, the Hindu monkey god, flapped in the wind. The dried-out creepers of iskus – chayote – hung like curtains everywhere, even covering some abandoned buildings. These deserted buildings had acquired a new aesthetic, similar to Gothic architecture.

On reaching a restaurant called Ronkup, I found some empty benches. I sat on one of them to observe. A group of men played carrom and were lost in their leisure. From a woman’s point of view, this looked like a privilege. I looked around for women playing and laughing in that manner. A girl sitting quietly inside Taj Bakery caught my eye from a distance. I could not study her facial expression but her posture did not emanate confidence. Her hands were clasped to her chest, as if she were guarding herself from the male gaze. The laughter of men pierced my ears, so I got up and walked away.

The next day, I strolled around the main road of Kalimpong and looked intently at Sri Dal Bahadur Giri’s statue. His finger pointed towards the oblivious crowd that refused to stop and look at his lifeless figure. Many of them were perhaps not even aware that he was the first chairman of the Darjeeling Congress Committee and had attended the three-day Indian National Congress sessions at Calcutta, where he had met Mahatma Gandhi and Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das. On returning to Darjeeling, he took it upon himself to propagate the Congress ideology. I wondered why nobody paid him much heed even though he still served as the non-breathing onlooker of the town. Suddenly, however, a girl child out with her mother screamed excitedly, “Aama, statue!” And a little later, she added, “The statue of the town.”

I thought about David Babuni at that moment. I had first heard about her from her granddaughter, with whom I had once shared a room as a workshop attendee. She was upset that very few people knew about her great-grandmother, who had once been a major political figure in Kalimpong. In addition, the great-granddaughter claimed that David Babuni had entrepreneurial skills and had pioneered the trend of renting rooms to merchants and businessmen in the town. Later, while reading the memoir Unforgettable Kalimpong by Monila Dey, a resident of Kalimpong, I came across the name again. I looked for more information on David Babuni but very little has been written about her.

The great-granddaughter’s frustration made sense – her great-grandmother’s contributions had not received much public acknowledgement. Was this because she was a woman and thus found it hard to claim a place in history? And why did she have to use her husband’s name and not her own – would a male pseudonym have helped her get ahead in a world of men?

There was no statue of David Babuni in the town. She remained hidden and mysterious, leaving behind a trail of questions.

The Industrial Park is a social hub for people of Kalimpong, where youngsters find easy escape from their otherwise monotonous life as students of various schools of the town. However, older men, too, frequent the park and sit in groups, often discussing the latest trends in politics while reading newspapers from time to time. When I visited the park, I saw a group of elderly women sitting together on one of the benches. I wondered what their topic of discussion would be. Would men monitor them? Would the men be afraid of “their” women transgressing the domestic boundaries of safety? How would the women feel about being surveilled by men?

In one of my daily wanderings, I chose to explore the narrow alleys of the Haat Bazaar. A man commented on my body. This was a verbal attack, but isn’t a woman’s body seen as fair game in the male universe? I tried to shrug off his comment but it stayed with me like a bitter aftertaste. A thought struck me: would a woman ever pass a comment of that sort if she came across a flaneur or a male wanderer? Was it because of the difference between the male and the female gaze? Or was it because of societal conditioning, whereby a male wanderer is viewed as someone who cannot be easily tied down, whereas a female loiterer is often judged and questioned if she chooses to pursue her life free from the societal norms of male protection and guidance?

Before the proliferation of Netflix and other OTT platforms, cinema halls were the most popular entertainment hubs. There were two iconic cinema halls in Kalimpong: Kanchan and Novelty, which stood at the two ends of the town. As I wandered around, I could see the remnants of Novelty, which I heard would soon be transformed into a shopping complex. I do not know how true that rumour was but I certainly did not see it functioning as it did before. When I visited Kanchan, my gaze fell upon a man who was facing one of its walls and pissing freely in broad daylight. He remained unbothered by the onlookers of the town and unconcerned with the building itself, which embodied an aspect of the town’s history. Whenever I see men peeing freely in public spaces, I often wonder why their bodies are not required to be as disciplined as those of women. A woman’s awareness of her surroundings is crucial but it is not the same for a man, as was evident from this very act. To think about a woman enjoying a “privilege” of this sort is almost absurd – she cannot even sit as she likes, with her legs spread out, or walk the way she wishes to. She is to be graceful, modest and ladylike.

In the days that followed, I loitered more. People observed me, my leisurely unhurriedness. I was outside my home, walking the streets aimlessly, an unusual sight for those whose gazes fell upon me. Once, I noticed a group of college students. They wore salwar-kurtas and had tied their hair neatly. I found out that they were from an all-girls college, which reminded me of my school in Kalimpong, where the girls were always taught to be “disciplined.” Back then, I was terrified by thoughts about the length of my school skirt, for that length would decide my character. However, while I did not mind some level of strictness, which perhaps saved me from sundry teenage follies, I was against the way students were controlled through the infliction of the fear of punishment.

Looking at the college students that day made me wonder why women were always controlled and disciplined and made to act in a way that preserved the “honour” of a family or a society. Why are women subjected to the burden of shame?

In my last few days in Kalimpong, I relished my freedom to loiter. I walked at my own pace. Life moved around me, taking me to unexpected corners, alleys and valleys. I noticed houses adorned with flowers and houses that held the history of days gone by and churches and schools that reflected the influence of Christian missionaries.

The town also made me aware of its day-to-day struggles, as I couldn’t ignore the water scarcity in almost every household. People talked about it openly. Similarly, they discussed politics and their local leaders, who they felt were not doing enough for the “janta” or public.

I also attended poetry readings as part of a literary circle. One of the poems recited was titled “Saali”, the Nepali word for sister-in-law. The poem was about the kind of saali that the poet desired in his life. It instantly made me uncomfortable, as I realised that women are treated as commodities even within the family. Misogyny spilled out of that recital that day, yet no woman could stand up to that man. The preference for the saali or the sister-in-law over one’s wife is the same as infidelity. But who can question this when the burden of shame is always on women?

The next poem was on female infanticide. The title of the poem was “Ma”, and in it the poet addressed the mother of the child, blaming her for her unwillingness to give birth to the child. I wondered why he did not speak of the father when his attempt was to raise questions about the deeply rooted patriarchy in society.

Kalimpong offered me memories as well as stories to write. As I crossed the streets, I opened my eyes to new discoveries. The town was a palimpsest. There was always more to uncover. I didn’t stop to collide with people on the pavement who had paused for a chat or a quick embrace. Perhaps, the town was trying to tell me what Lauren Elkin writes in Flaneuse: “Slow down: it’s the only way to guarantee your immortality.”

Excerpted with permission from ‘On Loitering in a Himalayan Town’ by Anshu Chettri in Beneath Magnolia Skies: Writings from Sikkim and Darjeeling Hills, edited by Mona Chettri and Prava Rai, Zubaan.