![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tracksmag.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/000006200015-1-1024x679.jpg\")
The next morning, at 6am, I headed to Dreamland. It had been a long time since I\u2019d surfed in water this blue. The lineup was crowded, around thirty surfers jostling for waves on the reef. Between sets, a couple of them asked where I was from, my ethnicity and accent unfamiliar in the lineup. I answered and shared a little about Indian surf breaks. The next day, I realised the things I had to train my mind to face weren\u2019t just long paddle outs, big waves, or crowded lineups. I had to add another factor: being the only Indian woman surfer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the water, I was a surfer representing a diaspora, on land it was easier. Though the contrast between worlds was apparent. The island pulsed with Western, surf culture \u2013 Australians flicking their sun-bleached hair, caf\u00e9s serving smoothie bowls, boards stacked on scooters; yet at its core this \u2018island of the gods\u2019 was layered with habits, rituals and offerings I\u2019d known all along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A week or two into my time in Bali, I stopped at an Indomart to grab some snacks. The cashier asked me something in Bahasa, and when I looked confused, he quickly switched to English. He smiled and said he thought I was local. I often take pride in passing as someone from around – just like after seven years in Southern India, far from my home, I finally began to blend in. Maybe that\u2019s why surfing at Kuta felt more welcoming and less surprising for others. To outsiders, I wasn\u2019t entirely foreign. To locals, I was geographically closer to the Bollywood stars they obsessed over, still familiar, though still the only Indian woman in the water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Being the only woman in the water wasn\u2019t new to me and over time I\u2019d picked up traits that came with the turf: always sticking to the shoulder, avoiding the fight at the peak \u2013 even where just ten people felt like a crowd; waiting for the men to miss a wave so I could try from the shoulder; and, most of all, being overly apologetic. I do confess to being guilty of hoping others wouldn\u2019t make a section so I might get a chance, but if I tried to take off at the peak and failed, I apologised again. An American linguist, Deborah Tannen, once explained that women often apologise not because they\u2019re wrong but to maintain harmony. So, it\u2019s a proven fact that women tend to apologise more, especially in spaces where they need to be assertive. I\u2019d carried that practice into the lineup \u2013 where things go wrong all the time, no matter who you are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Somehow, in Bali, all that disappeared. The women were not drastically outnumbered, nor did they hesitate to take up valued lineup positions. Surprisingly, the men had no interest in interfering unless asked; it was almost as if everyone knew what they were doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I knew I wanted to return to The Bukit before my trip ended. On my last day, I went back to Dreamland and watched a few waves bend into barrels. The swell was supposed to die down that day, but it was still more than enough. I\u2019ve never been barrelled, and I imagined myself taking the smaller waves and tucking in; before my mind could wonder too much about who I was on on Bali, where so many people seemed intent on reclaiming their identities \u2013 was I an Indian-origin Australian, local Balinese or an Indian woman surfer. In the end only the waves mattered and I paddled out, thanking the gods for bringing me to their island rather than sending me to the West.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A personal log of identity in flux.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10848,"featured_media":104115,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,20,332,5547],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-126597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","category-news","category-slider-home","category-slider-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tracksmag.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/000003540012-1.jpg\")