Slut-shamed and trolled, Anuradha Beniwal won't hold back

Everybody asks me big questions. Everyone wants to know my opinion on the Haryanvi society. Some are interested in knowing whether I will join politics. Almost everyone thinks that the never-ending hate mails and slut shaming does not affect me. No one understands that I howl sometimes after reading long, nasty mails and just want to be hugged tight.

No, I am not comfortable with so many journalists asking me complicated questions about burning national issues. Most of the time, they want to feel self-important and show off their knowledge to their peers.

I like one-to-one sessions in abandoned coffee shops where after the usual questions you can share your darkest desires and most of the conversation is kept off-the-record. Oh yes, I also don't like it when one of the biggest Indian English dailies carries a lengthy interview of mine without even bothering to speak to me.

Let's be clear, I am 29 years old and no social analyst. I may like reading, and might have just ticked Ambedkar's Annihilation of Caste off my reading list, but that's that. My book Azaadi Mera Brand, published by Rajkamal Prakashan, might be called a fresh breeze in Hindi travel writing, but let's not forget that the editor Satyanand Nirupam had to constantly hammer me not to hold back.

So, many people ask why I wrote the book in Hindi despite the fact that I have an Honours degree in English from Miranda House, Delhi University. Well, I wanted my cousins to take a peep into my life and discover the world through my eyes. I am very close to them. I may have shifted to London three years ago, but we are always in touch over WhatsApp. See, I have forced them to use smartphones in a small village in Rohtak. Now that's an achievement I can boast of! You know when one of my cousins came for the book launch in Delhi, she whispered to me after the event, smiling, that it was the first time she shook or touched another man's hand - one who wasn't her husband. I didn't know what to say.

Authors can say such big things about how they were motivated to write their first book. Let me tell you my secret. I didn't know what to do with all the documentation of the solo travels I undertook across ten countries in Europe in the summer of 2015. I used to write a blog and contribute to travel websites. But this was just too big. So I wrote the book. But the book too has some interesting bits from my life - two local men hosting me in Switzerland and one of them telling me why he had converted to Islam. And yes, how I got fired from an eight-pound-an-hour waitress' job in London because I drank a gin and tonic during work hours. Such a cruel world we live in, no?

Enough about the book. This should be about me. About the fact that my online video during the recent Jat agitation in Haryana that went viral was just a reaction to the fact that my mother was stuck for hours on a road. People thought it was a well-conceived shoot. Truth is, I was so angry that I just recorded the video. And people took offence that I spoke so harshly during the agitation. Of course, sometimes one tends to forget that we are such an over-sensitive people who just can't digest criticism from one of their own. The hate mails were never-ending. Arre look at your sex ratio first and then talk to me about "badnami".

Oh! I have something to share about my article on not wearing a bra in London that was published by Daily O. I was in my class at London and by the time I finished it, thousands were following me on Twitter. So many people loved what I wrote. So many thought that I was shameless. C'mon, doesn't every woman take the darn thing off the moment she enters the house? What if I went out without it and felt happy that I wasn't ogled at or poked, on the streets of London. Well, some admiring glances... But then it's my body, no? I'd always told myself I would never wear a bra when I shifted to London. The day I didn't, I felt so bloody free.

Another thing that I don't like about the spotlight is the fact that whatever you say is over-analysed by armchair intellectuals. What is the big deal that I don't wear symbols like the sindoor that shout that I am married. Why the hell does the world want to know if I have lost my virginity or that I am taken? And yeah, do see how I am trolled after I say that when I started travelling I was a vegetarian but by the end of the trip I had tried beef cooked in different ways.

My tragedy, if I may use that word, is that I have started to see myself in the context of abuse. I really don't know what all will be said about me once this is published. How is a person expected not to hold back when he/she is engulfed by that fear?

Why, being a Haryanvi girl, should I be uncomfortable when talking about the importance of sex education and the fact that sex is not just about teaching kids what penetration is but also about understanding what love is. I loved it when I saw teachers in Netherlands talking to kids about how they felt talking to the members of opposite sex if they liked them, and that butterflies did a waltz in their tummies if it was a good touch.

I'll be writing another book on my travels to the Scandinavian countries. Can't say when it would come out. But let's leave that. Let's have a real conversation. I felt so happy when I didn't call a boy bhaiya for the first time in my life. I was 13 or 14 then. We kissed too. The boy was very ecstatic and boasted about it to his friends. I felt very guilty. I felt ashamed...

(As told to Sukant Deepak)