World on my back

So, I take the well travelled bag. It's a green rucksack; lots of secret pockets, not too big because to travel light is liberating, as you may know. Yes - it could go on as hand luggage; travelling in South Asia in the late summer I won't need more. 

Clothes: wear; wash; dry in a heartbeat. Sari, salwar kameez, something sort of half way to stop me looking like I'm trying and failing to be assimilated. Take off engagement ring and put it somewhere safe. The diamond and the aquamarine don't need to explore the reaches of Andhra Pradesh. The wedding ring has to stay. Mend the little cross around my neck that goes everywhere and put it on, but I do think twice about it. I've had good and bad conversations about that necklace - but it's who I am and subtle enough for me to leave. I think. The Balinese sarong that's circled the world comes, as it always does. Sheet, towel, comforter. I hope it will last forever. Shawls for discretion and warmth. Socks, but only because of the mosquitoes.

I delve into the first aid kit material. Not much I need, but I collect, with the pleasure it always gives me, the little syringes in their packets with the nurse's note to say they are for emergency use, I scoop up my mosquito repellent, antiseptic, my malarials, paracetamol, iodine, re hydration mixture - all the usuals. I feel light as all these things go into the little red nylon first aid bag: between us, that bag has been to 85 countries, so I have a peculiar feeling about it: like it carries with it  a barely perceptible tinge of all those countries, somehow. It's at this point that the room takes on just the tiniest supernatural edge. That comes with leave taking and arrivals if you travel a long way; for a moment, you are not quite yourself.

There's the photocopied pages of passport, the bits of my bag and my clothes in which I hide cash and I.D. I go through a routine. Still the bag is only half full. The money belt: the card, the stamped passport, a few rupees, phone, a little cash, a card and to be sure, a brief note from the G.P. saying I don't have swine flu. I know they are scanning travellers at arrival point still; this may expedite things for me; it may not. 

Elsewhere in the bag: some things I love. Solar charger, plug, the Swiss army knife, a little comb, a miniature mirror. With it, just a stick of kajal. I'll look like me, but different, different. And then I luxuriate in my choice of pens and pencils for the journey. And which notebook? Some paperbacks. Hindi and Telegu vocabulary. Still I am not up to speed, but I am a quick learner and I talk, talk, talk. When in motion, I don't fret. I am more confident; liberated. 

On the floor of the room, there is one green bag, easily carried on my back. Sure, the paperbacks will go in out, in out for a few days yet. Always, I struggle to decide. But I reflect that before I was someone's wife, someone's mother, someone's teacher or employee or had a house full of stuff, I was just me. I don't want to go back; don't want things to change. But I have hands for things beyond this home and today, I am not ashamed to admit, either, that it's just me and a bag too light to be waited for at the carousel. And I'm off.