I Went On A Trip With Only Boys And...

I don¡¯t have too many close male friends. It¡¯s not like I made a conscious choice to keep men out of my life but just the way things have naturally progressed. So, this year when I got the chance to go on a trip with only men, I was a bit hesitant. What would I even do with them? What do men talk about when there are no women around? Sexist remarks? Football jokes? I don¡¯t know. However it was my boyfriend¡¯s big 25th and hence, I said yes. Worst case scenario, I thought, I would have to tune out from their conversation and for that I had my books.

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And so, we started our five day trip to Pondicherry.

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And lo and behold, guys: a trip with all boys is not so different from a trip with my girls. We still had that one person who was always late in the mornings, that other one who dozed off the earliest, the one with the most drinking capacity, and the one who talked their hearts out after a couple of drinks.

Barring their football match screenings and ball games, I never felt like I was stuck with a different gender. If anything, I was breaking my own mental barriers of what the other gender was exactly. It turns out, they are a lot like my gender.

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Oh and some of them like shopping too! Even a little more than me, I¡¯d say. I am talking serious shopping sprees where one spends hours in just one boutique. These boys were a shining example of men who¡¯ve grown out of toxic masculinity. And finally, I could see it too. I could see my own concept of the male gender expanding. I could see men who weren¡¯t constantly going on about the troubles of women but also about their strengths.

I found myself playing their ball games (even though I am dead scared of any object flying towards me mid-air), watching and zoning out during football matches, talking about life in college, changing perspectives, friends, family, love and heartbreaks.

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One of my favourite moments from this trip is walking alongside Promenade beach with either one of the boys, always talking about something new. And even as an introvert, I found it easy to confide, to open up to strangers who were, probably, turning into friends. And in moments like these, the gender hardly ever matters.

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I guess what I am saying is, every year brings new opportunities. Some of them allow us to recognise ourselves and others allow us to recognise the people around us. Despite the varied gendered conditioning society bestowed upon us, here were five men and one woman united by thought and the effervescent beauty of Pondicherry.

When we walked alongside beaches or laughed the night away on the terrace of our sea-facing villa, we weren¡¯t men and woman - we were stripped of our separate identities, representing the kindness and friendship of simple human beings.

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