While they drape the sarong around our waists, one of them asks if we’d like to do the holy water purification ritual because it requires a different kind of sarong, and points at the green one. My niece looks at me with a face that, if words could visualize, meant, “not in a million years.” So, I politely refuse. Growing up in India I’d seen plenty of rituals promising almost the same things in every Hindu temple I’d visited all my life. This is during the weekend we decide to explore Ubud and a bit of East Bali, after a strong start at Uluwatu where the waves felt too overwhelming and I needed a break.
Reaching any Southeast Asian country is probably the closest and cheapest option for travelers from India. But I was saving Bali for later – until I could meet certain parameters I’d set for myself: I should surf my home break without the anxiety and mental preparation I often go through every time I paddle out and I should stop quitting the beach entirely during cyclone swells. So, while for most Indians, Bali is an easy, accessible island and the most desired tourist destination, for me it felt like a prize I could only truly claim after crossing these thresholds I’d set.
But here I was, landing earlier than planned, after the visa office shattered my European summer dreams.
On my first day, I sat at Ombak Warung with a banana smoothie, trying to decide what was doable and what was not. “Too tight take-offs,” I noted after watching the hungry swarm alternate between successful drops and wipeouts at Bingin. Impossibles, on the other hand, was enchanting, lines of swell stretching with magical promise as they rumbled down the Bukit – but these were still waves I knew I could never touch.
The next morning, at 6am, I headed to Dreamland. It had been a long time since I’d 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’t just long paddle outs, big waves, or crowded lineups. I had to add another factor: being the only Indian woman surfer.
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 – Australians flicking their sun-bleached hair, cafés serving smoothie bowls, boards stacked on scooters; yet at its core this ‘island of the gods’ was layered with habits, rituals and offerings I’d known all along.
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’s why surfing at Kuta felt more welcoming and less surprising for others. To outsiders, I wasn’t 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.
Being the only woman in the water wasn’t new to me and over time I’d picked up traits that came with the turf: always sticking to the shoulder, avoiding the fight at the peak – 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’t 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’re wrong but to maintain harmony. So, it’s a proven fact that women tend to apologise more, especially in spaces where they need to be assertive. I’d carried that practice into the lineup – where things go wrong all the time, no matter who you are.
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.
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’ve 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 – 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.
