I was emotionally and physically exhausted when I arrived in Mumbai from Goa. I'd woken up at 6am to catch my flight and had spent the three days prior mobilising influential stakeholders in the Indian and international art world to sign a statement supporting the need for safer, gender-equal spaces and condemning the weaponised use of defamation as a legal strategy by powerful men to silence marginalised voices daring to speak out against harassment and abuse. I was grateful to be home where I could pretend to shut off the world, or at least restrain my engagement with it.

It took me two whole days to completely decompress, during which time I was busy helping my sister and her husband co-host their first Christmas party as a married couple, followed by their first Christmas lunch. For those twenty-four hours, despite the fatigue that had taken over my body, I found so much succour in household duties; arranging paper napkins between plates, creating fork and spoon clusters on the buffet table, making walnut fudge, marzipan, neoris, using my fingers to mould and sculpt beautiful things. I bought presents for my family and myself. I reached out to friends I hadn't spoken to in a long while. I didn't open my laptop for at least three days. The world could wait. I needed both time and perspective to recuperate, gather my energies, nurse my wounds before I could return to the trenches.