On the ordinary afternoon of 18th December 2025, I broke a bone in my right footpad. This disrupted my fitness journey, my independence, my social life (not that there was much to begin with). Most importantly, this put me at the mercy of others, quite a bit.
I had to learn to how to ask for help, to take help. This was good (I have always struggled with asking for help, whatever the nature of that help might be).
Since 2024, my ego, that had become shaped by newfound physical mobility/ strength/ fitness (with pilates, aerial yoga, swimming, driving) came crashing down with that fracture. I tried to continue working out with weights (at least my upper body) at home for about 20 days on and off, but soon my innate passivity set in.
Also, being injured in the middle of an amazing Kanpur cozy winter didn’t help my case – it was so cold, so lovely to just be covered up in warm blankets and nurse my broken foot and ego. My dog, Kokoji, loyally lay next to my broken foot throughout those months. Cooped up in the deep winter of north India in my bedroom, nowhere to go, not much to do (at least comfortably with that fractured foot), I began ‘consuming’ ravenously – books, food (facepalm emoji). I began overeating like mad, out of boredom, frustration, loneliness.
January came and went, while I read like a maniac (thousands of pages – fiction mostly) and ate like one too (mostly junk).
Feb came with its own agenda – a huge rare momentous family gathering (eldest couple of the family celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary celebrations) – it was as huge as an actual wedding. Magnificently organised by my cousins and lovingly curated for all those who attended. By this time I had taken my ‘air-walker’ fracture boot off and began moving around with a walking stick I borrowed from the Groom in question (my eldest uncle, father’s eldest brother) my foot hurt a lot, I was told by everyone, “its to be expected”. So, I went along with it quietly, embraced that ‘expected pain’ with that signature beaming smile on my face, limping around with a cane in hand.
While the whole family was celebrating wholeheartedly, I was hiding something and suffering in silence – a really unavoidable big OLD pain, in secret. When I had feared I was dying of a heart attack (because I was having needle-sharp chest pains around my divorce filing and finalisation) back in 2019, I had undergone a battery of tests, despite the discouragement of senior doctors at a prestigious hospital in Bombay (they deemed those tests unnecessary for a young person just 35 years of age) – the coronary CT scan revealed a strong heart along with a fibrodenoma in my right breast as incidental finding.
My mother has had an extensive history of (benign) fibrodenomas in her breasts and uterus. I was aware of that. But in all honesty, when the cardiologist was checking my CT report, and mentioned that my heart was absolutely rock-solid as he had expected and there was nothing to worry, and suggested that the symptoms I was experiencing were of anxiety stemming from personal havoc at the time (divorce and its side effects). He added, “Oh there is also this fibrodenoma in your breast – most probably benign, but if you wish to further investigate it please do meet a gynaecologist at your convenience”.
He had just brushed it off, as would any other doctor given the mass’ small size. I didn’t even pay any attention to it, since my heart was working well. Phew! What a relief. I wasn’t dying of a failing broken heart after all. Not yet, in any case.
I definitely poked my breast that day to check where the fibrodenoma/ mass was, found it in the 7 O’clock position and realised that it has no sensation at all to it – no pain, no discomfort.
Needless to say, in the confusion of that time, I completely forgot about that “lump” for years altogether – until around 2024, when it made itseld known to me again, loudly.
You see, in 2024, I had the urge to try marijuana for the first time in my life, and I did. And soon after I began partaking (in my Bombay home), one random night as I lay in bed, I started feeling a deepening pressure being applied to/ coming from my right breast. It wasn’t pain, just pressure. This sensation (of deep pressure) heightened over the next few months until in Jan’ 2026 it became deeply loudly painful nonstop 24/7. It was there all the time, screaming from within, “Anjuri, look at me!” “Anjuri, why are you ignoring me!?” “Anjuri, I am hurting!”, “Anjuri, this needs attention!“
Interestingly, when I went for my first (and only one yet) Vipassana retreat in Jan’2025, the pain had almost vanished while I was completing the 11 day retreat. Of course in those days the pain wasn’t nonstop, it was intermittent, but the mass had grown bigger for sure – I could feel it quite effortlessly.
I was scared. But I kept it a secret. Also, I was in denial too. Head in sand.
Anyway, long story short – I finally succumbed to this loud pain in my breast come March’26 (when I began walking without any support, but with lingering gnawing pain in my foot), sought medical attention, went for all the rounds of tests, and elected to get operated on, to remove the lesion altogether in one go rather than do biopsy first and then a surgery for inevitable removal.
I was in and out of the hospital in 2.5 days (9-11 April’25). I had a drainage pipe attached to my breast for 5 days for serous fluids to drain from the site of lesion-removal, 12 stitches that got removed within 10 days post surgery. I proceeded to heal like the superstar superhealer that I am. My first surgery, and I had sailed through. I thanked my God – Mumma Ayahuasca 🙂
I felt quite satisfied with myself for finally addressing the elephant in the room and felt at peace with myself. Oh, and the biopsy results said “benign”!
So, good job Anjuri! good job! In a way, I couldn’t believe that I closed this big daunting chapter/ a hangover from my heartbreak days finally! Let me explain.
Intuitively I have known/ felt that this fibrodenoma was accumulated grief/ sadness/ anger from my marriage/ divorce, and instead of addressing it, I had let it get so big, literally. It was telling me that I had carried it within me for far too long, it was time to let it go. Time to uproot this last remaining souvenir from that dark time of my life. It took me too long to listen to what marijuana had been telling me, what my body and pain were signalling. I ignored them for way too long until I couldn’t anymore.
By the way, I must admit here, for the sake of honesty in posterity, that I, Anjuri the morbid drama queen, the partially wishfully-suicidal lady (who can never really commit any self-harm other than eating incessantly) assumed that she had cancer of the breast, and was about to die from it, slowly and very painfully. I had weaved a giant bog sob story in my head of dying tragically, at a very young age (just 40-41), from heartbreak, emotional purposelessness, psychological defeat, and cancer. WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP!
Once again, the biopsy results reiterated what Mumma Aya had told me in my 2023 ceremonies – “YOU ARE NOT AS DAMAGED AS YOU THINK YOU ARE“!!!!
How dare I repeatedly forget what She has taught me!?!?
Anyway, moving on.
After spending days/ months on end in my bedroom (fractured foot & then surgery), 2026 called me out of my home one random day. I happened to text my beloved Bombay friend Sagnik, simply to check-in, and he happened to be travelling to Lucknow 2 days later for work. He said he wasn’t thinking of informing me since I would be on “rest & recovery” mode post surgery. Well, I was and I wasn’t.
I scolded him for not informing me, quickly made plans to meet him, decided to take the opportunity to drive down to Lucknow and stay for a night, booked a room in the same hotel as him. He was so happy, I was super-excited. And so I went my way – 2 days later – to my sister city Lucknow, in my adorable reliable Ignis. By myself. Aaaaah heaven!
It was so wonderful – that one-night stay at Lucknow – life invited me back to Herself in the form of shared meals, jokes, drinks and naps with one of my favourite people to ever exist on this earth – my Bombay bestie boy Shagggyyyyy!
Like “good” middle-class children we ordered the coveted midnight in-room dining from his room and ate while watching whatever was on on cable TV. Aaaah it was very very sweet – a balm to my parched soul. I barely slept that night, back in my own room, after that stupid 2am second dinner (lol) of Lucknowi Biryani (yummmmm) etc.
My friend sleeps rather well, no matter what the circumstance or timing.
The next morning, we met for breakfast, after which I hugged (he was reluctant to hug me because he thought he’d be wrongly squishing me at the site of incision, hehe – I had to reassure him multiple times that it was all okay) and kissed him multiple times, then he set off to his day of work while I set off back to Kanpur.
One pivotal thing happened while I was waiting to meet Sagnik that morning for breakfast. I was checking my email (which I do maybe once a week) to delete all the spam that lands up there and lo and behold, what do I see!? Mr Arpit had emailed me, out of the effing blue! The man is absolutely puzzling. He, since he realised that I had blocked him on texts and the only social media I use, decided to reach out to me via EMAIL!!! WAAAAHHHH!
Anyway, his email simply said, “Hey girl, can we speak?“.
I had a choked laugh sort of startled response to that, sitting there on that soft soft hotel-bed. Hahaha. And in my mind I immediately said, “No thank you Sir!“
I deleted that email, with great nonchalance and ease and moved on with my day. Sagnik asked me over breakfast, “what’s happening with your dating apps and your men?” In response to which I remembered that I hadn’t updated him about my epiphanies about dating and romance from the previous year (how I had deleted the apps and let go of all the men I had engaged with). So, I circumvented the topic (as there wasn’t much time to explain the whole thing) and just hinted at the fact that I am no longer looking for casual. In passing, I mentioned Arpit’s (“hey girl”) email I had seen just half an hour ago, talking about how it doesn’t illicit any reaction in me.
We moved on to other topics.
I drove back to Kanpur that same afternoon. A few days passed by, and Arpit’s email came back to mind. It puzzled me. It triggered something. Made me curious. A dormant ‘idiot’ beast started to rise within me again. I sent him a reply, as dry as anyone could possibly imagine, “Speak, about what?“. There should be no mystery here as to the fact that OF COURSE ARPIT NEVER REPLIED. NEVER REPLIED.
Arpit is simply a catalyst in my life. He is a God’s agent of sorts – he does the bare minimum things to stir up my world in many ways and then vanishes/ hibernates. This man – who I have never met, will never want to meet either – He is a karmic teacher. He brings with him clouds of confusion, mirage-like mysteries, emotional hellstorms, with a few simple words.
Why I say Arpit is a great spiritual teacher for my life is because of this – While I waited for his email response that never came – I started feeling vulnerable and lonely again. I got a quick flashback of “I want to love a man” which had initially occurred to me because of Arpit in the first place in July 2025!! He had been the catalyst for that. He had been the final nail in the coffin of ‘casually engaging and flirting with men‘ masquerade for me in 2025.
It was interacting with Arpit that had finally made me realise that I am not one for empty hollow lust, intimacy without affection, transactional sexual conversation or engagement of any kind, anymore. That hot’n’cold vibe wasn’t something that I would ever invite/ entertain/ tolerate again. etc etc.
Due to getting sucked into Arpit’s will he – won’t he vortex once again, I began feeling a bit lost, activated, lonely and curious about what’s out there. I had been away from dating apps for 10 months with a clarity about what I wanted next – to love and be loved. Within a few days of waiting for Arpit’s reply, I blocked him and downloaded Bumble & Hinge again.
And man, what a rollercoaster ride it’s been since. Jesus!
[I must state here that since I made that resolve on Sep 6th 2025, I indeed hadn’t looked back even once, even through the loneliness and isolation of the foot-fracture, and then surgery – I had stayed off the apps without a second thought, hadn’t once felt like reaching back into that familiar world of lusty friends, not even a ‘hey, what’s up?‘, not interested in casual connections, orgasming to myself and my ‘divine masculine’ ‘big strong man’. Hence, this Arpit-trigger thing was like a sudden cold plunge.]
June 1st, 2026, I went on the apps for just a few days. I thought ‘okay, since I am feeling like a thirsty beast once again, let’s see what the apps want to show/ tell/ teach me in this new Anjuri avatar‘. This new Anjuri who is seeking a long-term relationship only with an age-appropriate man. No more younger dudes who just want to fuck, textually or otherwise.
On Day 1 I came across an absolutely wonderful soulmate/ friend type of master-conversationalist (married bored person looking to simply tallk to someone while his wife was away). I sussed it out of him very quickly – his marital status and then had a glorious time chatting with him (entirely platonically) for 2 days. Then we unmatched.
2 days later I matched with a lawyer from Lucknow who seemed to be a wonderful human. We got off Hinge rather fast and started texting. A couple of days of texting later, I asked Ayahuasca for a sign whether I am meant to continue talking to him or not – and within minutes he did something absolutely revolting. I got my answer. I said good night and the next morning I honestly explained that I was repulsed by his action from the previous night and much to my surprise, he agreed and apologised and explained that He felt rather uncomfortable too after what he did.
That was a relief, but I simply couldn’t get past that incident and slowly yet vocally faded out of the chats. We still have each other’s numbers, and we may platonically text once in a while but that’s about it. He is a nice guy.
I then updated my profile to make it reflect clearly who I am today and what I want.
A woman who is looking to love. Long-term relationship. The “don’t waste my time with your casual bullshit” vibe. The super-honest intense in-your-face bio. New current pictures where I am rounder than last year (6 months of bed rest and eating-due-to-boredom syndrome lol). The “chubby-fat with no intention to be thin” declaration. The biggest thing – I changed my age filter to “37 to 45”. No one below that age would be entertained, ever again.
[By the way, it has to be said that with all my updated filters & profile, I received only around 1000+ likes, (as opposed to 5 times that in 2024 when I was 40 and looking for ‘something casual’, ‘ethical non-monogamy’, ‘open to seeing where things go’ etc.) which I diligently culled down to maybe just 5-6 men. I think I officially became/ have become too intense or niche for the dating app world in 2026.]
And then came Amit.
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