Nirvana Bhandary, Author at Astray

How to be Culturally Sensitive in India’s Religious Cities

Millions of people travel to India for leisure every year, enamoured by the exhilarating and romantic possibilities the country holds for them. But India is not a country of just one culture as depicted by stereotypes in western media, as well as by growing Hindu nationalism inside the country. There are 22 officially recognised languages,…

ByNirvana BhandarySeptember 1, 2024

Thought

The Radical Nature of Women’s Spaces

A few years ago, when I was solo travelling the world and crossing paths with women travellers who felt like sisters, I would tell them about my glorious secret dream. My dream to acquire a small island and start a community of only women citizens. There, a few hundred of us would live, create and…

ByNirvana BhandaryFebruary 29, 2024

Editorial India Nepal

White Feminism and Cultural Appropriation Beyond Clothes

You’re at a house party and a woman you don’t know won’t stop blabbering to the group about her three-month trip to India and Nepal. “I just got back! Like six months ago,” she says, raising her voice to compete with the music. It’s the third time she’s recounted this anecdote tonight in your earshot,…

ByNirvana BhandaryJune 24, 2022

Nepal Story Thought

White Hippies and Cultural Appropriation

I sit in a rustic wooden house adorned with ornaments from South Asia in the middle of the wilderness in Bulgaria. It is a chilly night but inside, the atmosphere is warm. I sit in a circle with 12 new Bulgarian friends. Everyone has brought a vegan dish to this Friday night gathering. There is…

ByNirvana BhandaryMay 12, 2022

Thought

Being a Brown Backpacker in a Sea of White

I walk into a hostel in Italy and the common room is filled with people for the free dinner. I scan the room quickly. There is one other person of colour. I walk into a hostel in Thailand. I hang out in what is literally one of the most popular tourist destinations in Asia for…

ByNirvana BhandaryMarch 1, 2022

Editorial

The Politics of Tanning

When I am travelling, there is one particular image that ignites a strong emotion of fullness and freedom within me. That image is of my tanned arm immersed in seawater as I float in the ocean. The sight causes my heart to burst with elation. When my bronze skin and the turquoise sea merge into…

ByNirvana BhandaryOctober 21, 2019

Story

My Time Backpacking Around the Iberian Peninsula as a Bollywood Star

Opening scene: Australia A beautiful young woman sits at her office cubicle longingly staring at a photo of the La Sagrada Familia on her computer screen. In another window, she opens her online bank account. “We’re a hundred dollars closer to freedom,” she whispers to herself. She turns her attention to the framed photo of…

ByNirvana BhandaryFebruary 26, 2019

Yarns

My Time on The Bachelor India

“My name is Nirvana. I am 26 years old, and I am here to find the love of my life.” This is a sentence I never in my craziest nightmares thought I would say, but then I found myself on The Bachelor India. Shit. After graduating from uni four years ago, I was stuck in…

ByNirvana BhandarySeptember 10, 2018