I accidentally told Richa Nagar that I had menstrual cramps

This evening I took time out of my bizarre, stress-inducing schedule to see a really cool talk given by and Indian feminist geographer named Richa Nagar. She's spend a lot of time thinking about power, identity, representation and knowledge in the research process and is a big advocate of collaborative research (i.e. creating knowledge with the people you are learning from instead of swooping in as an "expert" and "objectively studying" them). It really resonated with me, especially after my core shaking experience working with Durbar.

Anyway, after the talk I had a chance to speak with Richa more personally. I felt a bit flustered becuase she's a celebrity to me (I read a lot of her work this fall) and because I was having menstrual cramps that felt like---well, what those grocery store recycling machines do to tin cans, except it was happening to my uterus. As I nerdily swooned and chatted, I unconsciously started pacing to take my attention off the pain. It must have looked as though I was disprespectfully bailing halfway through our conversation and Richa asked politely "where are you going?" to which I could only muster "oh...very bad menstrual cramps...I think I'll sit down." Doh.

She smiled and said in Hindi "oh please, sit, sit!" Of course she did. She's an Indian and a feminist. It's nice to be around your own peeps sometimes.