Before I joined the BDSM community at the age of 46, I never thought of myself as ‘kinky’. Today, six years down the line, I wonder whether I was kinky even before I discovered this erotic practice of ‘bondage domination sado masochism’. For instance, I’ve always loved that difficult-to-describe thing that the lal mirch kaa achar does to my mouth. And my love for the almost too-embarrassing-to-mention, Hai re hai, neend nahin aaye and Ik meethi si chubhan variety of old Hindi songs and the mercifully more sophisticated, Mai Ree, Main kase kahun. What are these if not emotional masochism at play? Not to forget words like vyakul, tadapna, bekarar that I adore. And lest I be accused of being a Hindustani chauvinist, quick WhatsApp messages to friends reveal that there are phrases like vingal in Malayalam, byakul (almost cheating here) in Bengali, jor in Marwari, and hook or tees in Punjabi. I’m not sure about English though, as it doesn’t seem to lend itself to the ‘mixedupness’ of the pain-pleasure, of emotions.