We spent five days visiting aid programmes, led by Souri and his friend Ranveer Singh, who sported the most enormous moustache, and rode like a gaucho. Riding through the desert on Marwari horses, a breed specific to this part of Rajasthan, with inward curving ears, I remembered how important horses are to me. That old cliché of nature being medicine really hit home – even if there were many groans, and boxes of ibuprofen being swapped back at camp, after a long day’s ride.
Spending the day in close quarters and swapping snacks and jokes, our band of mostly American and British riders got to know each other well. I learned that a couple of my fellows were childless, rather than childfree. They inspired me with their joy for life. I really needed to know that a good, long, and purposeful life was possible if I didn’t have children.
Even in Jaipur, when I had my fortune read outside the ravishing Jaigarh Fort and was airily told that I would have three children, I laughed rather than feeling sad. I felt renewed. My horizons, so closed through the years I was focused on my body, broadened once more and I rediscovered how much I relished connection and exploration, and the thrill of being able to ride with purpose through such beauty rather than being a passenger in a car or on a coach.As it turns out, my IVF didn’t work.