With my Australian boyfriend, so laid back he’s a cool breeze. Cool Breeze liked everyone; everyone liked him back. I’m in the car with Cool Breeze and his family. Melburnians. Nice people. A five-day trip in the Australian Outback, mostly to visit the big rock. The car air-con is on and I’d never been in a car that had climate-controlled air-con before, but it’s that kind of car and that kind of life right now.

Cool Breeze’s dad came to Australia by way of Bangalore as a med student, years ago. Now a general surgeon with his own private practice, he was good at his job, respected by his staff, and kind of rich. Cool Breeze always joked that his parents weren’t really rich: they lived on the best street in the city, sure, but it was the worst house on the street. Compared to my digs back home, Cool Breeze’s parent’s place was a castle-in-the-clouds fantasy. But after visiting some of his friends in their parent’s houses – which were basically mansions – I realised he was only half joking.

We’re five kilometres from the big rock. The air is normal. You know, just air. Then we’re two kilometres away, then one, and the air changes. It somehow switches to a living pulse. Something emanates from the rock in rings, invisible as sonar, thick as honey; waves real and felt. The closer you get to the rock, the stronger it is. I don’t know what else to say.

<i>Can you feel that? I ask the Melburnians.</i>

<i>Feel what, say the Melburnians. </i>

<i>That pulsing. Like a vibration. I don’t know, like…a kind of energy in the air?</i>

Later and trying to figure out what was up with those waves I felt coming off the rock, I found a new age book that talked about it. It said that the big rock, Uluru – otherwise known as Ayer’s Rock, Australia’s big red landmark and the earth’s biggest monolith - holds a strong charge of male earth energy. Uluru’s sister rock, Kata Tjuta, holds an equally strong charge of female energy. I read how the Anangu Aboriginal people, custodians of the rock and its surrounding area, use ‘male’ Uluru for female initiatory experiences. They use ‘female’ Kata Tjuta for male initiatory experiences. The idea is that being close to your opposite helps you to understand it. I don’t know what happens if you’re an Anangu person who identifies as non-binary instead of female or male, but I’d be interested to hear their take. Especially since learning that a lot of old-time cultures honoured their Queer and Trans folk, giving them special status as diviners.

Cool Breeze’s dad asks me, do I want to climb the rock? The Anangu ask visitors not to climb it, he says. It’s a sacred site. They like people to walk around the rock, not on it. But climb it if you want to, says Cool Breeze’s dad. It’s up to you.

Cool Breeze’s dad was a two-feet-on-the-ground kind of man. Trusted and recommended by his patients. Dr No Hocus-Pocus. He wasn’t into vibrations or energy, or any weird stuff. I tell him I’ll walk around.