alice's peephole

  3 months into an unexpectedly long stay at home, but now I am a few weeks away from having to go back to “real life” (and therefore thoroughly pressuring myself to write a summarizing blogpost about it). All of my previous “visits to home” have been 3-4 weeks of whirlwind madness, trying to cram in maximum quality time, favourite meals and relaxation into the holiday. The time available of course was limited by the yearlong leave I saved to be home with family and childhood friends. I’d land and run immediately to friends’ weddings, and usually get sick soon after. Whether from exhaustion or weather change, I never quite knew why – but it would knock me off my feet for a few days. I would console myself that atleast I was sick at home, and let myself be pampered. Not having to lift a finger while under a fever, with hot soup and fruit bowls being brought to you does soften the blow of a flu. I would bounce back after a week, and rush around meeting friends, family, shopping, eati...

Everyone knows that change is hard. People piously talk about how change is the only constant. Most refer to change in the external environment. But what happens when the external world is excruciatingly unchanging, while only your internal world is changing, evolving, expanding, imploding? Life is still technicolour, its just on slow-motion. That will make any picture seem duller. It’s the flashing lights that make the most lurid images, the ones that flash by just fast enough to evoke a thought or an emotion, before it disappears. When everything is slower, every step takes longer, all the flaws are exposed. The novelty wears off and even the most sophisticated sonatas will seem mundane. When Covid started, it was a pleasure to slow down, to take a breath, to have time to do nothing. Nearly 2 years on, its hard either way – going back to pre-Covid pace of life seems beyond exhausting, but continuing in the middle lane is boring and somehow still more exhausting. I used to have ...

As soon as the job hunt and visa struggle showed signs of ending, the immediate feeling that set in after a year of grappling with these hurdles wasn’t, as I expected, relief and happiness. Strangely, its boredom. Having an immediate problem to solve, something urgent with an inflexible deadline was so stressful that it took all my mental capacity to deal with. Ideating not 1 but 2 businesses, while dealing with fluctuating pandemic anxieties in 2 home countries has been a journey. The strange part is that though the journey in its entirety has been an uphill battle, the daily snippets are boring. When we read the success stories, we read about the highs and lows. But I am beginning to ask myself if that’s really where the difference between success and mediocrity lies. Or is it in the repetitive tasks, the mundane, steadily checking off the admin chores? The middle. 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert? Is that really what it takes? Is that all it takes? Or are short bursts ...

This will probably be a very difficult post to write, maybe culminating in little more than incoherent rambling. But I have to attempt it. Difficult though I find it to get any creative juices flowing in these dried-up times, I would probably regret not documenting these unique days. Straight up, I have to acknowledge with immense gratitude that I have been lucky in terms of my health and that of my loved ones. Even putting this fact down on paper awakens a sense of superstitious foreboding – “don’t draw attention to it and therefore cause fate to curse it”. Very Indian way of (not) celebrating luck, lest one spoke too soon. Speaking from a place of infinite gratefulness, I still want to recognize and accept that this is probably one of the most difficult times I, like many others, are facing. My heart breaks when I read the news, especially now that India is suffering so very deeply. But this post isn’t about the general, its not about Weltschmerz, so I’ll try to focus. My challen...

  Fark. No other word has quite the capacity to capture the trauma that this year has been. Almost everyone, all across the globe has struggled with varying degree. The faint glimmer of hope in humanity is that Trumpturd has been voted out and vaccines are on the way. Even after being vaccinated, how long will it take for the trauma of this pandemic to recede? Listening to stories of people losing jobs, being stuck away from their lives for months on end or starving makes me wonder if our ways of living will ever be the same again. The events of this year are definitely forcing me to re-examine my life choices. What I always took for granted – being able to fly home within a few days should the need arise, was and in many cases remains indefinitely suspended. Should that call come, the one that is every expat’s worst fear, we take false comfort in the fact that travel is reasonably affordable and simple. We promise ourselves every year to do better, call more often and to visit...

Germany and the service industry – a match cooked up and baked to perfection in the very depths of hell.  Anyone who has ever tried to find information about a train ticket will know the horrors of spending hours looking on obscure and outdated websites about which service covers what region, what ticket is valid till which border, when do the cheaper time-bound tickets become valid and which of the many “offers” saves you a few cents on this expensive not-so-public transport service. The fact that Deutsche Bahn is a private company run for profit, on the one hand; while on the other hand the German State actively dissuades people from buying cars by providing little to no parking facilities in cities – simply boggles the mind. I have spent a long hours researching several websites on whether my SWB issued job ticket is valid to take me to the neighbouring state, and if not, which is the add-on ticket I need to buy.  Try to shift house and you are confronted with mo...