The Good Life

 

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 more and stay longer. That curtain was pulled away from expat eyes this year. Even if travel could be arranged on a Vande Bharat or any such emergency mission, it involved a plethora of paperwork, tests, quarantine and the stress of travel and of being unable to return to jobs. So we buckled down and tried to be brave. To appreciate the “little pleasures” as advised by click-bait blog writing pseudo-psychologists, to try to compensate for not being able to visit family by organizing zoom games and online ludo. To try to smile fakely at people complaining about not being able to go on summer holidays and to restaurants while fighting down the urge to walk away from the conversation altogether. As I sat around alone in my little flat for most of the year, I started to question the decisions I made that lead me there.

Being brought up in upper middle class Indian homes comes with its set of particular ideas. These ideas are so ingrained in us that questioning them feels like questioning the very fibre of your being. As a woman who has been afforded personal freedoms and opportunities for growth, we are constantly grateful for being allowed to believe that unlike our mothers and grandmothers, we can actually make choices that favour ourselves and our careers. We look at the poverty and class differences between us and hired help, we look askance at those families that still believe in dowries and women’s roles in the home, and we feel blessed. At the precipice of our careers, we were sat down with our parents and asked about our dreams and ambitions. We were supported to set off on paths to achieve them, given the funds to make them a reality. We were gently guided to want more, and not settle. And for many of us, more lay in the fair waters of “abroad”. Where the Governments are not corrupt and the roads don’t have potholes. Where the air is cleaner and women can walk safe on late night streets. Most of this is true. However, not a lot of us were prepared for what we were giving up in lieu of this middle-class Indian dream. I know I wasn’t.

After a year of professional roadblocks which reek of racism, the scales are tipping in favour of moving out of Germany. The eternal conundrum of the expat remains – where and when to settle? Settling means building a new home and setting down roots, and I refuse to put my roots in infertile soil that promises no fruits of professional success. Because that’s why I left home in the first place, right? Returning home, while the dream, is tainted by the reality that home will not be the same as the one in nostalgia induced memories. The longer we are away, the more difficult it becomes to reconcile any ideas of home. The expat is forever cursed to belong everywhere and yet nowhere. Change is the only constant, and the phone + wifi is our sturdiest companion. Yet, often when we say home, we mean home-home, childhood homes and parents’ homes. Not our current address.

Sometimes I wonder if I would be this torn had I moved to a country with a culture closer to mine. Somewhere I could banter with strangers at parties in English, converse with shopkeepers in Hindi, where I could every now and then treat myself to a chaat, and have more friends that understood Indian-isms in language and behaviour without explanation. Where people did not innocently suggest I “cut my trip to India short” in order to deal with my visa issues back in Germany. Such intrusions fill me with indignance and irritation. When I hear the same ill-informed “jokes” about hot and humid weather, the same self-righteous remarks about the virtues of the social system and the same myopic commentary about the negligence of the poor from various colleagues and acquaintances, I strain to maintain the semblance of plesantness while I try to sufficiently condense the topography, social and cultural norms into short enough bullet points to hold the limited interest of the offending party. I try to smile as I wonder if the ignorance will ever be overtaken by genuine, open-minded curiosity, and when the concept of "integration" will be understood in its 2-way entirety. 

This line of thought though is mere indulgence and serves no purpose other than to reinforce the sense of not belonging. The answer to my dilemma seems to be to denounce all ideas of seeking a second home, and seek only professional success and a good life, wherever that may be. The exact definition of a good life is something to ponder over.