Living Abroad Created a Paradoxical Effect on My Emotions
Exciting experiences became meaningless and mundane experiences felt exciting
When I was left homeless on the street
Summers of 2019, I had to move from Mumbai to Munich for a summer internship. Having lived in 4 cities in 3 countries in just the previous year, I had become good at the whole moving process (or so I thought). Finding a nice vacant apartment in Munich is like finding humor in Munich residents — it exists but you really need to do some hunting. Through a stroke of luck, I managed to find myself a room even before moving to Munich. A kindergarten teacher approached me, she had an extra room she wanted to rent.
Now, in my mind, I was convinced that I will take some weeks if not months after moving to Munich to move and settle into my own place. This is the summers we are talking about, where the tourists take over all hotel and apartment rooms and the hosts are happy enough with the premium prices to ignore interns like me with a limited budget. In reality, I had someone approach me through a small ad I put out on some Facebook groups even before moving to the country and she did not even demand any deposit or rent before I moved in. What would you do in such a situation? Think about Maggie Grace from Taken and move on! However, if you have lived in a crowded city with housing problems — you would understand that I decided to go for it.
I am not naïve, I did a whole background check. I video called her, spoke to her daughter, found her mother online, learned about her work on the school’s website. Things actually seemed legit. I just accepted my good luck and moved into the apartment. My Munich life started intensely. I had my thesis submission due in a week with some chapters still to go, I was staffed on a consulting project at my internship in week 1, and I was still jet lagged and getting over the warmth and comfort of being home for a couple months. Things were intense but good — for 4 full days.
Friday evening I left work excited. I can now dedicate 2 full days to my thesis, submit it before I walk into office on Monday and I will have finished my Masters. In 2 more days, I would be done with my 2 years of grueling course work. I was smiling on my way back home and the smile curve went instantly flat as soon as I reached my building. I saw some suitcases and they looked familiar. I soon realized that it was all my stuff, packed into my suitcases and kept outside the building. Outside. I still had not found the time to make my own set of keys, so I rang the bell to my apartment and asked the flat mate to let me in and explain. Silence.
Before moving in, I had some situations planned in my head just in case things go wrong. Finding my belongings outside the building 4 days after moving in was not one of them. I frantically called my flat mate and she finally came down to speak with me. In Germany, you are supposed to register your apartment with the local body along with an approval of your landlord. She explained that she did not take the permission from her landlord to rent out the other room, and it was illegal for her to do so as per her contract. She had completely “forgotten” about this clause, and when she tried to get me a contract with the landlord, she was warned about the damn clause. She panicked, packed my stuff and kept it outside the building so as to not fall into trouble.
Now, I could go on and on about how she could have at least let me stay as a visitor on humanity grounds, or at least let me pack my own stuff, or should have found out about the rules before she approached me. I could find a 100 different ways she could have behaved. The reality was I was literally on the street, homeless, with all my belongings, with my thesis due in 2 days, in a city like Munich, during the tourist season, on an intern salary, tired after an intense week. My flat smile was now a downward frown.
This was my first week in Munich. While I was never homeless again, I did have a lot of unpleasant experiences. Also, a lot of pleasant experiences.
The good comes with the bad
For most of my life, I lived in Mumbai in India. While this city literally has everything you can imagine and offers you the most vibrant lifestyle, I always longed to experience living abroad. At the age of 21, I moved from Mumbai to a small university town near Frankfurt. It has been 4 years now and I have lived in multiple cities in Germany, in Copenhagen, in Paris, in New York, in Nashville and now in Berlin. If I were to sum up all my experiences in one sentence, I would say that the good always comes with the bad.
In Frankfurt, I got the chance to sit and hear raw and unfiltered stories from an old lady whose mother was a ballet dance in East Berlin when the wall still stood up, I also missed my train station late at night and landed up in a remote taxi-free village in the rural side after a 10 hour flight with no food. In Munich, while I got a chance to experience Oktoberfest in a personal tent of a local and have a very different non-touristic festival experience, I also had to move into 4 apartments in a span of 3 months. I have had far more exciting memories than the bad ones, but the bad ones were also frequent.
If I had to do it all over again, I would definitely go for it. Why? I am convinced that the experiences you have in your early 20s have one of the most significant impact in shaping your personality, your life values, your principles, and so much more. Ask me 10 years later and maybe I say it differently, but for now, I know how much I have changed in the last 4 years. The good ones made me so much more grateful for the privileges I have had in my life. The bad ones made me stronger and more empathetic. The mix of the cultures made me more tolerant.
The surprising reflection
While we move towards the year end, like everyone else, I have been in the reflective state of mind. I have been thinking backwards, about these experiences I just shared and more. One of the surprising reflections was my reaction to the most exciting or mundane events.
While I met some of the most interesting people in the last few years and developed so many new friendships, I also had days when I was all alone and miserable in my apartment. Having experienced these alone days, a simple drive with a friend back at home becomes so much more valuable. I only saw Thanksgiving dinners on TV, and then I was invited to a real one when I was in the states. The dinner had everything — good food, stories, traditions, drama, drinks, parade on the TV and a cheesy movie. I was surrounded by people and had a really fun experience, but festive season means being with the ones you love the most. I was home this year for Diwali, and while the pandemic did not allow for much celebration, I thought about my feelings during the Thanksgiving dinner and appreciated the simple family dinner way more than I would have some years ago. I realized that being abroad for long has made some of the most simple and mundane events so much more exciting for me.
I am not sure if it is too much exposure to new and exciting things that creates this paradoxical effect or it is the pandemic that invokes the feeling of being home sick. My guess is on the former. The bad days, the isolation, the need for warmth, and all of the other down feelings you have while staying away make the mundane events in life more exciting. 4 years ago, I would jump out of bed in the middle of the night if someone were to tell me about a trip to the African food festival in Berlin. 4 years later, now, I would still definitely go and try as I have only experienced the cuisine in some scattered dinners here and there and I love trying new food. However, I know that having being exposed to so many new culinary festivals and experiences — if someone gave me an option between the African food festival same old Mumbai street food, I might just go with the latter.
Has the excitement gone altogether?
Hell no! While I appreciate the simple pleasures of life more, I also just moved to Berlin last month. 4 years ago, I was a young excited kid wanting to experience everything this world has to offer. At the risk of sounding like an old lady, I now want a more balanced life between being home and living abroad. I want to go to the same old tiny restaurant in Mumbai with my best friend and have the same dish we have loved for years, but I also want to go to Bologna and meet someone new over some Torta di Riso and Pan Speziale. I want to dress up funny in the German Karneval but also play silly in Mumbai’s Holi.
With a full-time job, a distance of 6282 Kms, and so many career aspirations, how am I going to find this balance? This is what 2021 is for! To find this balance. To keep up with the paradoxical effect my experiences have created.
