And so I find myself at another window. Another apartment.
Another beautiful night sky. Another evening sitting staring out at it alone. I’ve
lost track of how many times I’ve had to relocate and realign over the past two
years. Bombay, Hamburg, New Haven and now Jerusalem. Soon, New Haven again and after that, who knows? The only constant is
change. Isn’t this the life I fantasised about?
Growing up, we would move country every few years. Packing
and unpacking our lives across continents was a given. We didn’t know any other
way. I remember being woken gently for a 4am flight. The distant lights from
the corridor were warm and filled with the muffled chatter of mum and dad
planning our latest exodus. The movers had already whisked away our home, box
by box. Shambhavi and I would be bundled into a taxi after a cup of tea, still
half asleep but safe beneath the tender blanket of excitement. It was blanket
excitement. The new flight, the new food, the new school, the new food, the new
weather, the new TV, the new food and the new food. India, Singapore, London,
Hong Kong and back to India – all before I was 13. We just went with it. It was
the 90s. We were expats. The company would take care of mum and dad and they
would take care of us. Everything was handed to us. We had the most charmed
childhood. I went to university in England and Germany at 17 before moving back
to Bombay at 21. But even university was organised by someone else. I was
traveling again – this time mostly alone – but I didn’t question anything. I
was meant to travel. You’re meant to go to university abroad. Last
year I spent summer in Hamburg before heading to America for university. It was
what I’d wanted: to get out of India.
I am out of India. I am in Israel. What the hell am I doing
here? It’s the first time I’ve asked myself. Why am I in yet another country?
Another consulate. Another visa in my passport. Another lonely, tired trek to
the airport. Another long flight. Another sales pitch to a tired immigration
officer, explaining why this Indian kid is here. Do I even know myself? Yes, I
am here to do an internship to save the world. OK. But where has the excitement
gone? There’s no warm light from the corridor. There’s my iPhone alarm. I have
to turn the light on and make tea. I have to meet a stranger outside an Airbnb
and get my house-keys. There’s no taxi driver with our surname on a placard.
I’m not an expat. I realise how ungrateful I sound. People live their whole
lives without moving around half as much as I have. Most people would give an
arm and a leg to have seen so much of the world. I’m not sad about that. Most
people would love to look out this big beautiful window into this amazing city.
I just wish there was someone else here to look out with me. “Go outside and
meet people,” I hear you say. I don’t want new friends. I have plenty of
friends. My best friends are scattered all over the world. I have two sets of
best friends. One from university in England, who are scattered across Europe.
One from high school in India, who are scattered further still. Whatsapp is my
best friend now. Maybe there will be a new set of best friends from my time in
America. Another Whatsapp group. Another set of friends I’ll lose to this big
world. People say the world is getting smaller. I think we are just getting more
used to how big it is.
I met a girl called Lexy recently who was someone I would
never usually have met. She was an au-pair taking care of our family-friends’
children in New York. I spent a month with them and I remember her reaction to
my life story. She has lived in the US her whole life. She hasn’t left the
country, as far as I’m aware. She’s a lovely, caring, feisty young woman who I’ll
never speak to again. She’s my age but her experiences and world-view are so
unimaginably different to mine. Usually when I tell someone my life story, they
react with awe and envy. Wow you’ve moved around – so lucky! She was the first
person who ever said, “Why did you move around so much? That must have been
hard.” She felt sorry for me. It made
me think. How much are we supposed to move around? We, molly-coddled, 3rd
world children with 1st world problems, too good for our own country
but not good enough for others, ungrateful dilettantes. My mum quipped over
Skype, to my terror, that 25 was the age that my dad’s nesting instinct kicked
in and he began to settle down. Settle down? Could it be so soon? I always
fantasised about spending my 20s gallivanting around the world, seducing
outrageously beautiful women and making money. But now the only girl I want is
far away and things are weird (but that is a story for another blog) and more than money, I want
to make a difference. Or, I want to make enough money such that I can make a
difference.
In my current internship, I’m making a difference and I love
it. If I am successful, I will help put together a deal that will generate
solar electricity for 700,000 people in one of the world’s poorest countries
where only 2% of people have electricity. Imagine them complaining about this
kind of nonsense. What do they complain about? In India, the poverty that
adorned my surroundings fortified me with perspective. Here, the lives of those
700,000 people are the perspective I cling to.
The laundromat ate my $5 today. Isn’t that expensive for a
washing machine? It only takes specific coins and I lost my coins to the chasm
of futile detergent. I went to three nearby shops to ask for change for my
notes and they all declined in various degrees of rudeness. So I walked around
town like an idiot, holding a green tub of Ariel detergent in one hand and my pride in the
other. Another set of new institutions to get used to. Another integrated, end-to-end,
cloud-based, cleanliness consultant and laundry solution. Another supermarket.
Another commute. Another barber. Another housemate to appease. But the 700,000
are not complaining about this stuff so I can’t either.
I never questioned my innate path in life – my serial
ability to find myself by another window. But I think I will start now. Is it
worth it? It is worth it for another set of anothers? Another set of friends to
make. Another evening having to introduce myself to new people and prattle on
with the onerous task of recounting my spectacularly self-involved life story
and trying to paint myself as a good person who deserves sympathy and
admiration. Another SIM card. Another triumphant Facebook status, outlining
where in the world I am. Another double bed filled with a single guy.
I apologise for my incoherence. I have no answers – only the
700,000 and their unimaginably different set of questions. Another time, then.
