It is going to be almost two years since I started living in Cambridge, UK. I say the name of the place specifically because no region in any country is ever the same as another— some of us will know how Mumbai and Pune are different, just as London and Cambridge happen to be. Another reason is that depending on your socio-economic background and education status, only a selective few will know that Cambridge is a different city by itself. This is also true for people in United Kingdom— only resourceful and privileged people will know geographical details about India based on their travel history. You might know where Delhi or Mumbai is located, but wouldn’t have heard of Lucknow or Indore.
When I received an offer from the University of Cambridge, very few in my family knew what that meant. For many of my distant and extended family members and relatives, the only place they know outside of India is called London, while America is one single place, just the same as Dubai and Canada. Every other place outside India is otherwise referred to as ‘videsh” or foreign land when translated to English roughly, especially by my grandparents’ generation. The generation of my parents has some limited knowledge about popular cities in the world and the ability to do a quick google search to find out. This is only because my family has been motivated enough to find ways to educate themselves, especially given the fact that we belong to a marginalised group of people in India who have been oppressed for a very long time by insiders and outsiders alike. Let me also add here for context that Dr. B.R. Ambedkar is the person who made it possible for marginalised groups of people, especially women, to have basic rights in India. This was at the time of independence when he was chosen by the people to head the committee to write the Constitution of India. In my opinion, he made the best use of that opportunity to take responsibility and exhibit excellent leadership.
Why am I bringing up these differences and similarities?
Because I feel a slight sense of betrayal and deception now that I have lived on this side of the world for a significant period. The idea that is sold to the “non-white”, “non-native speakers of English” of a world on the other side is a lie— maybe not a complete white lie but a coloured one indeed. And by the time you figure that out, you have already spent a huge amount of money or taken out a big loan (if you aren’t rich enough), which makes it necessary to convince yourself that you are on the “better” side of the world just because it is a high-income country. At least you can repay your loan faster. At least there is fresh air and clean water and good roads and facilities. So what if you have to deal with a little bit of loneliness or homesickness? At least you are safe here as a woman. Your happiness will have to wait because the economy won’t. Your hometown will never take responsibility for your security, but this foreign land will provide it to you as a basic right. At least you won’t be harassed by a man while you walk by yourself on the street in broad daylight.
And yet, you will have a whole other set of challenges. Your neighbour won’t ring your doorbell when you first move into your new space. You won’t have a local grocery store around the corner of your street or outside your society where the shopkeeper recognises you and asks about your wellbeing. You won’t have cats and dogs to feed or pet on the street on a random tuesday. There will be no local chai or coffee shop where your street friends or acquaintances will gather to exchange gossip and gestures of care.
There are a whole lot of pros and cons to moving from one country to another, or from a low-income to a high-income place. There is something about migration that erodes care. But if you are lucky, you find pockets of it everywhere. You truly have to be lucky to stumble upon it, as I have been (knock on wood thrice now!). There will be people who will make you feel at home, places that will let you be and gift you time to understand your new surroundings. There will also be those who will equally want to rush you. And because you are in a new country, surrounded by new people and their rules, you will end up getting rushed. You will be swept by the novelty of it all. Except it won’t be in a pop-culture, aesthetic princess-like manner, rather a very real single woman type oh-this-is-so-overwhelming-i’m-gonna-drown need for survival.
Yes, it is a lot to make sense of.
I wish more people would talk about this in all its complexity. I also understand why we don’t:
- the assimilation into the culture of a new place takes up so much energy
- we don’t have good/close friends to talk to, they are in a different timezone living a different life
- the cultural awareness, especially with regard to diversity, equity and inclusion, is quite low
- white privilege is real and so is racial discrimination
- we don’t have the vocabulary to make sense of such complex realities
- we live with definitions from two different worlds and varied life experiences
- we mask socially or go completely quiet or introverted due to the intensity of the transition
- there doesn’t seem to be a space for our own confusing state of mind or reality to exist
This is only the generic feeling of migration alone. I do not have the energy in me right now for this post to explain to you how difficult it gets when you are the first-gen to live, study and work outside your home country, while also belonging to a marginalised community. All I can definitely tell you is that you get very limited opportunities to breakthrough and “make it” due to limited resources to support you. You also do not have the support of any others before you who’d give you a map and help navigate your path in new territories. Therefore, you have a very narrow margin for error on your journey as compared to others who decide to migrate the same way as you from the same home country.
I am not even sure if this makes any sense to you because my voice has changed over time and switched back and forth through many frames of mind. I speak from a place of pan-cultural hybridisation, especially given my history of travel and movement across a vast country such as India and now outside of it. The more I see the world, I gravitate towards the idea of universal language and regional variation. Give or take, it all feels the same. The love and care— when you find it— is felt the same way no matter which part of the world you are in. The same is true for human suffering too, irrespective of your location.
However, do not take the power of infrastructure and its maintenance lightly. I will say that fresh air, clean water and good roads do have a significant effect on the way you experience love or care and human suffering. I mean, if I anyway have to go through the same kind of nonsensical, systemic bull, I might as well prefer to do it in a high-income country that keeps me safe and helps repay my loan faster. But the day my home country chooses to rebuild and strengthen its foundational infrastructure (they might just be getting onto this now after the CJP protests), the lie about this side of the world will fail to hold. We might not get deceived into feeling a certain sense of appeal and we may see it only as a high-income country with system-benefits, as it is. Quite honestly, having the combination of both worlds come together with both humanity and policy elements balancing each other will be ideal.
But don’t we all know how rare ideal can be?
Dangerously close to impossible when it comes to practice I’d say. Everything seems to be done right on paper no matter which part of the world you are in. But the real task always remains— to translate words into action, intention into change, dream into reality. I hope we come closer to our own realities instead of running away from them. I hope we show up better in this world, for this world and care enough to change our ways, voice our differences without feeling threatened, make space for the ones who have been cornered into becoming invisible. This kind of change has nothing to do with policy or systems. At an individual level, all it takes is to remember to be kind, operate with empathy and become compassionate human beings. Systems are meant to support our action, not dictate our compassion. Oh but well— I’m entering the ideal-thinking loop again! I will leave my thought here. Let’s just try to remember to be people-oriented instead of being led by a system that doesn’t translate into supporting or caring for people in real life.
Hope you feel a moment of deep care this week, whether offering or receiving it! xx
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