Not a diary entry

Since my oh! so romanticised move to the UK, haywire would be an understatement to describe my literally timeless schedule. Thus, here I am, waking up to the setting noon’s napalm colors, preparing my first meal of the day. Very “uni student” of me, innit?

The days seem like a time loop of cleaning, laundry and wannabe masterchef attempts. Today, the first task was to clean that confusing bathroom of mine. Unlike the familiar tiling in India, here, tiles are some type of grey course thing/sheet, paper, snow, a ghost, (I really don’t know), which, even after two months of living here,I have barely figured out how to clean. And yet, every few times a week, I try my very best to make this little room of mine something close to home. 

Cleaning check, bathing check, now food. 

If there is at least one thing I have learnt in the name of a masters degree, it is probably cooking, or survival cooking to be more precise. What started with following amma’s voice note recipes, and making something new(but kind of disappointing) every day, the convenient south Indian in me, eventually stuck to the easy daily, curd rice- simple, filling and (mostly) healthy! So here was yet another day, of having curd rice, tomato pickle and potato fry, true bliss I tell you. 

Permanently moving abroad, taught my Bangalorean self to look beyond the beauty of functional footpaths and respectful cars that support pedestrian life as opposed to bikes and cars fighting to get on the footpath. It taught me how things aren’t as nice and rosy. “Study abroad, get a job, life set!” they said, but nobody really told us about the humbling job hunt experience and million rejections. Nobody told us about the several hundred things to consider before before choosing an accommodation or the constant run for documents, to avail basic needs. Amidst all that noise we deemed important, nobody really told us about everything that comes with adulting.

India felt like a playground- it was familiar, easy, no rules, everyone doing their very own thing. But the UK feels a lot like a well maintained stadium, with rules and processes that people earnestly follow and abide by. Here, trust is valued. Go to a store, it is on you to self checkout and pay for that carry bag, although you have the chance to take it without paying. While a stadium sounds enticing, I still miss my vibrant, bustling playground, where ‘jugaad’ felt fine and fun, not impolite. But as they say, familiarity breeds contempt. 

Standing in my kitchen, making my morning coffee at 4pm, I realise that, despite everything, this is where I am meant to be. My simple obsession with laptop wallpapers of the Dubai and New York skylines against the horizon, has brought me five thousand miles away from what I am used to. But again, this is where I wanted to be. Amidst the couple hundred varieties of bread and a routine dilemma of figuring out where to buy “curd that tastes like the one in India”, to growing confident about crossing roads, where cars actually stop for you, and talking to new people, with a whole new perspective about all that I’ve written so far, I wanted to be here; standing in the kitchen, listening to the same playlist that I put on everyday, staring at that near perfect sky from my kitchen, knowing I wanted to be here.