The Journey of A Transfer Kid

As of 30th July 2020, I finished 6 years in Singapore. As I woke up this morning, I realised that Singapore is the place  I have lived the longest in my life. The feeling was so unsettling that I decided to allow myself to delve a little deeper and ask myself 'what does this mean for me?'

First, some context. In the 27 years of my life, I have -

• studied in 9 academic institutions ( 7 schools before the age of 18)
• lived in 9 cities (4 different zones of the country)
• lived in 16 apartments

The city (before Singapore) where I have lived the longest would be a tie between Mumbai and Bangalore with four years each.

The lack of identity with respect to where I belong is so ingrained that I no longer realise it. When someone asks me "Where are you from?", I just reply "My parents currently live in Delhi". Simple.

There used to be a time I used this as a mechanism that many people called "show-off". I used to list out the cities, roll my eyes as though I have to pause to think whether I got the order correct ... secretly hoping someone would be interested in my story.

Okay frankly, it was a brilliant icebreaker with the "adults". Adults like getting to know you, if you have a different story than the fellow millennials. I still remember when I landed in my first summer internship and told a senior about this and he called me the "most interesting person he has ever met". I barely worked with him all summer but I would never forget this moment. The validation that ... someone finds my story interesting.

Why so needy, Sandhya?

Before I answer that, I would request you to close your eyes for a few seconds and think of "home". What are the images that come to your mind? I am talking about non-living images alone.

Even at the grown age of 27 I am extremely attached to my soft toys. Despite my friends making fun of me (some of them a little too much), what they don't see is the reason for the attachment. Until recently, "home" was never a physical place. As a kid, when I said I wanted to go home, what I meant was, I wanted to go cuddle my soft toys and stay there silently till I feel better. Every new place I went to, they came with me. Best part is that as I grew, the collection grew larger.

When I went back to Delhi earlier this year, my mother and I were pointing at each soft toy and recollecting where we bought them. She remembered the exact location and the moment it happened, even for the ones that were bought when I was an infant. I remembered which ones I befriended the most and which ones came the most handy when I was either scared or sad.

"A physical location" never made a part of my identity. I am ethnically a Tamilian, born in Tamil Nadu (Southern most state of India). Growing up predominantly in the North of India,  I was always the "that South-Indian girl in my class" in every school I went to. Though I spoke flawless Hindi, my identity never seemed to fit with them. I spoke in Tamil only at home and naturally as I grew, like most teenagers I spoke much less at home. My Tamil always lacked the native flavour and the grammatical accuracy and well ... it was garbage. When I went down South to meet my cousins and relatives, they would make fun of my grammar (which I didn't particularly mind... most of the times) and would call me "that north-indian cousin" (eh?).

Sometimes my peers would address me based on where I moved from - when I moved from Kolkata to Meerut, I was "that Kolkata girl", when I moved to Mumbai, I was "that Meerut girl". In Bangalore, I was the "Mumbai girl"... I mean, you get the point (damn! it's just so hard to resist listing it out)

With every transfer, came a new challenge. Sometimes it was 'learning a new language' other times it was 'getting into people's already established friend circles'. Statements like "see, you are new here, so..." was used much more than "hello". 

Having always fit the definition of a good student, what my peers saw in me was the privilege of being the smart one. That's a brilliant identity to have, no doubt. But how I wished someone wanted to get to know me, better. How I wished someone did not assume that I have been so privileged to have done well for myself - "things come too easily for Sandhya"

I still remember the time when I went to a bunch of girls in my 6th school and started crying, one of the most cringeworthy moments of my life - forcing my story on them. As expected, they brushed me aside and said "do you always cry so much?" Anything to fish out some validation, yeah? 

When I look back, I don't see a girl writhing in self-pity and focussing on only what she did not have. Technically, that's what it was. 

But what she really wanted was to be heard. And I know this for a fact, as I practiced it each night as I hugged my soft toys, if people had actually given me the validation, my next step was to move on. I wanted to move on. But I was not prepared to do so until I was sure that people knew my story. 

In hindsight, what I needed to know was that in order to make your story heard, you first need to become "someone". And in order to do that, you need to move on. I had gotten the whole thing wrong. 

I look back at the last 3-4 years and the social circle that has evolved in my life and I almost cannot believe there was a time I was so lonely. I actually have healthy friendships. Me. 

What happened? 

Here is the truth I learnt:

In cases like these where people have not gone through what you have and it is not exactly categorised as trauma, most people are not interested to speak to victims. However, they love hearing from survivors. Survivors are inspiring...victims bring you down. I am not sure what's right or wrong. There are high chances that none of the teens (& current adults) had the appetite to listen to my story. After all, everyone's got their stuff. And after all, it's harder to have the willingness to invest your time and energy in a new person when they can spend that energy to try and fix the numerous things that are wrong within their existing circles and life. 

Perhaps, it is this understanding that eventually helped me move on.  I realised the following things  -

1. I don't need people to know the real me, to fit in - I can have (& still have) friends who simply like hanging out with me and have no clue about my story 
2. I can use this opportunity of frequent fresh starts to rediscover myself and present a new, possibly better version of myself (#fakeittillyoumakeit)
3. Forcing myself on people is NOT equal to fitting in (seems like a very straightforward thing but this was a hard one to understand for someone who was extremely lonely)
4. You do not need a best friend. If you have people who care (even if they don't always show), you have a win :)

5. If you cannot fit in then stand out! 

The last one helped me shape myself into the adult I am today. The thought that I can be lonely and still am capable of being awesome is what helped me get out of the slump I was in, as a teenager. 

'When I make myself awesome... people will want to be my friend - until then, I focus on becoming awesome' The word awesome entailed different things based on where I was and my age but eventually it helped to erase that perpetual bitterness and need for attention. 

I didn't even know that I moved on until a bunch of my friends in Singapore were complaining about moving houses and how annoying the process of packing and unpacking is and instead of rolling my eyes and saying "oh how cute!" (like my bitter self would have said), I could empathize and use my experience to help them optimize the process. It was liberating to not identify myself by the struggles of the past but by the choices I have made in the present. 

I also realised that at the same time I need to respect my story. Respecting my story would not mean speaking to everyone I know about it. It's about managing my anxiety pertaining to change (which I still continue to have). Moving houses, new job, new office location - all of these bring about anxiety... not the physical labour related to it, just the idea of a new start and the perpetual ache of leaving behind what I have gotten used to. Reminding myself that it's okay to feel anxious and also that I have done this before and it is going to be okay. Reminding myself that I will be able to create a home, any where I go. 

A major part of this was ensuring I have a soft toy corner in my current room to wake up to. A corner with literally no particular use-case... but a corner that makes me smile ... a corner, I call home :) 

"Please, Ma'am!"

As Singaporeans are holding their breath, awaiting this year's election results, I can't help but recall a specific incident from the previous election season in 2015. I was a student at National University of Singapore back then, new to the country, my only goal that day being 'how to optimize that public holiday in the best possible way for my studies'.

Even back in India, I did not concern myself with the politicians around me and their impact on our day-to-day lives. Well, naturally, I was from a well-off family. My father had always provided enough (and more) for me to bother myself about which leader's policies would have a worse impact on my existence. Despite being a student of economics, the only politics I was exposed to was something that's good enough for "research/knowledge", to either complement my thesis or build stronger understanding of certain economic concepts. I had never had an emotional opinion about a political party back then.

On September 11th 2015, I was sitting at Starbucks within my campus and going over the assumptions of Solow Model. After a 9-hour study session, I decided that I deserve a Dark Mocha - Grande. I walked up to the counter, like any other millennial, eyes glued to the phone, waiting in line to make my order. I was however, perhaps the only person in the line without any headphones on.
I suddenly heard someone call out to me from behind the counter, though it was not my turn yet.
"Hey, Ma'am!" his voice quivered in a whisper. I looked up to find a middle-aged man, worry spread across his face like a box of spilt rice scattered on a clean floor. His eyebrows looked as though they were perpetually folded inwards. Just watching him alone made me wonder what bad news he might bear.
"Yes, Uncle?"
"Can you please tell me the results?"
I wondered, quite stupidly, why he wanted to know my macroeconomics grade. I nodded in a perplexed manner.
"The elections..is the counting done?"
"I don't know, uncle"
"That phone...check...please"

I fiddled with my phone, still surprised of being approached this way. I did not even notice that it was my turn to order. The student behind me took his headphones off and asked roughly - "hey you done ordering ah?"

Uncle immediately disappeared into the room reserved for Starbucks staff. The girl at the counter, a part-time student, asked me what I wanted to have and rolled her eyes as uncle came back. I got out of the line and he hastily followed me to the pick-up counter -
"hey! Please... please... it's time already, Ma'am"

He swiftly ran back to the room with 4 used cups he had just picked up from the counter. I walked away nodding, with my phone and my drink... one representing a source of information he didn't have access to and other representing my 'reward' for the day. Both representing privilege.

I sat back in my chair and took the first sip of my drink. My gaze was arrested by the look he carried on his face as he went around the coffee house, clearing tables. I watched his eyes contract from time to time and at one point I saw him mumbling something to himself. It felt as though his life depended on how the evening turns out.

I took my phone out again and opened the polling page. I walked up to him after he finished clearing the last table and showed him my screen so that he could make sense of it. (I didn't know what GRC was... and frankly, I didn't care)

"NO!!" his eyes widened. "Ma'am, I am not supposed to look at the phone on duty please."

The stress on the word 'please' each time started to make me feel uncomfortable.

"Okay, uncle. What do you want to know?"

He told me his GRC, and asked me to check who won. I searched through the list and gave him the verdict. His eyes lowered for a few seconds, almost dramatically, flickered and rose towards me again. He nodded - "Thank you, Ma'am."

He walked away; his anxious pace replaced by a slow waddle. It looked like he was limping, as though I had wounded him. He moved to the billing area, taking the place of the student who just finished her shift. "Next, please?"

I walked back to my chair and continued sipping my drink. The next twenty minutes was quiet in my head as I sunk myself into absorbing the entire experience. What amount of privilege blurs your ability to understand the extent of what a fellow human is going through? At what point do you realise that your story is barely a fraction of representation of the entire population? Despite being under the same roof, you can be worlds apart.

I packed my notes and walked out of the almost empty coffee house. I tossed my cup in the bin and from the corner of my eyes, I caught uncle cry as he closed the counter.