Yes thats true...
I have moved yet again.. this time to Basel, Switzerland. I landed in Basel on 24th August 2012. This very peculiar day in my life marked yet another transition. I will be studying at University of Basel for three years, that is till somewhere around August 2015 if everything goes well. Honestly, this move from the Netherlands to Basel has been the most nerve-wracking move of my life till this moment. I have never been so nervous before. I love moving around, rather moving helps me stay focussed.. but this one was not at all easy... Months of contemplation and networking with people in Switzerland, so that I could land safely in this country... the safest, cleanest and most efficient societies in the world... what made me nervous is a topic for yet another blog post.. but what I want to talk about here is how Basel and Switzerland in general became my new home in mere three months or so... against all my initial fears and inhibitions....
I have hard time to be in one place for a very long time. I often feel I do not have an anchor, I drift around and go wherever I find new opportunities. Good thing is that I have very minimal needs so in no time, I find myself feeling at home in every new place I have been to. I carry my home with me, in my heart, and in my two suitcases... that is what one does when on constant move, but having said that over years, I have also noticed my capacity to accumulate material things that are now making it harder for me to move at a drop of a hat... for example, many of my things are still scattered at various places in the Netherlands.. and I would intentionally leave them that way in the hope that some day I will return to them... Though I feel I am at home in Basel, I must also admit that my heart still yearns to return to the Netherlands once in a while, just to soak up some love and warmth of friendship and come home to basel again.... I think i will keep traveling to the Netherlands every once in a while.. I just returned from the Netherlands last week and the happiness in my heart and soul was palpable.... I belong there as well ... just the way I belong to Basel.. is that possible to belong to many places at the same time?
My move to Basel is unique for more than one reasons, apart from my initial nervousness and anxiety. I will be here for three years, longest I have been in one place .. only exception to that is mumbai, my hometown... but since 2003, I am on constant move... Being in Basel for 3 years was scary .. what if I did not feel at home there? Will I be able to break my professional commitment and move somewhere else? Am I becoming an expert on not being able to commit and to stick with it? But good thing is my fears and worries make me reach out to people for help.. I am almost shameless when it comes to sharing my vulnerability to people that I trust.... and that is exactly what I did... wrote to many friends asking them to connect me with their friends in Basel and in Switzerland way before I even signed the work contract in Basel and the strategy worked well....
In less than three months, I can say I am at home in Basel... and again there are many reasons for that...
I love the city, small and compact, where I can walk everywhere. I am amazed at the amount of sunlight we have had in Basel in last three months as compared to Groningen. I almost thought I dont need to take vit D supplements in winter in Basel.. I love the river flowing through the city.. and I have beautiful apartment of my own.. with a gas stove, very important comfort factor for me to feel at home... My land lady is amazingly supportive and in many ways her presence and affection gives me a sense of belonging to this city.. Other huge contribution to this sense of belonging is ease with which I can buy Indian groceries and supplies... if I can cook my own Indian food at home, that is half the battle won... I dont need anything else.. and in Basel, there are many places where I can buy things that I need, including fresh curry leaves.... just thinking about them makes me smile.....
Basel and my early days in Switzerland also has made significant difference in my life... For a change, I actually have a busy social life... beyond work.. My friends in the Netherlands cant believe it as it is extremely hard to get me out of my home, they tried for long and with various tricks but hardly anything worked ... all my life, I remember, my days revolved around home-work-home.. I had no clue or inclination to enjoy life beyond the familiar worlds of work and home... I think I did not believe that life can be fun beyond work...and here I am, all over the place, traveling, meeting people and friends for lunches and coffee, hosting dinners at my place, just going out in the city center for fun, attending concerts, watching movies and also being a lazy home bunny with bunch of friends in Zurich.... If you cant find me in Basel, you just might have to look for me in Zurich... I continue to hang around with swiss gray lotuses and that is always nice.. but these days I also hang around with people of my age... and I am realizing that is great fun too.... my busy social calendar is ringing serious alarm bells for some of my old friends... for obvious reasons that I might be totally distracted and then wont write the papers that have been pending at my end for too long already... so the real challenge is to find balance between work and personal life.. I have been at one extreme of the spectrum all the while and now I am at the other end.. and hopefully sometime in coming three years i will find the middle path.. a perfect balance between work and personal life... was this not the theme of our discussion at Gelataria in Groningen, the evening before i flew out of Basel... hello Friends, I just want to tell you that all those suggestions of yours are working well and have really made a difference in making me feel at home in Basel....
So food and friends help me feel at home and I have ample of both in Switzerland... but there is one more factor which adds to this duo... A country and place adds to my comfort zone if I see myself with opportunities to find work and hence lead a meaningful life in that country... I have not felt the need to explore my future options in professional life in Switzerland yet but given the fact that this country attracts so many foreigners to work here, I guess if I decide to, I shall be able to find interesting work opportunities... but I will wait for that, may be in the third year, I will start thinking about it.. not now..
I am often surprised how quickly I settled down in Basel, how swiftly I started spending time on Swiss trains and how quickly I got used to them... I still think of blue and yellow Dutch trains on flat green background, but I equally feel excited looking out at the panorama from my Swiss train rides... We humans, are really quick to adapt, and adjust and I hope I never loose this ability.... to really immerse myself in local life and culture, to find joy in different things and to be eager to try out new experiences that each journey offers me... It is not about netherlands or switzerland, India or somewhere else... it is about being me and connecting with people wherever I go... being really part of people's lives and sharing the time we have together... that is what makes me truly happy... and that is what I am sure is going to make me cry rivers of tears if I have to say goodbye to Switzerland at the end of three years.. but knowing myself, I will for sure create a support system in Switzerland for myself to tide over that crisis....
After spending four days in beautiful Krakow, I am flying home to Zurich this evening... and will be with friends.... will there still be snow? I wonder....
I guess I will just find out in matter of few hours...
I have moved yet again.. this time to Basel, Switzerland. I landed in Basel on 24th August 2012. This very peculiar day in my life marked yet another transition. I will be studying at University of Basel for three years, that is till somewhere around August 2015 if everything goes well. Honestly, this move from the Netherlands to Basel has been the most nerve-wracking move of my life till this moment. I have never been so nervous before. I love moving around, rather moving helps me stay focussed.. but this one was not at all easy... Months of contemplation and networking with people in Switzerland, so that I could land safely in this country... the safest, cleanest and most efficient societies in the world... what made me nervous is a topic for yet another blog post.. but what I want to talk about here is how Basel and Switzerland in general became my new home in mere three months or so... against all my initial fears and inhibitions....
I have hard time to be in one place for a very long time. I often feel I do not have an anchor, I drift around and go wherever I find new opportunities. Good thing is that I have very minimal needs so in no time, I find myself feeling at home in every new place I have been to. I carry my home with me, in my heart, and in my two suitcases... that is what one does when on constant move, but having said that over years, I have also noticed my capacity to accumulate material things that are now making it harder for me to move at a drop of a hat... for example, many of my things are still scattered at various places in the Netherlands.. and I would intentionally leave them that way in the hope that some day I will return to them... Though I feel I am at home in Basel, I must also admit that my heart still yearns to return to the Netherlands once in a while, just to soak up some love and warmth of friendship and come home to basel again.... I think i will keep traveling to the Netherlands every once in a while.. I just returned from the Netherlands last week and the happiness in my heart and soul was palpable.... I belong there as well ... just the way I belong to Basel.. is that possible to belong to many places at the same time?
My move to Basel is unique for more than one reasons, apart from my initial nervousness and anxiety. I will be here for three years, longest I have been in one place .. only exception to that is mumbai, my hometown... but since 2003, I am on constant move... Being in Basel for 3 years was scary .. what if I did not feel at home there? Will I be able to break my professional commitment and move somewhere else? Am I becoming an expert on not being able to commit and to stick with it? But good thing is my fears and worries make me reach out to people for help.. I am almost shameless when it comes to sharing my vulnerability to people that I trust.... and that is exactly what I did... wrote to many friends asking them to connect me with their friends in Basel and in Switzerland way before I even signed the work contract in Basel and the strategy worked well....
In less than three months, I can say I am at home in Basel... and again there are many reasons for that...
I love the city, small and compact, where I can walk everywhere. I am amazed at the amount of sunlight we have had in Basel in last three months as compared to Groningen. I almost thought I dont need to take vit D supplements in winter in Basel.. I love the river flowing through the city.. and I have beautiful apartment of my own.. with a gas stove, very important comfort factor for me to feel at home... My land lady is amazingly supportive and in many ways her presence and affection gives me a sense of belonging to this city.. Other huge contribution to this sense of belonging is ease with which I can buy Indian groceries and supplies... if I can cook my own Indian food at home, that is half the battle won... I dont need anything else.. and in Basel, there are many places where I can buy things that I need, including fresh curry leaves.... just thinking about them makes me smile.....
Basel and my early days in Switzerland also has made significant difference in my life... For a change, I actually have a busy social life... beyond work.. My friends in the Netherlands cant believe it as it is extremely hard to get me out of my home, they tried for long and with various tricks but hardly anything worked ... all my life, I remember, my days revolved around home-work-home.. I had no clue or inclination to enjoy life beyond the familiar worlds of work and home... I think I did not believe that life can be fun beyond work...and here I am, all over the place, traveling, meeting people and friends for lunches and coffee, hosting dinners at my place, just going out in the city center for fun, attending concerts, watching movies and also being a lazy home bunny with bunch of friends in Zurich.... If you cant find me in Basel, you just might have to look for me in Zurich... I continue to hang around with swiss gray lotuses and that is always nice.. but these days I also hang around with people of my age... and I am realizing that is great fun too.... my busy social calendar is ringing serious alarm bells for some of my old friends... for obvious reasons that I might be totally distracted and then wont write the papers that have been pending at my end for too long already... so the real challenge is to find balance between work and personal life.. I have been at one extreme of the spectrum all the while and now I am at the other end.. and hopefully sometime in coming three years i will find the middle path.. a perfect balance between work and personal life... was this not the theme of our discussion at Gelataria in Groningen, the evening before i flew out of Basel... hello Friends, I just want to tell you that all those suggestions of yours are working well and have really made a difference in making me feel at home in Basel....
So food and friends help me feel at home and I have ample of both in Switzerland... but there is one more factor which adds to this duo... A country and place adds to my comfort zone if I see myself with opportunities to find work and hence lead a meaningful life in that country... I have not felt the need to explore my future options in professional life in Switzerland yet but given the fact that this country attracts so many foreigners to work here, I guess if I decide to, I shall be able to find interesting work opportunities... but I will wait for that, may be in the third year, I will start thinking about it.. not now..
I am often surprised how quickly I settled down in Basel, how swiftly I started spending time on Swiss trains and how quickly I got used to them... I still think of blue and yellow Dutch trains on flat green background, but I equally feel excited looking out at the panorama from my Swiss train rides... We humans, are really quick to adapt, and adjust and I hope I never loose this ability.... to really immerse myself in local life and culture, to find joy in different things and to be eager to try out new experiences that each journey offers me... It is not about netherlands or switzerland, India or somewhere else... it is about being me and connecting with people wherever I go... being really part of people's lives and sharing the time we have together... that is what makes me truly happy... and that is what I am sure is going to make me cry rivers of tears if I have to say goodbye to Switzerland at the end of three years.. but knowing myself, I will for sure create a support system in Switzerland for myself to tide over that crisis....
After spending four days in beautiful Krakow, I am flying home to Zurich this evening... and will be with friends.... will there still be snow? I wonder....
I guess I will just find out in matter of few hours...
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