transcribed from my stand-up comedy set

Namaste!

So as was said previously, I’m originally from Finland and live here in India now because I’m set to marry an Indian guy next year.

But now you guys, hands up, if you have a girlfriend or a wife. No one? Your aunties must be doing a crappy job at match-making. You might as well give me a try.

Let’s take an easier one. Hands up, if you think women often worry and stress out way too much. Haha, y’all can join the club with my fiancé. He needs the moral support.

It’s…

Out of sight, out of mind, they say. I’m originally from Finland, a country that prides itself on having the purest air in the world, being the cleanest country in the world. I never really paid any attention to trash or pollution, excluding the occasional cigarette stump or a plastic wrapper here and there in the ground. Breathing in the fresh air always made me happy.

I’ve been thinking a great deal about exasperation and the irritations of life here in India lately. Initially, when I was on my first month-long trip in the Himalayas and then lived in Visakhapatnam for four months, I was only gazing at India through love’s pink, heart-shaped goggles. Living in India could not have been more simple, easier — a paradise.

But now I’ve lived here for a year again, long-term, sharing my home and everyday life with my boyfriend. And I’m not living in my own pink and lovey-dovey bubble anymore. Now normal, mundane life seems to be a…

We met for the first time at the Delhi airport on a hot May morning. I don’t remember the overbearing heat though, nor do I remember the congestion or the pollution or pretty much any specifics about the city, where we spent a day and a half before taking a bus to Manali and the mountains. It was my first time in such a different environment and culture — I had never been outside Europe — but I wasn’t overwhelmed by that. Despite my fascination with India, I barely paid any attention to the city. I only had eyes for…

I have been watching my mother’s life from the sidelines for 30 years now, almost as long as she had lived when she had me. I’m more or less at the age where I would eventually assume the identity of a mother, my mother. She has been the only role model for me in this respect and though I hope I will have learned from her mistakes, I can see the influence she has had on me, for better or for worse. …

Flashback Friday

It’s almost two years since my feet first touched the Indian soil, as I landed in Delhi to meet my boyfriend — of three months back then — for the first time. At the same time it feels like it was only yesterday and no time has passed at all, but then I open my hard drives or scroll through my Instagram gallery and it’s obvious how much has happened ever since. …

Easy budget traveling: Money and accommodation

Many people ask me how we have so much time for traveling, how we can afford being almost constantly exploring around India — I, the one without a regular, well-enough-paying job, even more than my boyfriend. To be fair, I do have to note that especially in India the culture around traveling and wanderlusting is quite undeveloped, still in its baby hiking shoes. But the question pops up as much in chats with my Finnish friends and new people during my trips as here in India, where friends, colleagues and the laymen seem to…

My world is empty without you

My world is empty without you

If I go

missing,

burning,

like the ones

before me

who loved so wrong,

with my words

in the flames

where they’ll throw me,

take my voice and

I’ll be choking,

gasping

for the air

in the mountains,

where my lips

wrote these words

in the salt of your skin

with sweat and tears,

yours and mine,

as we were one

in love,

freely

So if

I go missing,

come and find me,

in the mountains