About Me — Arundhati Sarkar
I used to wait for the other shoe to drop. Now I embrace uncertainty.
Part 1: If My Life Was A Movie.
1996
On the eve of my 2nd birthday, my mum left for England.
She had accepted a position to work in a town called Rochdale (football fans will know Rochdale AFC :P) and study to become a Fellow of the Royal College of Anaesthetists (FRCA).
For the next year, my Dida (her mum, my grandma) was my primary caregiver. My dad was around too but he was a busy doctor.
1997
On 12th April, Dida dropped me off at kindergarten. That would be the last time I saw her.
I barely remember, but I am told I spent weeks and weeks looking for her everywhere. I didn’t understand, then, that she had been hit by a car and succumbed to the injuries. My Dida’s sister decided I was too young to process death and whisked me away to her place so I didn’t have to witness any of it (a part of me wishes she hadn’t).
I spent the next 4 years in the UK with my mum. My dad, who was supposed to join us there, got diagnosed with a visual impairment that meant he’d never be able to secure a job there. He continued working here in India, using all his vacation time to visit us in Britain.
I grew up feeling rootless, far from family, going from school to the childminder’s until my mum got off work and took me home. We moved around quite a bit, from Cardiff to Rochdale to Chichester to Kingston: different places, different cultures. Rochdale was stunning with its rolling hills, lush dales, and brisk, snowy winters. Cardiff, Chichester, and Kingston were more urban and much warmer.
The school was incredibly different from what I’d have had in India: we were taught life skills from the age of 4; learning was “intuitive” — teachers insisted on not correcting spelling or grammar, as that would encourage rote learning.
I remember the story of a five-year-old kid who one night, finding his hypoglycemic, diabetic mum collapsing, kept her alive by spooning sugar into her mouth until the ambulance came. (In India, a child would not have the knowledge. Then again we have fewer nucleated families, which would mean the mum would have another adult to step in for emergencies.)
This was also when I discovered my love for writing. Whenever I wanted to escape reality I’d write a story, often re-imagining my toys as real animals.
My parents decided we’d relocate to India when I was around 8. Dad and I flew back and my mum joined us a year later.
2003
We started living together as a family, in our first proper home.
I integrated into the schooling system (which was vastly different from the UK), and reunited with my extended family. Growing up almost alone, the ties fostered in a middle-class Bengali family felt surreal.
School was hard, but got easier. In Rochdale I packed one notebook and pencil, in Calcutta, we had ten exercise books and textbooks to lug around. Not fun.
I’ve been told later, that I stood out with my complexion and British accent and penmanship (UK kids print, Indians do cursive) — I dropped the accent and altered my handwriting to blend in. My parents were not pleased. They secretly loved the fact that I’d morphed into a tiny olive-skinned memsahib.
In retrospect, this was when my initiation into Indian culture began: collectivism, big families, general conservatism, and the extensive influence of religion.
Britishers are pretty anti-religion, Indians are the opposite. Even Bengalis who claim to be atheists are secretly devout (mostly!).
I’ve found a middle ground that has worked for me —respect for Sanatana Dharma, Oriental religions, and spirituality; although my English upbringing makes me question everything constantly.
My love for football (soccer in the US), political discourse, and avid reading I attribute to Bengali culture in particular.
2012–2016
I finished school with good grades, got accepted into engineering at IIEST Shibpur, and started living in a hostel (student housing) with my fellow students. I’ve written an article on my college life too.
This was another juncture where my foundation felt wonky; freedom beckoned seductively. The more I partied, the more my grades plummeted. Overall, I had fun, made lifelong friends, and realized that electrical engineering was so not my forte!
At the end of four years, I pulled my socks up and landed a job in a Bangalore-based pure-play analytics firm. Thus began my foray into a mostly happy and fulfilling career in analytics and consulting.
2016–2020
My years in Bangalore were a mix of work, office parties, and immersion in a brand-new culture.
I fell in love with tech-savvy Bangalore, home of India’s IT industry, filter coffee, especially the people. Bangaloreans operate from a problem-solving mindset: something that I try to implement.
I fell head-over-heels in love with a man in 2017 and for the first time, I actually considered marrying. Sadly, this was never on the cards for him; a fact I denied to myself for years. The tumultuous relationship ended in heartbreak four years later, but it taught me a lot of valuable life lessons.
I no longer wait for people to change for me, and I look at facts in the eye; although sometimes painful, it saves you a lot of pain down the line.
2020-Present
Life during the pandemic was bizarre. Time stood still (it still does). I used to be constantly anxious about the fact that my doctor-parents had to go to work.
Mid-2020 was the beginning of my episodes of depression: I felt (this was an old feeling) that I was in the middle of the ocean on a rocky boat with no land in sight.
When I finally broke up with the aforementioned boyfriend, it triggered a month-long bout of dissociation that was one of the scariest phases of my life.
I survived 2021; even when it felt like I wouldn’t. I managed to do reasonably well at work, but I also started having a niggling feeling that I needed to overhaul my career.
Therapy was transformative; the healing journey I set on was only possible because of my incredible therapist.
Today, I am thankful I was depressed and suicidal in 2020 — it necessitated a soul-searching quest.
I quit my job in the latter half of 2022, deciding that it was high time I re-kindled my love for writing, and do it professionally. I’m on this path now, and couldn’t be happier.
Part 2: If My Life Was A Self-Help Listicle.
You are free to draw your own conclusions. Here are mine.
- When Dida died, the rug was pulled from under my feet. There is no greater terror than suddenly losing your primary caregiver when you don’t even understand what death means.
But that’s life. There is no ground for us to stand on, no anchor to steady the boat. When the storm comes, it turns everything to rubble.
I discovered that Buddhism teaches us to embrace groundlessness. This book by Pema Chödrön was a life-changing read.
- There are long stretches of life when you need to find firm ground to thrive, too. Learning as early as I did that nothing is forever, I became pretty self-reliant. My love for personal finance and investing was born from this mindset, too.
I started a publication called Financial Literacy Magazine to share my financial journey and provide actionable steps.
- I’ve been told that I am often on the middle ground on many matters. I call this having nuance. This could be because my rising sign is Libra, but I think it’s because I’ve benefitted from different cultures.
It’s also why I love to travel; I meet new folks, make new feline and canine friends, and learn heaps from all of them.
The more you see people as people, and not labels, the more nuance you’ll develop.
- Data analysis in my day-to-day: My stint in analytics helped me hone my critical thinking skills, and taught me a valuable lesson: my worldview is based on a minuscule chunk of what the world is. When I analyze large batches of data, it’s eye-opening to see how ignorant I am.
This data-backed proof of my ignorance keeps my ego in check.
Even though I’ve drawn the curtain on my analytics career for now, I would love to explore avenues that marry my love of data-driven problem-solving and storytelling, in the future.
- I’m a cat mom. The life lessons my cats have imparted will take up an entire article. I’ll put a pin on that. Here’s a picture of our fur baby, who we lost a year ago, 12 years after I brought her home.
If you’ve reached till the end, thank you for your time! Please let me know your feedback, if any, in the comments :)
