About two week ago I left India completely jaded. These past two months drained me. I worried that when I arrived in Ireland after a roughly sixteen hour journey from Bangalore to begin my study abroad program I would be completely exhausted and not present for my next experience. Flying directly from India to Ireland seemed like a good idea in May, no so much the day of my flight.
In reality, leaving India was a breath of fresh air, literally. I departed Bangalore and flew straight to Ireland to being my study abroad experience for the next four months. The crisp, unpolluted Irish air and change of scenery almost immediately brought me out of the dark state India left me in. It was a rough two months. My allergies cleared up, my mood was lifted, I finally felt at home for the first time in a long time.
I’ve contemplated in what tone this blog post will be for the past three weeks or so. I could sugarcoat my experiences and continue to romanticise the idea of India and all it has given me, but that would have been too difficult. To be completely honest, there’s no way I could use words sweeten my time in Bangalore. Plus, not being truthful would be unfaithful to myself and all that has happened over the past two months.
This summer was tough. That doesn’t even begin to describe the difficulties I had while in Bangalore. What I thought would be a fulfilling summer experience working with a non-profit company, the field I thought I wanted to go into, turned out to be two months mastering the art of killing time and discovering that my supposed life path was just a LONG detour that made me realise the NGO life is not for me. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a wonderful organisation with lovely people who do amazing things that I 100% and more support. What does not coincide with who I am is the lack of support and guidance, paucity of tasks, soft deadlines, and remote work that I quite frankly did not need to travel over 9,000 miles to do.
The main takeaway still frustrates me. I so wish I had an incredible experience that was fulfilling and productive and more than I ever could image. But that’s not reality. What I learned from living in India is that weekend trips out of the city can only solve so much, not working is also work and it’s HARD work, and butter chicken (one of my and Nadia’s most favourite Indian dish) is not even Indian.
