Dilemma I'm dealing with.

Talking to myself

Ever since I have come back to Paris, I feel like something’s changed.

After Ladakh Marathon, I came back a different human being.

Many people find themselves in a dilemma about various things in their life.

This post inspired me to finally write my thoughts.
A French person living in India, loving her life there.

From a Sense of Belonging POV

Her post makes a lot of sense and I can relate to this when I first moved to Bangalore in 2016 for my bachelors. In Bangalore, I found belonging. I made really great friends and I had tremendous growth. When I moved in to my parent’s apartment in Vizag during COVID, I was the most miserable person. Notice, how I say “parent’s apartment”, instead of home.

When I moved to Paris, it didn’t feel like home at first. More like a clean slate to reinvent myself. The notion of home was different for me. Wherever I could be myself, without having to pretend, that’s home. It was the same when I first moved to Bangalore. I felt free because I left my parent’s place.

Of course, starting from scratch in Paris was hard, but I learnt more about myself and started meeting people aligned with my values. I didn’t go back to India for two and half years, and to be honest didn’t miss a thing about India at the time. In that sense, France was home all this while. And France offered me a lot of personal growth than I could have imagined.

When I met French people in India, I felt this urge to chat with them and it reminded me of “home”.

From lifestyle POV

When I went to Bangalore after so long, it made me sad. The city’s infrastructure has become worse. Yes, they are building new metro lines, but the overall quality of human life has gone down. I soon realised that I couldn’t be doing things exactly like I do in Paris. I can’t run before sunrise because the dogs on the street would chase me or be constantly vigilant about the vehicles on the road. The city’s infrastructure is not made for pedestrians.

Somewhere, my values changed and I realised that I would be building my network from scratch again if I moved back sooner or later, instead of hanging out with my friends. Making friends as you grow older becomes harder because everyone has their priorities and is probably trying to put out fires in their life.

Now making friends in Paris is also hard. People are colder, building relationships takes even longer. And I don’t see my friends often. In my case, the friends I’d like to see are not within 5K distance. It’d take anywhere between 30mins to an hour. But that’s a temporary situation, I just have to find an apartment in the city centre that has good connectivity via metro. Moreover, many of the friends that I made are already off to other countries and some went back to India. I don’t have a core friend circle. In terms of celebrating festivals, I tried celebrating in some way without feeling miserable.

In Bangalore or another metropolitan city, if my friends are all scattered, meeting them would such a pain. But people are warmer in India. I won’t be alone when I have to celebrate festivals. And of course, great South Indian food!

Next, I am not dating anyone. For some, it probably makes the decision easier or harder. For me, it’s a neutral issue or maybe less burden as I could just move back to India or anywhere in the world without worrying about the consequences in someone else’s life.

Professional/Life’s Work POV

This dilemma arised because I feel like I am missing out on India’s growth journey. For an entrepreneur, problems are opportunities. India has more problems than France. Being in India, makes sense. However, I also care about my health. In India, I felt like I had to be palatable to people — to my parents, friends. I felt smothered by the community I was born in, the rat race, scarcity mindset. But, it maybe because I didn’t know better myself. Now, I know myself better. This will be helpful in building my life from scratch in India.

Sense of Identity POV

Most of my Indian peers or peers from non-european countries prefer to get the citizenship in France so that the French Passport let’s them travel anywhere. This is definitely an advantage. But, India does not allow dual citizenship. In this case, must revoke my Indian citizenship.

This feels like a part of my identity is stripped away. I’ve lived 24 years of my life in India. I am proud to be an Indian. But, I am aware of the facts. The Indian passport is not strong and I don’t like to treated differently just because of my skin colour and nationality.

At the moment, the only country I could just back to without worrying about VISA is India. I don’t know if I should call it home or just a backup place I could always go back to.

I don’t know what is “home”.