Sunday, June 29, 2014

Trysts with a Real Person: Familiarity Fetish

Done. Finished. Funtoosh. Lo and behold, the second week is over. I think I'm starting to get more accustomed to and familiar with this place, the weather included (which has been the exact opposite of what I am used to in California).

That was a terrible segue into this whole familiarity business. Growing up, my life was very steady and practically unchanging. I lived in the same locality for seventeen years (there's that running joke amongst my friends about me being upset about a new Mother Dairy outlet when I moved, but let's not go into that), went to the same school for about thirteen, lived in the same city for about twenty three. While I enjoyed that sort of stability, I think it also bred some sort of an affinity for constants. Sometimes that fish out of water feeling when I just move to a new place becomes somewhat challenging. It's also something I've tried to fight repeatedly by putting myself into situations where I feel like a fish out of water. It happened to me when I moved to California after all those years in Delhi (faithfully documented on the blog), and still happens to me every time I leave the familiar spaces and faces in India and head to the US (also faithfully complained about on the blog). Little things I carry from home, like my packet of Bru coffee (way better than the crap they export) help shore up the familiarity walls till I settle back in. For weeks before coming to Bremen, I was nervous and I agonized about moving to a new city (even for a short while) where I knew no one and didn't really speak the language. Fortunately, I discovered old friends here and made a couple of new ones even before I got here. Things have been great these last two weeks.

The point is, it's all new - including the part where I have to look presentable for work every day, which is a far cry from my PhD student life (where I probably look public-viewing-worthy once every three days or so). I reclaim that part of my fetish for familiarity by not shaving and taking afternoon naps on weekends. 

So, everything is new. It's exciting and intimidating, frustrating and educational, all at the same time. 

Getting to meet new people is sometimes challenging. The part that I've found most challenging is the hesitation I feel in striking a random conversation with people, and language is playing a huge role. The fact that I have to translate whatever little German I understand into English or Hindi for my brain to comprehend it means that I have to plan entire conversations in my head prior to having them. Just a few days ago, I walked past a guy on bicycle going the other way and he kept saying "Wie Spät" as he rode past, looking more and more disappointed with each time. It wasn't until he well past me that my brain finally completed the translation process to figure out he was asking for the time. There are also these funny things I've noticed about having a "native" language, and how English (or Hinglish, perhaps) is somewhat "native" to the people around me in India. The French, who are usually notorious for their opposition to English also find themselves in a "non-native" situation like English speakers and there a bond seems to grow out of nowhere. Last week I found an Indian grocery store, which I was pretty pleasantly surprised to find. Named the "Punjabi Store", it is owned and run by a couple from North India. I was most amused by how happy I left that store, just because I was able to have a very Delhi-like conversation with the owners about their time in Bremen without having to first play out the conversation in my own head.  My desk neighbour also happens to be Indian, and conversations steeped in familiarity and nativity have given me great joy over the last week. All this surprises me sometimes because I've never really been the sort of person who congregates only with his kind. However, in the absence of any real communication skills in the local language, I think my "kind" is currently the group of people who speak a language I think in.

Perhaps I need to use that "Mein Deutsch ist nicht so gut aber ich versuche, mehr Deutsch zu lernen" (My German is not so good, but I am trying to learn more German) a little more.  

Here's to more fruitful interactions in the coming weeks...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Perhaps not entirely related, but reminds me of a concept I have been struggling to come to terms with myself these past few months.

"Nostalgia - it's delicate, but potent. Teddy told me that in Greek, "nostalgia" literally means "the pain from an old wound." It's a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn't a spaceship, it's a time machine. It goes backwards, and forwards... it takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It's not called the wheel, it's called the carousel. It let's us travel the way a child travels - around and around, and back home again, to a place where we know are loved."