By Dr. R. Balasubramaniam

There is a particular kind of madness that grips Indian families when a child announces they have been accepted to a foreign university. It is not the madness of joy, though joy is certainly present. It is the madness of preparation.

Within forty-eight hours, the household transforms into a focused logistics operation. Lists are made. Lists are made of the lists. Relatives who have not been contacted in seven years are suddenly consulted for their expertise on winter jackets, rice cookers and the preferred brand of pressure cooker that fits within airline baggage limits.

The packing itself is a philosophical exercise in optimism versus reality. The mother believes that six months of dal, tamarind paste and home-made pickle can be compressed into a single check-in bag. The father believes the foreign country, wherever it may be, is probably cold and possibly hostile. The result is a suitcase that weighs forty-two kilograms and contains enough provisions to survive both a semester and a minor siege.

The young traveller arrives. The dream, which had involved autumn leaves, a MacBook and a general aura of intellectual glamour, meets its first obstacle at immigration. The officer looks at the visa, looks at the student, looks at the visa again. The student answers something. The officer nods and stamps. It feels like an enormous personal victory.

Then comes the accommodation. Student housing abroad is described in university brochures using words like ‘vibrant’ and ‘community-oriented.’ In practice, vibrant means noisy and community-oriented means sharing a bathroom with someone whose relationship with a mop is entirely theoretical. The room is compact to the point of architectural ingenuity. You cannot open the cupboard and the bathroom door simultaneously. This is not a design flaw. It is, you are told, intentional.

The kitchen becomes the arena of greatest personal transformation. Back home, food appeared on the table through a process that seemed effortless and was entirely taken for granted. Abroad, you discover that cooking is extraordinarily difficult. YouTube becomes the new grandmother. However, YouTube’s grandmother does not account for the fact that lentils behave differently in foreign climates, that local ‘yoghurt’ is not curd and that the thing labelled ’paneer’ in the international aisle is essentially a rumour.

After one week of this, the nearest Indian grocery store assumes the status of a sacred institution. You make the pilgrimage with genuine reverence and return carrying atta and pickle with the satisfaction of someone who has restored order to the universe.

Academics present a different challenge entirely. The Indian student arrives having mastered memorisation with the dedication of an Olympic athlete. Abroad, professors want opinions. They want arguments. They want you to ‘engage critically’ with the text, which turns out to mean something specific and not entirely obvious from the phrase itself. The first essay returns with comments suggesting more original analysis was expected. The student stares at this feedback for a considerable length of time.

There is also the small matter of part-time employment, that universal rite of passage for the desi student abroad. You discover that the Indian capacity for jugaad, that magnificent instinct for finding a way, is a genuinely transferable skill. You tutor, deliver, stack, serve and occasionally operate a till with the authority of someone entirely unfamiliar with the currency. The resume expands creatively. ‘Event logistics coordinator’ is one way to describe moving chairs. It is not, technically, an inaccurate one.

And then, somewhere between the third month and the fifth, something shifts. The home-sickness does not disappear, but it settles into something quieter. You find people, unlikely people from unlikely places, who also miss their mothers’ cooking and are navigating the same bewildering distance from everything familiar. You learn to boil rice in a microwave. You develop opinions about coffee. You discover you are capable of being entirely alone and entirely fine.

The return home, when it comes, is its own small drama. You have developed an accent that is neither here nor there. You begin sentences with “Back in Berlin…” and notice the expression on your listeners’ faces travelling rapidly from polite interest to something else. The aunties want to know about your future. The uncles want to know about your salary. The younger cousins want to                                                                     know about the parties.

You left as one person and returned as another. Older, certainly. Wiser, arguably. And at least twenty percent more efficient at operating a washing machine.

It is, all things considered, an excellent education. Not all of it happens in the classroom.

[Dr. R. Balasubramaniam is the Founder of Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement (SVYM). ‘The Lighter Side’ is a series of satirical articles meant to bring a smile by highlighting the funny side of everyday life.]