Of small worlds and big globes

They say the world is a much smaller place now – with faster airplanes, safer sea routes, phones and apps that can help you stay in touch with your best friends 2,000 miles away, all the while giving you the option to put on bunny ears and whiskers – because let’s face it, communicating is much easier when you can distract yourself and your 7-year-old nephew with magic hats and fire-vomit filters.

In some ways though, the world doesn’t feel very small at all. 

My family is split over three continents and four countries, my cousins and best friends are strewn across the globe in a wide arc so that no more than two are in the same city and while it is great to have a place to stay if I’m planning a trip to Netherlands or Toronto or Dubai or Boston or St Louis, it would be much nicer still to have one of them idiots a ten minute walk away so I could actually poke an arm and share a coffee in person.

The mad quest to leave our country for brighter horizons – higher education, better paying jobs, life without messy queues and electricity outages – has led to us spending the majority of our time away from the people who matter the most. 

Of course, it also means that we have a much richer experience of life if you want to equate richness with diversity and multiplicity – you’d have a much bleaker outlook if you equate richness with love, depth, comfort and familiarity. 

Sometimes I do wonder how we came so far down this path to a life where our nephews and nieces grow old without us knowing what their favourite ice cream flavour is, where we go years without meeting our college friends who know us best, from knowing how much sugar we take in our tea to how truly annoying and insecure we are but loving us despite and in spite of it, to a life where we only realise how much time has gone by when we see the wrinkles on our parents’ foreheads or how thin their shoulders have become, where weddings and funerals are the events we meet the most number of relatives and friends, where relationships are reduced to hand-sized gadgets and screens, where when we’re at our lowest instead of a friend’s shoulder you have to make do with a phone call (if the time zones allow it) ...

A bit of a downer, eh.

Now to step away from this sallow lake of sad thoughts, I do think living abroad and stepping out of your comfort zone makes you grow so much. 

Generally speaking, growing up in a middle-to-upper income household in Pakistan means that you are basically like fish in an aquarium.  It’s a sweet, safe and contained box where you’re well-fed and somebody comes to clean your tank – but there’s limited mobility and definitely not a lot of diversity in terms of other occupants.

You move abroad – the coveted, famed, legendary ‘abroad’ where life is supposed to be perfect and realise just how much work perfect really is.  Suddenly you’re reliant on buses for transportation, there are limitations on how much grocery you should buy from the well stocked, bright Tesco because

    a. You’ll be walking home and carrying it in a bag,

    b. There really isn’t that much room in the two-bedroom flat you live in to store it all!

From getting (re)acquainted with toilet cleaners and vacuums to realising just how active spiders in England are and how big the bedrooms in Pakistan are ...  from having to speak slower because natives don’t understand your accent to being a bit cautious about what you say and how you say it, because face it, this isn’t where you were born so your right to stride down the streets like you own them isn’t there.  

The cuisine is pretty bleak: they call this horribly sweet and creamy curry ‘qorma’ and eat way too much beans and chips, and seem to love pairing donor kababs and pizzas.  Don’t get me started on the weather (actually it has been absolutely gorgeous this summer!) and most of all, you miss your social support system that you took for granted (like your lungs).

You miss having people who really know you and who you’re comfortable enough with to drop by their house without having to plan a week in advance or ask to meet up for coffee without having to look at your calendar ... the comfort of friends and family who know you already and share enough interests that when you find a cool new bookshop or a tea place or a play, you know exactly who to call ...

But.

It is a richer experience and it does make you stronger, and you meet great new people and see beautiful things. (Haha, I didn’t even notice it and I had somehow snuck back to the edge of that murky lake!)

Living in England has definitely made me less materialistic ... I think.

Well perhaps.

Maybe.

At least in some ways! 

Smaller homes mean fewer things (especially because I hate clutter!), student budgets mean lesser spending, shorter stay means less reason to invest in long-lasting things, a much smaller social circle and no desi ladies means dying my hair and getting threaded just once a month and the cold gray climate means limited fashion because you’re always wearing a giant jacket and knee length boots. 

Also I find England to be quite laidback.  There is no mad quest for high end fashion and brands- people in Nottingham still wear dark brown lipstick and indulge in Goth-inspired coats and cloaks, there are no gigantic malls and billboards inciting me to buy buy and buy some more.  There are a lot of small understated cafes and tea shops, family pubs and parks.  People pack up their shops and businesses early on a Saturday and don’t even bother opening them on Sundays – I find it so much more family oriented than our stereotypes of what ‘Western culture’ is like and summer is filled with even the smallest town decking out its market square with rides and carnivals for children and families.

And I absolutely adore Nottingham. 

From its market square with its fountains that fill up with half-naked children and panting dogs when the weather turns warm to its hidden local cafes and restaurants offering some admittedly delicious food – you might be walking down a very ordinary street and see a slightly dingy alley that leads into a beautiful courtyard with fairy lights strung above and bright painted graffiti setting the background, fancy a tea on one of the benches there or wander up the stairs to a beautifully arranged book shop (which reminds me – I need to go back there and take some photos).

I do love sitting in our little backyard and listening to the soft silence of a summer evening – the distant sound of a child laughing and the louder more insistent chirping of birds, I like being able to walk everywhere and being in better shape.  I like buying avocados and pairing it with cheese.  I love having a job that’s four days a week and allows me to work with music and children and learn new skills while polishing my old ones.

I’ve also met some really cool people.  And every now and then, these strangers pop into my life and brighten things up – like pulling up the blinds or drawing the curtains open.

From my favourite professionals in the city (bus drivers!) who always have a chirpy "hello love!" to throw your way, to a random man sporting a vest with the Turkey flag on it starting a conversation on cut flowers and then bringing his rescue puppy with the very wet chin and muddy paws onto our table outside a pub, telling us about his partner who is a nurse and how he hates technology and would much rather be sitting in the sun talking to strangers – to the old man who joined me outside another restaurant and told me his entire life story of being a RAF serviceman and now at 74 years living a happy but solitary life without any family (never married although he had a sweetheart in Singapore when he was posted there, his mum, dad and sister died already).  He talked and talked, jumping from one story to another like a frog hopping along stones in a pond.  Finally bade him goodbye and walked off a happier person having connected with a stranger.

Then there was the lady who sat next to me on a train to Newark and offered me a ride to my other train stop so I wouldn't have to walk.  The 19 year old who offered Fahad pizza outside QMC and the 28-year-old with a burnt ankle who kept him company in the waiting room and scribbled down his phone number for him.

The world is a pretty big place if you think about it, but sometimes you just have to spot the connections and the silver linings that keep it all together and make it go spinning on.