Our expat life and its biggest dilemma,"what next"! We are a community that thrives on the adrenaline rush of planning everything "next", the next weekend, the next vacation, the next dinner party, the next birthday and probably the next life! We have to plan everything. It's one of the ways we bring our home into the domicile. We have to create the dynamics of a known society in a foreign land. It means, we make things happen. Look at our festival celebrations. What we lack in scale, we match with our zeal. We celebrate not just the big ones but also some obscure auspicious day we probably haven't heard of back home, so long as it is planned in the calendar. Things have to be creatively predictable. An oxymoron, isn't it? An illusion of fluidity in a watertight life. Technology has only made it even easier for us. Ad hoc what's app group for any and every occasion from planning a big diwali bash to going for groceries, if it involves a third head, it is a group and it leaves an organised digital trail of everything we did.
When you live in a society where you belong, things are far more organic. From festivals, weddings, pujas to dharnas and bandhs, events just happen. You don't have to plan around the social aspects of life. If anything, you may have to plan escaping them. You are used to the chaos that's all around you. So naturally, a surprise visitor or an unexpected event doesn't bug you much. Spontaneity becomes an essential part of life. But imagine what we, expats would do if we were ever to be surprised by an unexpected visitor or if an old friend just asked us to drop right in. It is like a running treadmill has suddenly stopped and whopped us out. These hardwired brains just wouldn't know how to react to a spontaneous situation. If only there were YouTube videos training us how to plan the unplanned!
Disclaimer: Our friends and family have been too kind to always give us enough notice. It is actually about us longing to hear that knock on the door sometimes :-)
When you live in a society where you belong, things are far more organic. From festivals, weddings, pujas to dharnas and bandhs, events just happen. You don't have to plan around the social aspects of life. If anything, you may have to plan escaping them. You are used to the chaos that's all around you. So naturally, a surprise visitor or an unexpected event doesn't bug you much. Spontaneity becomes an essential part of life. But imagine what we, expats would do if we were ever to be surprised by an unexpected visitor or if an old friend just asked us to drop right in. It is like a running treadmill has suddenly stopped and whopped us out. These hardwired brains just wouldn't know how to react to a spontaneous situation. If only there were YouTube videos training us how to plan the unplanned!
Disclaimer: Our friends and family have been too kind to always give us enough notice. It is actually about us longing to hear that knock on the door sometimes :-)
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