Moving from India to Germany: By Vedika Singhania

“But Germany has a better healthcare system.”

I presented my first defence to get my parents’ consent to let me uproot my life in the middle of a pandemic and move to another country whose language I didn’t speak. My acceptance letter for a Master’s programme had just arrived, and the semester was due to begin in October 2020. We were, at the time, witnessing an all-time high spike in COVID-19 cases across the world, especially in Italy. India too was slowly but steadily climbing up the rankings of the most affected countries in the world.

My parents were not convinced with my argument — Italy was so close to Germany — but they agreed anyway. Little did I know, convincing them would be the easiest part of the entire process.

The Preparations

I immediately started looking for accommodation in one of the student dorms on campus, keeping in mind that visa procedures could delay my arrival. I was still optimistic.

We never had Wi-Fi at home growing up. So even after my siblings and I moved back home, which is in a small city in Eastern part of India, at the beginning of March, we still thought that the pandemic was a brief disruption and we’d soon move back to our metropolitan cities and resume our ‘normal’ lives stable and unlimited internet connections. I had quit my job at a news agency in New Delhi in December 2019, and had started looking at public colleges to pursue higher studies. As soon as the lockdown was announced, the education consultancy services stopped functioning briefly, and I was left on my own. As the days turned to weeks, and weeks into months, our parents strongly urged us to get Wi-Fi installed.

Anyway, the biggest challenge after securing admission was to get a visa appointment. Most of the consulates were operating with a skeleton staff. My family had exhausted all our ‘connections’. The Kolkata consulate office too was unpredictable, and released limited slots erratically. I met a bunch of other students on Facebook groups, who like me were trying to secure a slot, but we were met with ‘Please check the website for updates’, and therefore, we all stayed glued to our screen for a few weeks in a state of desperation.

Sometimes, they couldn’t fathom why I would put myself through all the trouble when I could have had an easy life by getting married instead.

My university’s enrolment date was nearing and my college offered a choice to defer. Considering the rising number of COVID cases, I reluctantly considered it as an option. We were also moving out from my ancestral house at the time, and the construction of our new house was underway. My parents could only offer moral support now. On some nights, seeing me awake late at night, refreshing the consulate website for updates, my father would ask me if I still wanted to go abroad. It was a foreign concept in my family for anyone to go out of the country for education. Initially I was left alone to defend my decision, but over time, my parents succumbed to my determination and stubbornness, and started helping me hold fort too. Seeing me in this state of despair again, their skepticism too started showing once again. Sometimes, they couldn’t fathom why I would put myself through all the trouble when I could have had an easy life by getting married instead.

One fine night in the last week of September, at 1.30 am, the consulate released a fresh batch of visa appointment slots for Master’s students, a whole lot of them. My orientation week was in the last week of October. It was apparent that the embassy was still not completely functional, and would not return my stamped visa on time. But the situation in Germany seemed better: the universities had employed a hybrid method of teaching and I was expecting to make up for the lost time, and meet my batch mates once I reached there, albeit slightly later than expected.

There was a sense of uncertainty and unpredictability looming over us.

My visa arrived in the second week of November; we had already moved into our new house. We rented a car, so my family could drop me to the Kolkata airport. It would be a nearly two-day journey, halting at various airports, changing trains and trams. My family would be with me only on the first six hours of this journey.

Two nights before we were scheduled to leave, my mother developed a throat infection. It was a mild one, but we got tested for COVID anyway. It got worse later in the evening, so at midnight, we decided that she wouldn’t accompany us. I snuggled with my mother that night, crying my eyes out, ruing the six hours of lost time with her. My brother would stay behind too.

One night before I was to leave, my father, while packing as many spices as he could into my suitcase, sat me down and asked if I was sure I still wanted to go. I replied in the affirmative.

I had lived away from my family for all of my teen and adult life since I was first admitted into a boarding school at the age of 10. But under the present circumstances, it was starkly different. There was a sense of uncertainty and unpredictability looming over us. I would not be merely a few hours, but many many paperwork-and-visa-processes away, in case they ever wanted to visit me. The pandemic added another level of difficulty.

We reached the airport, and my father handed me an envelope of converted currency to survive the initial days of my arrival in Europe. I put it in my bag that was already equivalent to my weight.

I bid a final farewell and entered the airport.

Long queues of masked passengers made me more anxious. I hadn’t seen so many people huddled together in nearly 10 months. The ground staff tried to maintain social distancing but in vain. Eventually after a long wait, I made it to the boarding counter. There, I found that my bags weighed a couple kilos more than the stipulated weight, so I tried a hack I had seen on Instagram a few weeks prior, supporting my bags by lifting them a few centimeters with my sturdy boots, while they were on the weighing scales. After completing immigration and all the other formalities, I boarded my sparsely populated airplane. To my relief, I had the entire row of seats to myself. I fidgeted with my screen for a while, looking into the distance, time and maps, taking occasional naps, landing in Frankfurt via Delhi. The fact that I was so out of my comfort zone didn’t sink in till I failed to read all the German sign boards and after a lot of hits and misses, booked myself on a train to Erfurt, my final destination. I’d install the Google translator app much later.

 I meandered out of the waiting hall to take in a fresh whiff of this new country that would be home for the next two years.

It was a long wait before the train arrived, so with my bags loaded on a rented trolley, I walked around the airport — lavishly decorated for the upcoming festive season. I meandered out of the waiting hall to take in a fresh whiff of this new country that would be home for the next two years. Only I had forgotten how toasty the general indoors are here. I was met with a piercing gust of wind, numbing my fingers in less than three seconds. I went back inside, layered up and walked to the train station for the last leg of my journey.

Firstly, I couldn’t figure where the train numbers were written, most of it was German anyway. Then there was transferring five bags inside the train, rolling them across the corridors to find a storage space. I was already so tired from a couple of sleepless nights. Therefore, soon after tucking away my suitcases and locating a seat, despite my best efforts to keep my eyes open to see the passing landscape, I dozed away immediately.

I was startled into consciousness by a loud, angry voice. I had stored my suitcases incorrectly. They were rolling all around the bistro car. The manager was giving me an earful, in German, pointing angrily at my bags. I asked her where I could store them, trying to explain my situation while looking helplessly at her co-server, who had a hint of pity for me. She said she could accommodate me till the train manager came in. Within five minutes of conversation, the train manager walked in, as I feared the worst.

Only, on assessing the situation, the train manager helped me transfer my bags to another compartment and created some storage space there. She then pulled out her phone and while pointing at the map on her phone, asked me where I was headed. She then advised me in her broken English to bring out my bags at the gate, 15 minutes ahead of my scheduled arrival. Precisely 15 minutes ahead of my arrival time, she came back for me, and helped me keep them ready for de-boarding near the gates.

Not to come across as rude, and sincerely grateful to her for going out of her way to help me out, I offered to pay her a tip. She politely declined.

It was already my second sleepless day, and my brain was shutting down.

I arrived at my student dorm later that evening, and learnt another lesson on Germany’s work ethics. The entire staff including the caretakers was on leave, leaving me and my bags stranded until the subsequent Monday. There had been a miscommunication, and now I didn’t have my room keys. I was told there was no possible way to get in touch with them till Monday. The hotels or any mode of rented accommodation would be closed for business because of the pandemic. Before I could panic, one of my batchmates offered me their couch and some hot dinner. It was already my second sleepless day, and my brain was shutting down. I stayed put on the couch in one corner of the apartment over the entire weekend, to reduce any chance of possible infection.