"INSIDEPIDP"

I came to Canada with my two year old son and my husband in the March 2014. When we were immigrating we always had in mind that we are going to restart a new life in Canada.

 

What it takes to end and restart a life in a new country is similar to pulling a plant from its roots and replanting it. We were prepared but had never envisioned the impact and the struggle we were heading into. 

 

When I try to recall, all I can recall is numbness. I had no feelings. Initially, the low we witnessed as new immigrants did not make me sad, stressed or worried. It just made me feel numb. My husband and myself, we were both going through a low in our lives that was unprecedented and unlike our old habit of talking about everything to each other, we were just quiet. Probably both of us feared that we might breakdown if we discuss. But somehow the numbness made us strong. And we had to be strong. We had a two year old to handle and at any cost both of us did not want our negativity and stress to seep into our son. He was our strength, he was our weakness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, I know I have you guys thinking now. You must be thinking what is so negative about Canada, and if at all there is negativity, why the hell do people immigrate. Frankly my friends, our mind was surrounded by similar questions. But slowly we started getting answers, we started finding our way. We are still just halfway through. But the best part is we are moving. And we are happy again.

 

Canada is a beautiful country. It is the land of opportunity. It is a place where we truly experience what freedom is like. It offers everything in abundance. The transition is big and initially it hits you hard. Initially in those first few years I think most immigrants start feeling small, very small. Everything is big here, big houses, big cars, big trees, big animals and in all those big things the immigrant without his friends, family, acquaintances and accomplishments starts feeing very small.

 

We had a well settled life in India. We had good careers. We were happy. 

 

When we came here we had no careers, no friends, no family, not even a house to stay in.

 

We realized we had so much to do. We needed to learn to travel in the public transport here, we needed to learn the currency, the small talk, the people, the culture, the diversity, the job market, everything. There was a lot of unlearning also we needed to do. 

 

First things first, we needed a house. In the first 5 months, we shifted three cities and four houses. It was tough.

 

I still remember when we first took a bus in Vancouver, we had our son in his stroller. We dint know that to buy tickets you need coins and we entered the bus from the rear. And the driving was shouting on us. We were standing in the middle of the bus - a professor and a doctor from India being yelled upon and being taught their first lesson on bus etiquettes in Canada. And after a big yell, the driver just started to roll the bus, frustrated by the fact that we did not even have the right coins to buy the tickets- and boom!! I fell in the bus. I was still standing, not expecting the bus to roll. That day me and my husband came back home and laughed out loud for the first time since we had come to Canada. We laughed because we knew we had made our first beautiful memory in the journey of our success in Canada. 

 

There were more to come........