In the previous part of this piece, I was still in Heidelberg, desperately trying to conceptualise the idea of home and belongingness. I felt that I had failed, and I see why. Amidst the chaos of no employment, no stable housing, poor mental health, and an endless stream of uncertainties about life in a foreign country after a half-hearted second master’s degree, there was no ‘home’. There was ‘surviving’ from day to day, which I called independence.

In this draft, I am back home in Santiniketan, India. Not much has changed, apparently. I still feel my chaos spilling over, but now, I let it. I’m no longer battling to find order in every moment. When I allow my chaos to breathe, sanity finds its way in, easier. Maybe that’s what a home truly offers- a space to let the madness and contradictions of thoughts exist and, in doing so, make room for peace.

Honestly, more than a return, this feels like a new arrival, especially after what feels like a war in my head. I’ve come back to the same two people whom I’ve called my parents for almost three decades, but it feels like we’re meeting for the first time. Sometimes I notice them watching me do my daily chores in the kitchen, and I overhear them discussing how I have changed, that I am calmer and responsible. If only they knew that in all those moments, the outer calm was a disguise to desperately hide the inner chaos – a fragile effort to comfort the terrified little girl within, afraid of being swept away again by the whirlwind of shifting realities. That at 29, she still feels lost, unsure of how to walk herself through the maze of life.

Odd as it sounds, my path to Heidelberg began with a heart-led detour; a brief, whirlwind romance with an Indian who had already made this city his own. Moving to the same city felt like the best decision at the time, a romantic leap that I believed would bring me closer to love. Everything aligned perfectly: I was accepted into the only programme I had applied to, and I looked ahead to all of it with a mix of nervousness and excitement, ready to embrace this new chapter in my life.

However, it was a decision driven by impulse and desperation to find something greater in moving continents for love, when I barely knew how to hold love for myself. A decision as rash and half-formed as that turned against me with all its might, and within three months, I found myself facing an unexpected life. I moved out of a spacious duplex to a small, mouldy room on Plöck Street, leaving behind the only person I knew in the country. Suddenly, after living with my parents under the same roof all my life, I was alone in Germany in cold February, grappling with finances, running out of money for basic groceries, and navigating a world where I couldn’t understand the language or make sense of German bureaucracy. Of course, I cried myself to sleep most nights.

I remember that girl I was when I arrived in Heidelberg in 2021, a story I now recount with equal parts laughter and a tinge of heartbreak. She lived in bubbles, floating from one fleeting moment to the next, innocent to life’s bigger struggles. She wasn’t exactly curious to learn or grow but rather mischievously spontaneous, carrying the air of someone untouched by true hardship. Life to her felt like it moved in five seasons a month, so quick, so chaotic, and yet so full of possibilities.

I also often think back to the community that quietly took shape around me as I struggled in Heidelberg. We were just six in our cohort when we started, and each one played a role in shaping how I understand myself today. The idea that we didn’t need to compete for grades but could create an environment that fostered better thinking and a free flow of ideas profoundly influenced me. The belief that opportunities are not scarce, but can be created, has shifted the weather in my mind. I’ve come to realize that health, both physical and mental, is non-negotiable. And the understanding that what we consider “mainstream” or “alternative” is often just a matter of perspective has transformed how I view life as it unfolds.

My friends had poured in support and kindness, yet I was depressed and emotionally fragmented in Germany. I keep revisiting and refreshing my lens, trying to understand what went wrong. I tried psychiatric medications, therapy, smoking, loving, studying, escaping, belonging, ideating- everything I could think of, and yet, there remained a lingering void within me, an emptiness that seemed to consume everything, both inside and out. The more I resisted, the stronger it persisted. I tried to delete that void, and it restored itself bigger. It was heavy and hollow like an ancient earthen vessel that has existed as long as I have.

It took years to shift my gaze inward and face that void. The shift happened because I met people in Germany who practiced mindfulness in different ways. They taught me how to listen to one’s mind and body when there is discomfort. They taught me how to dance as a difficult emotion arises. I learned ways to release pain instead of suppressing it further. Through long conversations, barefoot walks in nature, and quiet bike rides through open fields, I slowly realised that I’d never truly known how to belong or be present in my own life. My search for an external home (or validation) in people and future circumstances was always bound to be futile. Even now, as I feel misplaced in my home in Santiniketan on some days, I am gradually learning that belonging and placing oneself takes conscious practice. It requires mindful attention and connection to truly listen, understand, and feel at home, with oneself and with others.

Living life on the surface, fueled by spontaneity, no longer feels fulfilling to me, this marks a significant change. Now, I seek practices that help me feel grounded, like writing. I write everything as I feel and witness my thoughts and emotions pass by. This article itself was born in the pages of my diary. Every draft of this piece is evidence to me as of how I have evolved as a person, mostly inward. Writing helps me gather my thoughts and gives me the freedom to flow when needed.

I started this practice some ten days before leaving Germany this time, when my chaos was at its peak. A chaos that knew no bounds, and it showed in every quarter of my life. I was barely connected to my parents. I could not sort my belongings just like I could not sort my thoughts. I had been unemployed for over 6 months. I had a student loan. I could not decide what to eat, when to shop, when to rest and what to say or even how to walk sometimes. There were at least five different splits in my head telling me different things in different ways, all at once. I went to two therapists, and both of them rejected me on the grounds of the complexity of my thoughts and my poor German.

My mind would set off a domino effect quite quickly, those days, a cascade of “shoulds” that weighed me down.

I should make my bed.
I should care.
I should join Dad’s business.
I should give up my German visa.
I should wake up on time.
I should create art.
I should sing and not waste my talent.
I should put family before career.
I should put career before family.
I should put myself first.
I should shower.
I should make my bed.

Writing also comes to my rescue when I know a change is about to hit me again. I am back home after one and a half years. My grandfather is gone, which I knew. I walked into his room, (un)expecting the usual warmth; I was greeted by his photograph, his smile still gleaming at me. His wheelchair now sat piled with his clothes, weighed down by memories that seemed to fill the room. The room itself was unmade, untouched. At that moment, I knew that my parents had been struggling, carrying the weight of my emotional absence and my grandfather’s final days.

I remember the afternoon I heard of his passing; he was my favourite grandparent. I was in Heidelberg, sipping my favourite cappuccino with hafermilch around noon. Those days, I was numb to much of what surrounded me, wondering if I would ever make something of myself. When I heard the news, a quiet grief washed over me in that café. It wasn’t a loud cry but a soft, inward weep, as the reality slowly dawned on me; I would never see him again. But there I was, still holding that cup of cappuccino, finishing it slowly, paid the bill, and walked out, the doorbell’s soft twinkle marking my departure, as if nothing had shifted.

My education in medical anthropology allowed me to ask: How do we truly experience a loss when nothing around us signals it? I couldn’t hear the cries, the silence, the chaos, or the urgency. There were no smells of medicines or flowers, no palpable absence, nor any presence of the loss. I couldn’t grasp what it meant for my parents to lose their father in that moment, or what it meant for my father as he desperately tried to save his father and sit with his grief. I soothed myself, telling myself I would feel it all at home.

Now, I’ve been home for two weeks, and it still hasn’t hit the way I expected it to. I wanted to cry the way I cried for my other grandparents when they left. I knew that the moment had passed, the rituals were over. I missed all of it. And so, I don’t remember him leaving. I only remember his wrinkled, soft hands and the tiny diamond ring on his index finger. During our video calls, he would always ask when I’d return. He passed away waiting for me, while I was busy trying to make sense of my life in Germany.

still haven’t found my way in the external world or figured out the paths I need to pave for myself. But what feels almost magical is that I can say this: I am learning to work on and walk with myself. This morning, Ma asked me to shower and pack food for Baba. Half-asleep and unready, I resisted in silence. My mind was still caught in a dream of walking freely down Rohrbacherstrasse, only to stumble upon the haunting image of Palestinian babies dying of hypothermia. As I stirred awake, I caught myself expecting to wake up in the house in Darmstadt (where I spent the last few months before leaving Germany). The dissonance hit me- I was in my room here in India. Its small windows felt like a pale comparison to the one in Alice’s Berlin apartment, the one she doesn’t even live by anymore. The layers of displacement, from dreams to reality(s), made me pause, grappling with the subtle ache of existing between worlds that no longer felt fully mine.

From nowhere, I felt a sharp anger at myself for not living mindfully in Germany, for missing career opportunities, and for always letting my room become a mess, whether in Heidelberg or Santiniketan. A few months ago, I might have stormed out of the house, lit a cigarette, and doom-scrolled Instagram until the thoughts faded, only for them to resurface later. But today, I walked out of the room quietly and made myself tea, even though it wasn’t “tea time” in the house.

As I poured water into the teapot, something shifted. I felt a little lighter, and it hit me: I was simply missing Germany and the rhythm of doing things on my own. While letting that realisation settle in, I turned on the stove, placed the pot, and watched the water boil. I thought about how, here in Santiniketan, I rarely think about what to cook or clean. House help handles these chores so we can focus on “bigger” tasks like earning money and figuring out life. Yet in Germany, I often complained about how the little things, like cooking and cleaning consumed me, leaving no time to plan a research paper, exercise, or think about life after graduation.

And now, here I am. Post-graduation and all those past anxieties haven’t changed this moment at all. I brought my tea back to a messy room and, with courage, asked myself what was wrong. A voice answered that she’s scared to let go of the visa. Scared of disappointing her parents, and the little Amrita who once dreamed of a “good life.” With the first sip, I reminded her that a good life was never about a place, job, or title. It was always about how she felt in those spaces. Then the conversation between those two selves inside of me was what I would call a fantastic conflict resolution over a cup of tea.

It’s indeed taking significant emotional regulation not to fall back into the patterns that once consumed me before I left for Germany. For instance, when my parents argue, I want to jump in and mediate; when my uncle mistreats my grandmother or my aunt dismisses therapy, I feel an urge to fix it all. I pause to remind myself that India will both trigger and heal me, but only if I consciously choose to belong. Judging and running away won’t bring me closer to that sense of belonging; embracing the complexity might.

I overthink because I can’t decide where home truly is—here or there. It feels like an endless tug-of-war: choosing abroad feels like abandoning my parents; staying back feels like sacrificing the possibility of building a different life. Should I stay to nurture the family business my father built from nothing—the one that gave me the privilege to dream beyond borders—or should I escape the struggles of the Global South for a life of better resources, but only for myself? Do I accept the idea that I’m responsible only for my own growth, or dare to redefine success, challenging the illusion of empowerment tied to upward mobility and creating something meaningful instead?

How do these dreams coexist? How does the local embrace the international? How do I detach yet stay connected? How do I leave and arrive, all at once? Perhaps in the same way I ask and answer these questions, by rediscovering myself where I thought I was lost. By realizing that my void isn’t empty anymore, that there’s a strange order in disorder and sanity in madness.

My journey, though challenging, has forced me to confront myself in ways I never expected. It stripped away layers of pretence, revealing a strength and resilience I didn’t realise I had. Even the heartbreak that initially brought me here feels, in hindsight, like a necessary storm; one that steered me towards self-discovery and a life of deeper fulfilment. Yes, I found love again, the kind that stays through every shape-shift, that softens the edges of becoming. The kind that shows up, gently and steadily, reminding me that friendship is the first home of any love, near or far, which only reinforces the feeling that perhaps every misstep, every displacement, is part of being placed better.

Now, I find myself re-inhabiting spaces I once thought I knew, only to see them through fresh eyes. In the process, I’m crafting a home within myself, not bound by geography, walls, or fleeting
circumstances. Writing has become my broom, sweeping the neglected corners and making room for clarity in that home. This home may shift with seasons, its walls weathered by time and its windows facing new horizons, but it will always offer me sanctuary. And in this space, I hold the power to decide who enters, who stays, and in what capacity. This is not just a home; it’s a testament to belonging, shaped by the grace of choosing and the courage to keep building.