I chatted with Uvika about growing up, in and out of things. I’ll be posting it in three parts. This is the first part.
Thanks for doing this. I know we’ve tangentially known each other from Delhi days with a dark cloud of gossip hanging over us.
I feel like when you’re a woman in Delhi and you go out enough, there will be a character assigned to you, one you won’t have much control over. I’m glad that my online persona is working because it’s clearly speaking to you in ways I want it to speak to you.
I also think you’re a really interesting writer.
Hey, that’s cool. Thank you.
Feel free to go on tangents.
You don’t have to tell me twice.
I love that. Tell me a bit about yourself.
I’m from Ghaziabad, which I think is one of the coolest things about me.
What? My grandparents are from Ghaziabad.
Yeah, my childhood was insanely different from what my life is right now. At 14, I moved to Delhi to make a living in a way that Ghz couldn’t offer to me. In 2017, I moved to Goa, where I stayed for a few months and had a really good time. I had my own place for the first time. I was responsible for myself. I did have a breakdown on my first day, because obviously. Goa’s where I met my partner, Lu and we started travelling together. Now, I live in Portugal because he’s Portuguese. I live in his hometown where he was born and raised. I’m a content editor and marketer and I work in the vacation rental industry doing reports and analysis. On the side, I do some freelance writing but right now, that’s a bit on the backburner.
Why Portugal?
Honestly, I didn’t know a lot about Portugal until I met him and visited. I came here because a lot of things had to align suddenly for me to even visit. Since they did and Lu was here and he wanted me to come see him and I wanted to explore whatever we had a bit more. So, I came to see him and I ended up staying. I felt like his offer to have me stay wasn’t superficial. I also met his mother which was a big thing for me- she’s one of the coolest people I’ve met and she’s one of my closest friends. I had a few difficult months at first because of work and navigating the bureaucracy and I hadn’t consciously made a decision to move here. It was very sudden. It was also my first time living in a strange, new place and all the difficulties that come with it are in my head. But, I received a lot of support from Lu and his mum and I was living in Albufeira which in itself is a privilege.
Albufeira also sounds like the name of an Arab city for some reason.
Yes because there’s a lot of Moorish influence especially in south Portugal. Albufeira was one of the last pieces of land to be officially annexed back. Portugal is so small but there’s still rivalry between north and south Portugal. Each side thinks the other’s a weirdo and that’s so weird to me like, your country’s the size of my thumb. What are you talking about?
I noticed the same in Italy and Belgium but there it was also a bit more money based so I don’t know if it’s the same in Portugal.
It is a bit money based. The economy in the north and south in some ways is vastly different. Also, Albufeira is a tourist destination and seriously popular among the Germans and the English. And, so there’s a huge running joke about how Albufeira has been colonized by the English. Which I agree it has.
The English ruin everything.
Yeah, they have a special knack for it. It’s like even when they’re not out colonising shit specifically, they do it in very specific ways. It’s so hard to go out in Albufeira and not find the whole steak and fries shit. But, it’s a cool place.
What did leaving Delhi change for you?
(laughs)
This would be a thesis.
This says more about my character than anything else. I’m really arrogant so ideally, my answer would be nothing. But, that’s a monumental lie because everything has changed. My mental health is in a different place which affects everything else. That’s the axis around which everything spins. In India, I did accomplish a lot of interesting, wild, sometimes truly incredible things. I’m saying India because I include Ghaziabad in this. I know people like to club Delhi and Ghaziabad together but it’s not the same experience at all. I did some feats. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do them now. Also, I was failing at a lot of the basics. I didn’t take them for granted but I didn’t really think about it. I was just busy trying to stay alive and remain afloat somehow. Now, I do have time to nourish the basic aspects of my life like keeping a job, eating healthy or being healthy physically, having a healthy relationship or spending time outside. I wasn’t able to do this in Delhi. I kind of thought I wasn’t that sort of a person, the kind who has their shit together. All the stuff I was dealing with didn’t leave me any space to deal with the basics. I didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to be a person. I resisted the shit out of it. When I came here, I complained a lot. My life in Delhi was very different. I met people a lot and got into a lot of dialogues, which may not be super positive but it was interesting. Maybe, I missed that drama a bit and missed being a bit more in control of my life. Then, I realised I was in control in a different way. Albufeira kind of forced me to be healthy.
What do you think Delhi taught you?
It taught me everything. I love Delhi and I don’t say it with any irony. I come from a very poor family with very fucked up circumstances. To me, Delhi was an escape. I was upgrading when I moved to Delhi and it did give me opportunities to move through the world as somebody different, as somebody who might have been born in a different circumstance. I kind of codeswitched and people thought I was like them. The upper middle class, south Delhi crowd. They didn’t really question my inclusion in their groups because they kind of assumed based on my appearance that I was a part of them. All of this came with its own challenges. Delhi taught me how to lean into my strengths and play them up a bit so I can keep moving on up. Because of Delhi, there’s nothing nobody can throw at me to faze me. You can tell me any kind of fucked up thing and my reaction will be like, okay yeah.
Hard relate. Is your family still in India and do you see them often?
I have two older sisters who I’ve had a love-hate relationship with. They have kids whom I love. They both live in Delhi. The only reason I go to India is to meet them. If they weren’t there, I wouldn’t have so many reasons to go. My plan is to have a stable job and have some of my needs met and go every year to meet them.
Do you speak Portuguese?
I don’t speak it, yet. And by now, I’m running out of excuses since it’s been four years. I understand it for sure. My vocabulary is quite good. I don’t have too many opportunities to speak it at work. For example, with whatever time Lu and I get with each other, I don’t want to be struggling to string a sentence together. I started taking lessons this year because of work. Free lessons, essentially. Hopefully, this time next year, I’ll be able to at least have a conversation in Portuguese beyond the basics.
Languages are hard.
Yeah but it’s not like German that grates on the nerves. There's some poeticism to it. I would like to be able to participate in the culture through language for sure.
What’s the biggest drawback?
One sec. This is one of the biggest drawbacks. The fucking siren.
What’s the siren?
It’s just an alarm like it’s noon. I think it was for the workers like hey, it’s lunch time. They’ve kept the tradition.
That’s so quaint.
I think on Sunday or something, the church bells keep going. I like to complain but it’s nice.
Yeah, like I want somebody to tell me to take a break. Like yeah, sound an alarm.
Yeah, a town wide signal for people to go eat something. Living in Albufeira is a very different experience than living in the rest of Portugal. The best thing is I live on the coast and it’s harder to be depressed on the beach. It’s not impossible. It’ll feel nicer to be crying looking out into the ocean. You feel like the main character. And, there’s lots of opportunities for spending your day outside even if you’re stone cold broke. I’m not an outdoorsy person, never have been. My outdoorsness was limited to going to the club, pretty much. And, that has completely changed since I came here. A lot of exploration I did on foot, long hikes by myself. Some of the best times I spent here. I guess I didn't know what endorphins were until I came to Portugal.
(laughs)
I wish I had moved my body before but I guess, it’s never too late. It’s really good for me, specifically, to be a part of a Portuguese family especially with Lu and his mum. I have a lot of support, for example, as somebody who immigrated here by themselves. I love the produce here - almonds, figs, oranges. I love being able to pick it up from a tree and have it, which is something I also really enjoyed about Goa. I don’t know how many jackfruits, mangoes and cashews I picked up from trees. That was some good eating. What doesn’t work for me though is the food. Portuguese food isn’t bad - shit tonnes of garlic and olive, fresh produce, etc. I’m into that but I find it incredibly limited compared to India. Indians are very spoilt when it comes to food. The diversity is insane. We could live in India and have a different meal everyday and never have to repeat a meal. I love that and I miss that.
Yeah man, I paid 12 euros for dal makhani in Berlin and was like, kya hai yeh.
Yeah man, I couldn’t find a dosa in Albufeira the whole time. Whenever I went to Lisbon, I wasn’t looking for places to eat because I wasn’t really a big spender. I had dosa for the first time in Berlin and obviously, it was pretty mediocre. It was 14 euros.
Damn.
I was so mad. But, they employed me so I guess it worked out. Berlin had a lot of other food, Turkish and Vietnamese food, for example.
How long were you in Berlin for?
I was there for 3 months. But, I don’t think I could last beyond that there.
Why is that?
Berlin is a very tempting place for things to go sideways, specifically for me. Because, I do have a tendency for substance abuse and Berlin culture normalizes that. I prefer Portuguese people over Germans. I like the opportunities Germany offers in terms of culture. At that time, that’s not what I needed. I needed time to absorb the world around me and learning to live without constant 24x7 anxiety.
Yeah, substances can send anxiety into a proper spiral.
You can work as much as you want to be a certain kind of person but your environment will definitely shape it. You can fight it all you want but you can’t fight it off entirely. I was being very good while I was there. If you have to work towards being healthy, you want to be in a place where that’s a bit easier.
I like certain aspects of Berlin- the rent-freeze, the student culture, etc. But yeah, life in Berlin can spiral out of control really quickly. My friend would come to breakfast and be on acid. He was a high functioning drug abuser. Which is scary, because then you kind of miss the warning signs right? But, a part of me is so attracted to that like yeah, that’s sexy. Ugh.
Yeah, I totally get that. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with drug culture. That’s not the point. The point is that I’d finally had some distance between my substance abuse days and now, for example. I can see how it affected my body. I don’t care about the moral aspect. Drugs are just a vehicle, you are the person controlling it. Depends on how you treat people around you when you’re on them, etc. I am able to see the transformation my body has had. I can also see the effect of the drug use had had on me in the past. I’d love to use them and not abuse them. Every last person I met in Berlin was on drugs. For somebody like me who’s deeply hedonistic in some ways, some people can have their shit together on drugs and good for them, I don’t think I’m that kind of a person and I don’t care to find out.
to be continued.
Image source: Uvika in Albufeira