The thing I miss most about my pre-parental life is not the compendium of ‘secret single behaviours’ or ‘girl dinners’. It’s the sanctity of aloneness, of being solitary and sometimes even stationary, the ability to halt at will, to zone out of social engagements and retreat into myself. I lived independently for almost 10 years. I loved waking up to my own routine and feeling accountable to no one but myself about my bedtime. There were many irresponsible nights, when I should have been tucked under my sheets but was instead out partying with people I no longer remember. It felt so adult, so grown up. And until I met my partner, I was sure my life would more or less continue in this vein. I had no complaints, really. I always got my work done more or less on time and I enjoyed the company of my friends and acquaintances. I felt like I had earned for myself the privilege of travelling at will, and often, of having a rented apartment in South Delhi as my base, a home of my making to which I could always return.

Ever since I became a parent, any sense of a social life got erased. Of course, making a home in another continent where you don’t belong to the languages in use complicates any notion of easy assimilation. Having moved during the height of COVID also meant I couldn’t go out and make new friends through the intervention of either chance or circumstance. My social life in Tramin revolves around our child. I meet other mothers because we see each other and they now, thankfully, talk to me and I feel like I’m part of an ecosystem. But as an immigrant mother of colour, I frequently feel the other kind of aloneness, the one that stems from feeling isolated or like you don’t quite fit in with the place you inhabit.