I was recently interviewed by a journalist from the local German language newspaper in South Tyrol for a ‘human interest story’. She was intrigued that I was a working mother, increasingly a rarity in these parts for various systemic reasons. I spoke about culture shock, the various aspects of everyday life here that continue to fascinate me and which enunciate the difference between the third world-ness of the worlds from which I come and this ‘first world’. For example, when I first moved here, I was as distrustful of zebra crossings. I’ve only ever known crossing the street by either dashing across and asserting one’s pedestrian right over cars or being part of a sea of people similarly crossing, thus deriving strength from numbers. When my partner told me that the moment I stepped on the zebra crossing here, the cars on either side were obligated to stop, I didn’t believe him. I still exercise immense caution because I remain suspicious. While I am thankful for such pedestrian-friendly rules, there are many aspects of everyday life back home that I miss dearly. Significant among them is the bustling informal economy that allows people to earn a living and bridges various chains of supply and demand.

In Delhi, I always knew a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy, or a woman who knew another woman who knew five others. On the one hand, bureaucratically, there is little ‘ease’ to doing business. One has to spend enormous amounts of money and time securing licences and paying fees. On the other hand, there’s so much ingenuity in terms of sidestepping these obstacles. I hated going to parlours, for instance, because each visit involves someone pointing out all my bodily flaws that needed fixing. Why was I so dark? A facial would ‘fix’ my complexion. Why didn’t I consider a hair spa? It went on and on and I ran out of patience. For a brief bit I began using an app that let you book salon services at home. This was really convenient, you could fix the time and decide what you wanted and the women were professionally trained and rarely offered you unsolicited advice. Many of them reported being underpaid, but they were still earning more than in a salon and preferred the flexible hours. Then, when I was broke and couldn’t afford this luxury, a friend shared with me the number of a woman who lived in Saket who was happy to come home and do whatever I required, from waxing to threading to a massage, and she worked independently, so could pocket all the money. I loved having her over because she was non-invasive. I had my go-to people for many things, from fruits and vegetables to haircuts to massages to plumbing to gas cylinders, taxi services and even for scoring imported wine.