My Petrichor Pages

 A cold winter afternoon in England, the radiator in our office is not working. I have to transcribe the interviews I took as a part of my fieldwork. And here I am, re-reading my old blogs and smiling. I have been out of the scene for a very long time now. Well, in my defence, I was fighting a battle between life and death, again. My fieldwork has given me so many learnings but Hepatitis and Leptospirosis top the list. I have come so close to death twice and trust me, it is not how we imagine it. I did not have any angels come down for me. Nor did I see the white light. Nor was there any flashback of all my past memories. But my near-death experiences have taught me a lot. Sometimes, I feel like I am on borrowed time. Like it can all be taken away from me at any given moment. I still don't know why I have to experience life and death time and again. Bad karma maybe? However, this twist of fate has brought me to my most important question - Now that I have been saved twice, what is ...

 It is a Saturday night and I have used this entire week for recovering from a bad reaction to inhaling bleach fumes while I was cleaning black mould away from my bathroom. I am still not a hundred percent okay but I am hoping that I will be soon. I am chilling, listening to Punjabi folk music on TV and occasionally just dancing a little bit. I decided to see what's up on Instagram. Everyone is obsessed with Ghibli. I am not. I like my face just as it is. But I saw a story of a batchmate from my college days. She is now a lecturer in a University. She looked so gorgeous in a saree while she was honouring the next batch of graduates with a degree. I paused for a second. A part of me wanted to tell her that she looked nice, but then I stopped myself. I could not relate to her. We hadn't spoken to each other in 10 years and I didn't want to do any small talk. So I held back and decided to write this blog instead.  I am still doing my PhD and I don't want to be a lecturer. ...

Dolce far niente is an Italian phrase that means "the sweetness of doing nothing". I heard this for the first time in the movie "Eat, Pray, Love" in 2010. It is after 15 years though that I am finally able to practise it. I am not in a rush anymore. I am happy with where I am in life. Peaceful. Content. I can afford to spend an entire day looking out of the window at the sky, observing how the sunlight casts a different shadow at different hours of the day. I can draw mandala and colour my heart out. I can choose my favourite coloured sketch pen without the fear of the ink running out. I can read a book, only to re-read a few pages that bring me the most happiness. I can pause a movie and rewind it if the scene makes me smile. I can look at my Christmas decorations without guilt of them being safely stored inside. I can clean my house on the days I want to and not on the days when I don't feel like it. I am at peace with the fact that I hate to cook for one and ...

 I am in India now for my fieldwork. In Kerala, to be precise. It is the epicentre of Hepatitis A, Mumps, Nipah. You name it! Amidst all this, while doing my fieldwork, I broke my ankle. My fieldwork involves me going to hilly inaccessible regions. There I visit households, talk to them about their water issues, about how they tackle waterborne diseases and what support they might need from the authorities. I also spread awareness about how they can protect themselves from waterborne diseases. The monsoons in Kerala can be a bit ruthless. It rains for days. A broken ankle is actually the least worst thing that could have happened to me but damn it is so painful! I have been to 50 households by now. Each house has its own story to tell. I was really fascinated by it all.  But that is not the reason why I have finally decided to write. I have been on bed rest for around 3 weeks now and have been bingeing on Insta.  Today I got closure for the 2017 version of me. I am a happ...

 Today as I was scrolling through my Instagram feed, I came across a post from a friend of mine from 2020. We were colleagues first, working in a Big 4. We would confide in each other about the various challenges we faced at work, especially due to the pandemic. We had the same reporting manager. Somehow, I always felt that this job meant so much more to her than it did to me. I came from a different school of thought. I wanted to make a difference in the field by actually visiting the places of our study area and working with people on the ground unlike most corporate slaves who are hooked on to their excel sheets and their powerpoints. Back in 2020 September, I mustered the courage to quit the job since it did not align with my skills and aspirations. When I had left, my then reporting manager had a nasty exchange of words with me. He called me an NGO type person who needs to change the way she thinks to become a Corporate Consultant, all because I kept suggesting community based...

Today was the first day I went to work after the holidays. No matter how strenuous, I always love the walk from my home to office. There are so many spots which remind me of when I was a young girl, all of 22, walking with my friends to the class. And now at 32, I am working here. That feeling in the morning is the most wholesome feeling ever. I quietly whisper to myself, "We made it Aaliyah, we did good!".  Today was probably one of the best days I've had in ages and I will state the reasons for the same.  1. For the past two months, the waste disposal for our entire apartment was being overlooked by the sanitary workers for some reason. I would wake up in the middle of the night the second I would hear someone drag the wheelie bin. I would rush to my window to pray that they collect all the bins today please. I know it sounds so silly, but this is a part of growing up. Making complaints, writing mails, holding the call at customer care. Come to think of it, almost all o...

I recently noticed that my blog is getting popular. I had the biggest smile on my face when I saw the stats. I never thought that these pages would ever reach anyone. In my heart I felt that they were always meant for me. A digital copy of my diary. I have so many diaries that over the years, it has become really difficult to carry them around. Hence, the blog! I've been writing here for 10 years now. It captures most major milestones of my life. All my heartbreaks, setbacks, and professional troubles can be found in these pages. It feels like I have grown up between these posts.  If you're reading my blog for the first time - Hello there! I am Aaliyah. I am a social scientist who is doing her PhD from a really amazing UK university. I am working on environmental infectious viruses and how to prevent them from spreading in rural areas of the developing countries. My work is inspired by my own disease and I want to be able to bring about a change in this world. My job involves a...

 My husband is fast asleep. I am wide awake. Lying on the couch, scrolling through the reels. I was just watching a Steve Harvey video wherein they show him a clip of a couple that had really helped him in his starting days. He remembered everything and was so grateful to them for all their help. And just like that, I had an epiphany. If you're a good soul, god will make sure that you succeed. Your life goals are his goals. He will make sure that he never lets you down. He will make sure that he gives you way more than you could ever imagine.  I still remember the day in 2013 when Oxford had rejected me for a Masters. I felt worthless. But then I got into the next best university which gave me my lifelong friends. One of the friends from my Masters introduced me to my husband. I remember back in 2020 when despite a great interview, I was rejected for a very prestigious scholarship. In 2022, a week before my wedding, I got the best scholarship I could ever dream of for my PhD. ...

For the past two days, at least 3 people have reached out to me to join my school's alumni Whatsapp group. Just the thought of saying hi to those people again is so terrifying. Most of them were bullies, and I have mentioned this in one of my previous blogs. Why would I ever want to talk to them and give them another chance to mock me?  Trust me, if you think that people change, they don't! Some traits continue to remain the same. There is one more thing. I don't feel accomplished enough to join the group. I am just a PhD research scholar in a UK university. I am nothing fancy. I am the opposite of fancy.  I maintain a low profile. Most days I want to be invisible. Scratch that. I always want to be invisible. I am glad my husband is more confident than I am. We are a good balance of energies.  My husband had it easier in life. He was always good looking. But I am glad he was a good guy (at least according to his version) and did not bully others. So maybe for him, joining...