My Petrichor Pages

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...

I wanted to pen this down cause this is all a part of my growing up process. I turned 32 last week and only a handful of people remembered to wish me. The earlier version of me would have been super upset at this. The new me is nothing but all smiles.  I learnt something very important this birthday. Your birthday is special only for a very few people. Especially when you decide not to put it up on Facebook or Instagram. I thought about it in detail and reached the conclusion that what good is a "Happy Birthday" from a person I barely spoke to throughout the year going to do for me? My husband and I spent the entire day in a peaceful (and rather large) cottage in Lake District. All I wanted to do the entire day was sit on a bench facing the water. I managed to do a lot of thinking. We saw the sunrise, the sunset and a full moon rise and also managed to spot a quarter of a rainbow in a clear sky, what more could I have asked for. I now feel that I am also not obligated to wish...

Instagram can make things really awkward without even realising. I am on my Birthday Trip and we are in Lake District. We will begin exploring the lakes and the towns tomorrow. I have a habit of staying up till at least 1 am. My husband is fast asleep though. Got bored, so I began scrolling on Insta. Lo and behold, it decided to show me a reel of my first boyfriend's now ex-girlfriend. She is a travel blogger and is excellent at her job. I remember back in 2015, all I could do was be so jealous of her. When he told me that he had met someone and was dumping me, all I could do was compare, compare and compare. The comparison had become so toxic at a point that I felt that I had started losing myself.  And today, as I am on my way to turn 32, I checked her profile and I was indifferent. Her followers rose from 5k to 83k in the last few years and I like her content. I never thought I'd ever be mature enough to say this but I really don't care anymore.  I have a gorgeous man, s...

 And no, I am not talking about men. I am talking about female friendships. Most of my 20s went in trying to find myself a good man. When we are born I feel, that we are assigned a number of tasks like - be good at studies, clear your board exams with flying colours (whatever that is supposed to mean), make your parents proud, do something good for the community, get a good job and try to do what you love, make meaningful friendships and be there for your friends when they need you and last but in no way the least - find yourself a good partner.  I will be turning 32 this month and I can proudly say that I have accomplished most of what was assigned to me except for one - the meaningful friendships part. Don't get me wrong, I have a few really close friends, but I have also lost a few really close friends. Even if people decide to come back to you or you decide to extend an olive branch, are things ever the same? In my experience, I feel that some friendships once broken, conv...

 Remember how I had recently written about the damage done to little hearts. I was upset about the way I was made to feel less by my classmates as a kid. Just today, as I opened my Instagram, I read a message from the same girl, well a woman now, who made me feel that I was really dark-skinned and kids should not play with me. Imagine my surprise. She saw an Insta post I had recently shared of my husband returning to the UK and so she decided to contact me about it. She asked me to visit her in London, I too politely said that she should visit us here. What I actually wanted to write was - some guts! Making me feel horrible all throughout my childhood only to act all fake and nice once we have grown up.  I won't lie, a part of me started feeling, for lack of a better word, worthy of all the attention. All because my husband is good-looking, people now want to be friends with me. I know, a really stupid thought, but this is the first thing that came into my head. Remember how w...

 On my way to work, I came across a tent on the University Campus. It had "Love where you live" written in caps. Which got me to think, do I really love where I live?  The story goes back to 2014. When I had come here as a Master's student. A part me of remembers that version of me as the effortlessly sexiest version of myself. I had great hair back then, a body to absolutely kill for, a sky-rocketing confidence, friends who adored me for simply being me. It was much easier to fall in love with this place back then than it is now.  In 2023, I spend each month, struggling with my inch tape, hiding away my weighing machine by kicking it further inside the bed, avoiding mirrors, and switching off the video button in video calls. The place is the same, the me - isn't. What happened in these 9 years! Well, life happened in these 9 years, love happened in these 9 years, bad bosses happened in these 9 years, heartbreaks, eating disorders, a miscarriage, and the list goes on....

I have been thinking about this for the past few days. I am exactly where I am supposed to be - love-wise, career-wise, so I should be the happiest person on Earth? Right? I went through my past blogs recently and I realised that my main struggles in life have always been around finding a good life partner and a job where I am respected and allowed to grow at my own pace. I got them both! Am I happy now? Am I satisfied? Am I at peace with myself? Well, the honest reply to this is no. Because it takes a ton of effort to sustain what you receive. Some days, it is more challenging than even having to work for it in the first place. Let's talk about my PhD for starters. I love it on most days. This is what I wanted, right? This is what I always wanted. And now when I have finally received it, I feel that every day, something happens, that pulls me down. It may be an ill-mannered colleague or my inability to make progress at a particular speed that I thought I could match. At 31, I feel...

 I took a work from home today. Was too lazy to get out of bed. Plus I had a million household chores that I had been avoiding for so long. My husband is not around for the past few days and I feel like half a person. Had I been single and would be reading this blog, I too would have made fun of me. Who even says that. But having been married for over a year now, I can say this with full confidence that you need to be married to the right person to be able to understand this. But I am not writing this cause I miss him terribly. I miss him in small pockets of time, in glimpses of some moment that had happened in the past. I am writing this blog because recently, a friend of mine made me realise that I have started losing people. People lose fat, people lose hair, I lose people! I either deliberately cut off or I send a text message to end things. I have done this at least 10 times now. The worst part is that in most cases, I feel lost after I do this. It is neither a sense of relief...

I am writing this in the middle of my day despite being on a deadline because I absolutely need to get it off my chest. I usually use the Pomodoro Technique to work (25 minutes of focused work followed by a 5 minute break). I used this break to go to Facebook and I saw a few friend suggestions there. One of them was of a classmate who was the son of a teacher in my school. That teacher was really fond of me and so she had invited me to her son's birthday. This was back in class 6th I guess. When I excitedly told him that I have been invited by your mom to attend your birthday, he said something that shocks me to this day. He said to me that please do not come to my party since you are not cool enough to attend. My fingers are numb as I type this. Imagine how strong I must have been in that moment to have not cried in front of everyone. But I think this was one of the major scars in my heart as a kid. Another one was the fair kids singling me out because I was dusky, one was my crus...

I recently came across an old video of Ed Sheeran where he said something so profound. He mentioned that Instagram is just a promotional tool and when people share their selfies, it is more of a need for validation. They want to hear people say - " Hey! You look amazing!". I kind of agreed with him.  When I was single, I used to share so many photos. I used to desperately wait for the like of my crush(es) and for a view on my story. So much has changed after being married. I rarely feel the need to upload anything at all apart from beautiful trees and buildings across the UK. There is an easiness that I have developed with time and I am liking this phase. It is not that we don't take photos, we do! But I feel that I want to keep them to myself and not share it with the world.  Back in India, I was always a part of an invisible race and I always seemed to lose. Lose in love. Lose in jobs. Despite giving it my best, it was never enough. But here, I feel fine. I feel good. I...

 So much about me has changed. Literally, so much.  Something I wrote on the river Ganga way back in 2017 is getting attention from people now. I just got a notification on email. Honestly, I don't really care. Cause that girl who wrote that passionate article on saving Ganga is long gone. She has been replaced by someone whose eyes don't shine anymore at the mention of the word "water". How they once did.  When people used to say to me - Love your work, not your job, I would always frown. Cause in my initial years, I loved them both. Then a string of bad bosses made me feel worthless and I began to question myself.  And now here I am, in a different country, studying what I love, immersing myself into journal articles only to find my way back to my true self. Will we ever meet again? I hope we do. Because her zeal and zest was infectious.  A part of me has made peace with my new self. I am learning and I know that maybe one day I will be able to make a differen...

 It took me over a year to write this. Maybe because it took me over a year to feel like this. Feel accomplished.  Exactly today, 2 years ago, I was made to feel so small by my boss, on a World Water Day event which was organised by one of the biggest development agencies I was working for back then. If I had to choose between my miscarriage and that moment, what caused me more pain, hands down, it would be that humiliation. That is the level of trauma that sometimes our professional life gives to us.  Cut to 2023. I am well settled in the UK. I am following my dreams. Yes, my PhD did happen, for real. I am married to the best life partner I could have ever chosen for myself. I have built a small, beautiful home here. My life is relatively simple here, except for the inflation, of course. Lots of respect! Lots of care! Lots of love! Lots of friends! Lots of places to explore! And lastly, lots of rain! That is my life in a nutshell. When I look back, I wonder what was the ...