Dipika Kohli
By Dipika Kohli
In 2012, I had hosted a conversation salon named “Expat” back in Durham, just to see what might happen if I put that together and made an invitation into the world. I sent the blurb about it over to the Indy, and, thanks to that message, met someone who became one of the guest speakers.
In order to make it inclusive, I wrote emails to everyone I knew, back in those days. Twitter, too. I used to use it, and it worked, and people came to talk about this idea of having lived far away from the Triangle for a chunk of time, which was nice to hear about, or dreaming about it, which was also a major thread of the conversations in that time. I recall now how one couple, hearing about this later, and meeting me separately, said that there was big idea to move to Scandinavia and get inspired by it. I wonder if they ever did.
It’s easy to talk about doing big things. It’s harder to take the steps into the unknown, of course, and risk falling off a cliff somewhere else, in a world quite apart from your own.
That’s okay with me, though. Chancing it wouldn’t be new. The first international trip I took without my parents was right after graduating from high school, on a program through Youth for Understanding to a rural part of Japan. It was there I saw just how much more I had to go with learning Japanese; I focused on that, and got fluent, but it took focused study in school and work abroad in Tokyo and lots of conversations with many, many acquaintances over the years to do it, but I did.
I like setting and achieving goals. (Just that I recognize now that my personal goals will have largely been very different from most people reading this magazine, because I think that the Indian diaspora puts a lot of pressure on itself to conform to other people’s expectations; just an opinion of mine, one that I’ve had since I was, oh, maybe nine.)
On that occasion of hosting “Expat” in Durham 12 years ago, I guess I really wanted to hear how some of us who were in North Carolina were feeling about the insular nature of it. This was good to design an occasion for, and after that, I realized I was ready to try it out for real. I started making plans to get going, and the next spring was on my way to Southeast Asia.
Didn’t expect this initially, but I’ve been here ever since. Talk about a world apart.
I had already lived in Ireland for three years, but this was going to be different. This time, I knew more what it would be like, when the major US holidays rolled around that no one around me was going to be celebrating. I knew and I was more ready. It never quite fully goes away, the nostalgia, but it eases up, for sure, with time.
“Have you been in Cambodia the whole time?”
“Sort of. Yeah.”
What can I say now that I’m here in Phnom Penh, writing this?, except: this existing here wouldn’t have happened were it not for the informal sharings that percolated out of that conversational salon. This coming week, I’ll host something similar but it’ll be virtual. This works for me nowadays; informal and easier to put together than traveling around and trying to get people to talk to each other in person.
That’s quite the effort and I feel less inclined, now, than I did before. Maybe the pandemic changed me. Maybe the way we don’t make time for talking as much, in general.
As much as I wanted to keep going with that, it became too hard. The effort to get together for just a cup of coffee with someone else can sometimes feel like too much work. Even if I liked it, I can’t enjoy that pre-start labor, and I don’t want to do it. So I don’t, now.
I writ my own things and I write my own magazine and share with just a handful of people, every week; it’s okay with me to do it this way. Less bloggy. Less tweety. But more me, rawer and more honest in those quieter, less-viewed places. In many ways, less is more. I feel that way. It might come from my minimalist approach to most things; life is short, focus on what you like, and do those things while releasing yourself from obligations to do what you don’t. Easier said than done, perhaps, but then again, as one of the people on the road said, ‘Not everyone can do what you’re doing.’
Can’t, or won’t? The choice is always yours.
Dipika Kohli is an author who is based in Phnom Penh. Discover her books at kismuth.com and other projects at dipikakohli.com.
