River Alappuzha in Kerala

This is a question i think every Foreigner gets asked in Poland. I have answered this question to someone, probably every single day in my life.

Really, this question has made me think about the reason I am in Poland, from the very first day i came here. Sometimes, I don’t have a simple answer. When i travel alone i ask myself this question to this date.

To answer this, i need to explain something. I come from Kerala, which is located in the south of India. Just have a look at the picture above. There are palm trees everywhere. The temperature during the day ranges from, 33 degrees to 18 degrees during the night. Keralites are well educated and likes to be be well informed about the latest happening in Politics and arround the world. We have a phenomenon which began in the late 60’s, early 70’s. Since the level of education was high and the pay level was not very high in India (nowadays it is much better) , people started to emmigrate to the arab countries. There was a boom of people going for earning better money and leading a better level of life. This is the same what happened once Poland entered the European Union and people started to travel to the UK and Germany for a better standard of life

There was also this pressure in society regarding Your job and Your economic status. Neighbours would boast about their sons and daughters in Austrialia, USA , UK and the UAE . It was a status symbol. When You are in school, moms talk about their son’s/daughter’s grades, constantly comapring to each others neighbour’s. They would talk about, how their child got accepted to the best university in the USA, and how their children got a job in the UK etc etc…

In my case, i planned that i had to leave my home, because for a long time I was under constant protection of my parents. They would provide me with everything but of course it comes at the price of following the rules at home. I felt that it is time to go outside learn to interact with people. In India i felt that it would take me a long time to be socially interactive and learn new social skills. So i decided to take that step with my friend and come to Poland.

Many people would be thinking now, but why not Germany, USA or Canada? I chose Poland because of the cheap cost of studies. I promised myself that i would not spend a fortune to go to the UK and then come back to India to work. In the UK, there were strict rules regarding immigration for Indian citizens back then. To an extent there still is now. But much less than what used to be. So i asked my parents for permission, and they took a loan and helped me go abroad. I still remember how much trouble they had to go through to pay that loan in full.