Kalyani
Kalyani and Rahul met at college in India and became good friends. “His major was in physics, and I majored in biology, so the only thing in common was he editing my things when I didn’t have time [laughs]. So I would ask him, ‘oh can you please just have a look at this…?’ So essentially it was talking a lot and then we realized OH we really like talking and sharing stuff.”
When Rahul moved to Glasgow for his work, he encouraged Kalyani to come join him. He said, “Why don’t you come to Glasgow to do an internship or something before you start working?’ I said, ‘Okay’… I did apply and I got it!” This was Kalyani’s first time traveling out of India. “Sooo the first two weeks were crazy… like you would laugh… I cried and fought over small things… he would say things like, why don’t you try this goat cheese? and I was like, NO I just don’t want to!... I had so many emotions at this point in time, new people, new food, I had left my family back home and I was missing them and the weather. [But then] I got over that after two weeks and made really good friends.”
After one year of Kalyani living in Glasgow, Rahul “suddenly got his postdoc and… moved to Japan.” Kalyani finished her internship, moved back to Delhi, and began working with Sage publications. “I was… enjoying my job and I was offered a promotion. [I said] ‘Wow, probably I’m good at this… maybe I should do this now?!’ But, after getting a taste of living in the same city; we said, ‘we want to be together and we would like it that way’… At this time, I was really torn, because if I took the promotion I couldn’t get married and move to a different country.” Once the two families came together, met, and approved of the marriage; the immediate family was eager to have the couple married. “I married him, finished my work, wrapped up everything and did join him in Japan. So that’s the time the shocker came, because I left my job, the wedding didn’t hide in my mind that I had left a promotion. …I wanted to leave and run away. Every week or so I would tell him, ‘what are we doing here?’ I felt very lonely and [as] you can tell I like talking and being with community.”
At this time, Kalyani decided to put all her energy in to applying for her doctorate. She was accepted in to a program in the United States but the funding was conditional and uncertain… “I had given away everything I had - my heart, my soul. I had given 100%... We just didn’t know what to do. Rahul said, ‘I will support you and I will figure out my business around you. Anywhere you go, I will figure out a way.’ So that was one thing I didn’t need to worry about!” Randomly, Kalyani put in her resume on a foreign website for employment in Japan and was offered a great position to set up English schools across Japan. “THAT’S when I had started liking Japan! I like it so much [that] I just want to run there now [laughs]! I had started a basic language class in Japanese, I made a couple of Japanese friends, I was working and understood the society and culture better which made me feel part of the community more.”
When Rahul was offered a postdoctoral position in Pasadena, CA Kalyani was quick to say, ‘Yes!’ She thought, “I’m more confident, have my education, I have my experience, I have nothing to loose. You mine as well just give me something new.” Kalyani was pleasantly surprised that Pasadena was not secluded and isolated like she thought but was very walkable and “you get to see lots of people walking around”. Kalyani advises that joining CalTech International Spouses Club (CISC) was a great starting point and that she has met lots of new people through the club. When Kalyani moved to Pasadena she was finally able to get her dad to video chat using the Ipad she bought him because she told him it was they only way to communicate with her in America. “Now that he can see me, he asks me, ‘How are you?’... something he has never asked me before.”
Kalyani shares about the lessons she learnt on her journey so far: “We forget to instill confidence in ourselves and in the skills we are building in the process… We are skipping from stone to stone trying not to slip in to the water below… but it is very important to go IN to the water. [When moving to a new place] Everyone goes through the cycle. Try to go out as much as you can. It’s easy to stick to your sofa, to not have the motivation and think that it doesn’t matter. But it does matter. It slowly does build up.”
Credits:
Christophe Marcade