My country’s culture, values, ideologies saved me to survive in the lonely planet!

Shweta, how did you overcome from such a difficult situation? Finally! You proved that you are different, we are proud of you, this was the phrases which I got at the end of my one year stay in Europe. The last day of working I felt so satisfied that I did that, my answer was “it was just possible because of my country, culture and values”!

This is one of my travel stories that I was in Europe, specifically in Germany. In the beginning seemed difficult to adjust with the strangers, to the new place, culture, particularly new language! I was assigned for the work where they expect from me to speak German which was very difficult in the beginning, vegetarian by birth is the strange concept to them, in fact when I said I am a vegetarian then they thought that I do not like their food and their culture to have meats always!  As expectation rose and there was no common platform to understand each other and day by day the gap increased and one day “I was given an option that either I can take 2 more months to prove myself , either I should pack my bags and go back to India”.

That day I was sitting and reflecting myself that what went wrong? What should I do? Finally I decided to stay back and take a challenge of two months because as having Indian ideology in that situation “just coming back to India was like a coward”.  Well, What I did and how everything changed after two months? Yes, I made it, I put the effort to learn German and later on I discovered that hence, I know Sanskrit (where we call it as mother of all languages), it was easy for me to learn German very quickly, language was the mean that I could resolve many problems and express everything, day by day I could build the better understanding! I could explain that how we practice vegetarian food by birth and how great it is also.

I worked hard and put lots of effort to gain their trust, for them if the work is bit hard then also they used say like they are in stress, i.e. work stress! But, I was always energetic and had patience to work long, you know what is the reason behind it? This is just because I have a habit of doing Meditation and Yoga every day, Meditation keeps me calm and helps me to overcome from any kind of stress, otherwise it was not possible to survive alone there.

I was working with kids, I could teach them Bollywood dance, I cooked Indian food, They got impressed by our family system, culture, this all because I did not forget my culture, I did not lost myself in another planet, at the same time I respected their culture as well. As all of us know in India we have strong family values and society system as we give much importance to relationships, perhaps I could solve few problems there by applying our ideology of being together, yes each country has different culture and ideologies but for me being an Indian was the main reason to complete my assignment of one year successfully and to prove myself.

Last note:

Thanks a lot to Lufthansa for bringing this idea and made the platform to share our stories. The video reminded me about my experiences, which added memories into to my life. 

For more information about Lufthansa “to fly like an Indian” please visit  the link below: http://www.moreindianthanyouthink.com/?utm_source=ib&utm_medium=blog&utm_campaign=MITYT17