I think I know where I will settle. The warm street lights, fuzzy feeling of walking through the cobblestone streets of #Budapest. The hills in the Buda side where I will live with my two cats and my lover, respectful and kind. I will work with respectful and kind colleagues. Eventually there will be my astrology reading witch 🧙♀️ cottage where I welcome curious and interesting people and help them soothe their fears and anxiety about future.
It is a weird feeling, being anxious in a place you are visiting because it is so beautiful and feels like home that you do not want to leave it. But you have to because you have a weak passport, your visa expiring and you have a job that pays you in another city, which by the way happens to be the most expensive city in the EU. But you also have to absorb all the beauty that this city has to offer in the limited time that you have. So yes, I have been an anxious traveller in Budapest, where a part of my heart resides. The city drips in a golden syrup in its intoxicating warm evenings during spring, and I was completely immersed in it. The sulphur waters of Lukács' scalding bath opened my pores and darkened my silver rings. The sunset at the Buda hills, the lapping banks of Danube and the small statues that surprise you in a casual walk while you are enchanted by the Parliament building.
I see myself growing old in Budapest. Spending a pivotal time of my life in Shimla and now seeing Budapest as its European counterpart I also wonder how Hungarian-Indian painter Amrita Sher-Gill's life must have been like as she moved from Budapest to Shimla at the age of 8. While I am no daughter of an aristrocrat, I am proud to be earning enough to travel across Europe and having enough belief in the possibility of magic and miracles that may draw me closer to places where my soul can thrive and align with that which it desires. Here is to making Budapest my home in a good and happy way. Inshallah!









