Of Times and Places..

When I get introduced to new people in Uppsala, there’s a question that I always encounter: Why did you select Sweden/Uppsala of all the countries/universities? It’s mostly the Swedes who ask, international students, they already know their answer. The truth, I don’t know. It just happened. York, my home university, has exchange partnerships with over 100 universities around the world, which involves at least 50 countries! That’s quite a huge list to select from. During the long, exhausting process of applying for international exchange, for no reason, I was struck by the name ‘Uppsala’. There was something in that name which aroused my curiosity, made me research a little more about the university and the surrounding town, and in no time I made up my mind that it’s the ONE!

I’m an anthropology student, no wonder I get excited over old things and old places! Uppsala University was the first university ever built in Scandinavia, somewhere around the 1400’s, the school of some prominent figures like Andres Celsius, Carl Linnaeus, and many other Nobel prize winners, well also, the present Swedish crown princess!! The town of Uppsala, with its beautiful cathedral, where the Archbishop of Church of Sweden resides, has been the religious capital of Sweden for quite a long time. Even before that, during the Viking period, Uppsala has been a popular pilgrimage center. Three ancient royal burial mounds are located in Gamla Uppsala (meaning ‘old’ Uppsala) and every year, I heard, a pagan religious festival is still held at a temple near these burial mounds. Apart from all these exciting facts, situated in this small charming town (well the Swedes don’t consider it a small town, as they say, it’s the 4^th largest town/city in Sweden, but for someone from rushing, highly populated cities like Colombo or Toronto, this is nothing but something between a village and a town), is a castle, botanical garden founded by Linnaeus, and an impressive library called ‘Carolina Redviva’. Besides, one should fall in love with this place simply for the architectural excellence of its buildings. Anyways, these are mere facts, the real magic of Uppsala is in the air, is in its own unique traditions, and its hills and slopes.

Well, now I think, though unintentionally, I’m giving you a rather romantic picture of a girl, strolling along the parks, and cobbled streets of a charming old town, enjoying every breath of life, getting excited about its calmness, old-ness, and uniqueness. In part, it’s kinda exactly what’s happening, but life, in general, always comes with its own practicalities. I arrived in Uppsala, exactly at 12 o’clock midnight. That’s not a very good time to arrive in a new town, except if you’re too interested in the ghosts of the town, and wanted to explore the haunted side of it. In that case, it’s just perfect. But not for me. After an exhausting journey which took more than 24 hours and not sleeping a wink, with delays at Toronto Pearson and Keflavik airports (Iceland), and the anxiety of being in a new place, all I wanted to do is to get to my room and just lie down. But as I sat down on the bed, and looked around the room, emptiness, sheer emptiness weighed heavily upon me and a voice cried inside, ‘No, I don’t want to be alone, now get me out of here’.. It was then I realized how much I hate to be alone in my own room, how much I detest sleeping alone in my own bed.

Yes, of course, journeys break the myths you have about yourself. The myth I had of me, as a girl wanting to be independent, alone and manage ‘things’ on her own, pathetically shattered into pieces. That was the first lesson I learned about ‘myself’ in Uppsala: that I simply want a little space of my own, in a larger shared space. That’s it. Period.

In a strange way, the place I live now, is not so bad at all. Called ‘Flogsta’, this area filled with student residences (high-rise buildings), is popular in Uppsala for its 10 o’clock screaming, otherwise referred to as ‘the stress buster’. It’s one of the strange student traditions of Uppsala. Every night, at 10pm, not even 09:59, exactly at 10, people open their windows and scream until they lose their voice. It’s creepy when you hear it for the first time, but fortunately, I was warned beforehand by my corridor-mate. And then you get used to it, just like getting used to the beeping of an alarm clock, after sometime you won’t even notice but continue with your thing. Whenever you meet some other student at the university and tell them you’re from Flogsta, you usually get a smile back and hear them say, ‘I heard some really interesting things about Flogsta’. Well, other than that, living in a corridor can be quite interesting. We get to meet many people and never feel too lonely. I share a corridor with 11 others; most of them are Swedish, and students. Since we all share a common kitchen, there will be someone in there always no matter when you go in, so you can have a little chat, peek into others’ dishes, and try to steal their recipes if you’re really into cooking. It’s a nice and warm environment, and Swedes I’ve met so far, are nothing like what I’ve heard of them before coming here. Well, at the least, I have to be faithful to the Swedish girl next door who made me strawberry pie and the guy who shared a cup of rice when I forgot to buy some!

However, it’s still too lonely, in the room. For someone who grew up in a small house with two siblings, with lots of fun, and fights, it’s hard to bear the emptiness, the quietness filled in the air of this room. We were used to sharing things.. Though I hated it most of the times and badly wanted to be on my own, now that I’m alone with no ‘sharing/shared’ responsibilities, I understand the price one has to pay for being alone, ‘independent’. It strikes you quite hard, when having to eat a really nice dinner all alone, with no one to share it, and especially when it’s chicken biriyani, which surprisingly turned out quite good. Not many of my corridor-mates can stand the spicy biriyani, the two guys who tasted it the last time would probably never want to taste it again, so I didn’t ask. Well, they might accept it out of politeness but why torture them?

Now.. now.. This is not what I intended to write here, at least in this page. But as I always say, human mind is a very special thing, so is life, you can’t expect them to follow your schedules, or act according to your plans. They never listen, like a strong-willed stubborn kid! I was gonna narrate the story of this girl, first time travelling to Scandinavia, who was afraid of this awkward feeling of whiteness surrounding her, engulfing her, but then I lost myself at ‘chicken biriyani!’

Works of human mind..