Moon Over Mumbai

The streets of Stockholm. The vibe amongst the people who try to pretend that things are just the same and that we’re not in any pandemic. When you try to embrace the same feeling and go out for a walk and take a coffee in a nearby coffee shop, you’re told to wait outside in the freezing cold before they can serve you. The rules are 3 people in the queue at the same time. I obey to the rules, of course. I am greeted and pay for my coffee and in the next moment find myself being thrown out of the place, because they don’t have enough seats for everyone and we have to “keep our distance”. They return the money and I wander onwards. Walking the cold streets of Stockholm as if we’re part of a dystopian world where nothing is the same anymore. I walk into several chemists to try to get hold of an adrenalin shot that I need for my anaphylactic allergy towards peanuts. After the third chemist within 30 min I give up. No one has my important shot in store, which I find very strange. My toes and fingers are starting to feel numb. What started off as a feeling of motivation and hopefulness and a sort of adventure when I left my house, is now starting to feel hopeless and in vain. I start feeling defeated by everything around me. I long for warmth all around me. Not only the weather to be warm, but the people around me. Tired of feeling this unwelcome and cold atmosphere around me. It’s so heart wrenching. I guess it’s better to go back home to bed, to the warmth and find the joy in my dreams instead. Let’s wake up another day and hope that the world is a better place. Let’s hope that people know how to act friendly and that there is no more pandemic in the world. Let’s hope that there is warmth in people’s hearts. That’s what I hope for.

Peace and Love,
Kimmi Sandhu

It’s been such a long time since I checked in here and I am very sorry about that. Last year and the start of this year has been a little crazy to say the least. I think I can speak for the whole world’s population for once and say that most people would agree with that.

At the end of last year I left for Gothenburg to spend time with my family and meet a couple of friends. It all went by so fast and in a haze because many were sick and we had to be careful about not making each other sick. I eventually did get really sick when I arrived in Åre (north of Sweden), the same evening. So probably I had the illness in my body and then got sick after some incubation days. When we arrived back in Stockholm, it had been some days since I had gotten sick and I noticed that I had lost the sense of taste and smell. There was kimchi we had made prior to leaving the flat and I couldn’t sense the aroma at all in the fridge. Now here’s the weird part. I was positive that this must be the ‘rona then, since what else can have this impact on the senses and the body.
Ordered a self-test and they came the same day and picked it up from outside of the flat, the whole routine and process was very smooth in Stockholm and I am very grateful for that system that was put in place to make it easier for everyone to get tested as soon as possible.

The results came back a couple of days later and it was negative. So I am not sure if it’s a false negative or if it really just was something entirely different, some other flu if that even is possible in Sweden right now.

From the 18th of January my last course, the thesis course started at university. Normally I would commute to another city 1 hour away from here but due to Covid-19 situation they have made all lectures and seminars online. It was a little bit of a relief, because I wasn’t looking forward to sitting in a train with the current situation. The course is called Food Science and Nutrition. After I am finished with the thesis in June I will apply for a double bachelor’s degree in Informatics and Food Science. I am so excited for my new journey in this field. I have a great partner to write my thesis with and he’s also very much into the same areas of interest within the nutrition field, so it’s going to be so much fun when that part of the course begins this spring.

I hope you are all doing well and staying safe. I will upload more poetry and posts like these in the nearest future, it’s been a little too long hiatus for my liking; but you can’t really control life, can you?

Peace and Love,
Kimmi