My heart is in Europe today, more than usual: Giovanna

Now, I look at that picture and I ask myself how I can huddle in pain with my European friends in Chennai after the terroristic multiple bombing in Paris. No matter which country we are from, we all feel we belong to Europe and Europe has been mortally wound today.

I have been experiencing mixed feelings about the bombing in Paris since this morning after I came to know about the attacks from my friends’ Facebook posts.

On the one hand, I feel relieved because I’m safe, many kilometres away from the site of massacre and none of my family has been travelling in France in these terrible days. On the other hand, I’m pained for those who have lost their dearest ones in that insane terrible night.

But most of all my negative thoughts derive from that unconscious feeling of displacement that any expat may experience when any big event happens in the region they have been growing up calling it “their” place.

When it happens, you feel you should be there because you belong to that place. But you are not. However being an expat teaches you how to find oneness of mankind beyond different cultural background. And that’s why this morning.

I not only texted my expat friends to share my sorrow but also shared my feelings with my Indian colleagues when I reached the office. And my Indian colleagues told me about the bombings in Mumbai years ago and some of them also told me they are worried because they have connection with someone who was in Paris last night.

Then I realised that my heart is in Europe today, more than usual, but I’m here and I can still let my Chennai based friends, both Indian and expats, know they can count on my empathy.