I thought of skipping a few pages in the entry because who really is interested in our tedious flight to India, all the days of vacuum sealing, and that random trip to Varanasi? Oh, you are interested? Fine, I will fill you in, and we’ll call this the Limbo—where so much happened, but nothing really happened.

Our flight to India was at 8:50am on a bleak Tuesday morning in early November, which meant we had to be at the airport four hours before boarding since neither of us had ever traveled with this much luggage or an electric wheelchair before. So we got in the cab at 4am from Zivile’s house, and I already had a feeling this was going to be a painful journey (not emotionally painful, but literally—my new New Balance shoes, the AFOs and my insoles were a murderous match made in CMT hell, and started killing my feet the second I stepped into them). I had to travel as a “wheelchair user,” which was our hack to avoid airline fees for the chair, but at check-in I realized I should indeed be one today, with intense shooting pain and my right foot basically having left the chat. Carrying anything had turned into a sad joke when we still had several items to manage, so when the wheelchair guy came around, all my confusion about “whether I should use it—what if someone needs it more, am I really a wheelchair user?”—genuinely disappeared. Unfortunately, this left Niki with a lot more running around and management to do, since once in the chair, I was basically useless.

The airline staff checked in our wheelchair but handed us the detachable battery, saying it should be part of our hand luggage. However, we immediately got stuck at the next step: the security, where they took one look at the battery and laughed us back to check-in demanding a “written statement” about it, or, it doesn’t cross the gates. Niki went back alone (me stuck in the wheelchair now), and the airline staff were baffled because they’d never heard of such a request from security and claimed no such document even exists. After a few exhausting back-and-forths, security involved the giantest German police I’ve ever seen in my life, and at one point Niki was surrounded by six officers trying to explain that the airline wouldn’t provide any papers. Finally, he went back and dragged the airline guy to talk to security himself, which turned into a full-blown argument among the airport security guy, airline staff, and Niki—all three parties immigrants (Indian, African, Turkish) fighting in “perfect” German about German rules, while the actual German cops stood clueless on the sidelines. It was peak Berlin absurdity, and I remember thinking I’d laugh about it later.

At that point I channeled my inner dad and pulled the angry customer card, yelling at the airline guy something about humiliating a disabled person, how he should just keep the battery if he doesn’t know the rules, that I’d paid the airline and didn’t deserve this as paying customer, and I didn’t even want the stupid battery anymore. It seemed to work—he kept the battery and promised to check it with the wheelchair. (My wheelchair pusher, another overworked migrant, abandoned me mid-drama to handle five other chairs that were waiting for him—fair enough, the airport’s clearly short-staffed.) We somehow made it to the gate in time and boarded our flight.

Once in our seats catching our breaths, the most hillarious climax to our ordeal finally found us: the airline guy showed up with the damn battery in hand, saying it belonged in my hand luggage after all. So yes, the battery made it to India with us. 🤦‍♀️

This was just a tiny teaser of how traveling is so unnecessarily complex, humiliating, and painful for disabled people around the world—and how much worse it’s going to get for me once I absolutely must use the wheelchair. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

By the way, Doha was incredibly smooth—no one batted an eye at the exact same battery, and the whole airport experience felt seamless. Maybe they can send some staff to the Berlin airport, if Germany can handle any more “Ausländer”.

Cut to Bangalore, where before we could start feeling the weight of the Limbo, we enforced a routine from day one: gym and coworking space memberships, just to bring some sense of continuity to our days. Between the good food, cozy family time, and meeting Baby K + friends, it felt like we were just on an extended version of our annual India trip—rather than, you know, being technically jobless and homeless.

We made a small trip to Patna, and to no one’s surprise, neither the airline nor security treated me like a criminal for carrying a wheelchair battery. Staying in my childhood room for the first time since I left in 2001 taught me two things. First, that Mom has achieved the impossible by purging every mosquito from Shakti (a feat of engineering that deserves an award, you need to be a Patna-wasi to fully appreciate this). And second, that I have lost the ability to sleep through noise, blinkit earplugs were the only thing that saved my sanity.

We also squeezed in a day trip to Varanasi, mostly to feed the travel bug that was starting to bother us and couldn’t wait to get going. It was mainly to eat our way through the city—who’s surprised by us at this point? Our driver in Varanasi, that’s who. After trying to enquire about our plans politely in a few different ways, he finally gave up and realised we weren’t here for the Sankat Mochan Hanuman Temple, but on a wild chaat-kachodi chase instead. The chaat itself was phenomenal, though I nearly died in what felt like a stampede outside Kashi Chaat Bhandar. Walking around the ghats of Varanasi was surreal, with pyre chants on one side, and wedding celebrations on the other. The trip gave us a lot of joy, and at times even more culture shock. 10/10, would recommend.

Once back in Bangalore, the real curveball hit us on November 28th—four days before our gap year was to start officially. I woke up to emails from the Vipassana center in Jaffna about cancellation of the 10-day course. Sri Lanka, our first stop, had been slammed by Cyclone Ditwah—the worst flooding in decades, roads disrupted, trains stranded. A very scary situation to fly into willingly. Being packed, eager to start, having a plan and being open to challanges wasn’t cutting it as sane reasons (the flight wasn’t even cancelled, surprisingly). After a million backflips and phone calls with the airline, we pushed the trip a few days to watch the news and on-the-ground situation. In hindsight, the visit to Sankat Mochan might have been a good idea. Agnostic theism and spiritual dismorphia aside, like all things good and bad, the Limbo also peaked and then passed.

In the next story, we will finally start talking about the gap year. 😊 It only took 3 stories, and 2772 words to get started (yes I checked), we love you for sticking around!