Nishtha Khanna’s first impressions of Ireland’s capital city were of Joycean design. Before setting off from Delhi to embark on her studies in University College Dublin, Khanna was gifted a copy of James Joyce’s Dubliners by her brother.
“Dublin is so full of culture and history. My brother used to read a lot of novels by Irish writers so I got influenced by that. He used to read a lot of James Joyce and tell me about Dublin. He actually sent me off with a book: Dubliners. There are so many places he has mentioned in his books that you can go and see,” says Khanna, who moved from India in September 2020.
Now working as an assistant financial adviser, Khanna first came to Ireland in pursuit of a master’s in the business field. Studying abroad in Europe appealed to her, and finding a country where she wouldn’t encounter any language barrier was a priority that narrowed down the search.
“When I was choosing my country, it was mostly about the barrier with finding English-speaking countries. The only English-speaking countries were either the UK or Ireland,” says Khanna, adding that Brexit also factored into the equation.
“I chose Ireland because I felt like it was an emerging economy and it was very new in the market. And at that time, the UK was Brexiting ... All of the headquarters were here, so there were more opportunities like that.”
Fluency in English has made the transition to life in Ireland much easier than it might have been for Khanna, who remembers some of her international peers struggled with this adjustment at first.
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“We had English as a main language from childhood, so it was never a problem for us ... I remember when I came here, a lot of my friends were from different communities, from China and everywhere. They didn’t really speak that much English in the very beginning, so they were like, ‘How do you speak that well in English?‘”
When she meets friends and family here, or makes conversation with another Indian, Khanna says she prefers to use Hindi.
“I don’t feel like speaking in English with them because it doesn’t feel right to me. It’s very professional for us to speak in English when we are Indians talking to each other so we try to speak in Hindi only then. It’s more personal then.”
Khanna currently lives in Cherrywood, south Dublin, with a group of college friends, but is house hunting for a place she and her husband can move into. The couple got married last October.
“My husband is recently here so we are going to be moving places now. We’re going back to Stillorgan, where I was living earlier because of my college. He is from India ... we met two years back and ended up liking each other and having a long-distance relationship for a very long time.” Khanna’s husband moved to Ireland to join her in March.
The 28-year-old cherishes any time she gets to spend with her parents, and they now take it in turns to visit each other. Attitudes towards family are similar in both India and Ireland, says Khanna, something that has made her feel more at home.
“We used to have a huge family in India, in Delhi specifically. So we tried to indulge in family time a lot. There’s a lot of family time there. I can see that here as well in Ireland, when I look around, during summers, during Sundays and Saturdays, families are out there in the park with the kids and all. So I can just relate to that.”
Living independently “was a challenging experience” for Khanna when she moved to Dublin almost five years ago.
“I was 23 when I came here ... this was the first time I went away from home. So before that, I was always with my parents. I was living with them, you know, I was under the shadow and I came to a different country all by myself.”
“I will say I learned a lot through the whole process, it was a great learning curve for me to understand how things were by your own self,” she says.
Khanna is grateful for her three housemates who “were taking care of me like a baby” when she first moved to Dublin. “They were really good at guiding me on how to apply for jobs or prepare for interviews.
“I actually ended up getting that house from Facebook,” she says. “Facebook is a lifeline. I sometimes say you can get anything on Facebook. That was quite a new experience for me because I never used Facebook to get anything in India. We don’t use Facebook that much to get stuff online.”
It is during festivals that Khanna misses her family the most. “Festivals are the most important time ... There’s nothing like it when you attend a festival with your family.”
She usually returns to India for Holi and Diwali – “the two most famous festivals” – but this year’s Holi festival was celebrated differently.
“A lot of my friends here are also Indians. We all decided to go to Adamstown, to the Holi festival there ... There was a whole community, a whole set up there and I didn’t miss India at all. Everyone was enjoying it, everyone was dancing and having an amazing time.”
Khanna says the Indian community in Ireland has offered her “a home away from home”. “They’re very supportive and nice.”
Her cousin moved to Galway for university in 2022. “Me being here was like a safety net for him. But when I came, I had no safety net at the time. I ended up making really good friends, so those are my safety net at the moment,” says Khanna.
As the days get longer, Khanna is looking forward to doing some hiking.
“Bray is nearby so I just go hiking around Bray Head. It’s very refreshing there. Then Ticknock is really beautiful again and Howth is so nice ... We try to go out on picnics as well, during the summer specifically.”
The height of Dublin’s buildings do not compare to the high-rise apartment blocks Khanna remembers in Delhi, adding fuel to her hiking daydreams.
“When there’s no tall buildings you can see the landscape as well around, so even here I can have a view of the city as well. I can have a view of the mountains and everything. It looks so beautiful when I just stand outside on my balcony. It just soothes you and calms you down.”
Not sure what the future holds, Khanna says she prefers to not have “such a pinned down plan at the moment”. “I feel like I’m too young to decide that kind of thing.” For now, Khanna is happy to call Ireland home.
We would like to hear from people who have moved to Ireland in the past 10 years. To get involved, email newtotheparish@irishtimes.com or tweet @newtotheparish
