It was the bitter winter of 2008 that I first landed in London, just four days after getting married. My bright red suitcase which I had bought with oodles of enthusiasm was bursting with all that could accompany me as I was starting a new chapter in my life. However, what it could not accommodate was the beautiful comforting feeling of home which had always been an intrinsic part of my being. I had never lived away from home. 

Besides all the things, emotions and feelings, and the people that makes up home, my soul missed those minuscule nuances like the chitter-chatter of my grandmother that would wake me up every morning rather than an alarm. On the other hand, my warm and loving husband was making every possible effort to comfort me through my several phases of home sickness. 

Anchal Sinha

While going through this maze of new relationships with a heady cocktail of feelings, an old relationship became somehow stronger. This was my relationship with God. I have always believed in God and feel all religions have a lot of beautiful teachings to offer which can cleanse our thoughts, in case they ever veer towards the negative. 

It’s always up to us as to what we want from these teachings, how we implement them in our lives and how we choose to decorate our path with them. When I was in college in Delhi, I made a friend, a Sikh, who is now one of my closest friends. We would often go to the gurudwara together. I really cherished and learnt a lot from seeing the people do seva and the Akal Takht always gave me so much of strength. 

Soon, I found a gurudwara near my house in London and I started visiting it regularly. The Granthi ji at the gurudwara and his family always welcomed me with affection and warmth. Before I knew it, my home sickness had gradually begun to evaporate. The regular visits to the gurudwara were somewhat therapeutic, reminding me of the familiarity of my home country.  

After a few years, we moved to Surrey, which is predominantly an English area. Here, I reached out to the local church and started going there for their Sunday service. Walking back from the church on every Sunday, through the charming country lanes of England, miles away from my home in India, I gradually felt as if I was now home. 

Being a spiritual rather than a religious being and after spending over a decade in the U.K., I now feel it was my relationship with God that helped me find roots in a new land. Over the years, I also, began finding similarity in the laws of our planet with formulas of Maths. They are constant, and they never change with changes in your postcode. 

These taught me that when you radiate love and goodness, you attract more of these same emotions from the very people who live around you. There is a simple lesson to learn from this – it means that God looks after His children wherever they reside. 

Anchal Sinha lives in Surrey, UK, with her family. She has previously worked for leading News TV Channels in India and is a distinction holder from the London School of Economics.