Landing, leaving and learning something new
Hello DoorDesi,
A funny thing happened to me this week. I discovered I might officially be an expat - not in my passport, but in my anxiety patterns. For the first 5 years of living in the Netherlands, flying to the Netherlands was the thing that triggered my anxiety. Flying to India never did. India was home. You do not get anxious going home.
But this time, it flipped. I was nervous for days before the trip. Worried about documents, immigration questions, whether I would somehow get something wrong while entering my own country. It felt like I was “going somewhere,” not returning.
And yet, in my daily life, the Netherlands is always “back there,” while India is still “home.” I have never once called the Netherlands home in seven years. Not even accidentally.
So now I am sitting with this weird feeling that the place I call home makes me anxious, and the place I refuse to call home feels easy. I wonder if other Doordesis feel this too - that subtle shift when your roots stay behind, but your comfort slowly migrates with you.
Have a great week ahead, folks!
Just the gist
Us, DoorDesis, are reshaping one of India’s fastest-growing real estate sectors - senior living communities. As children settle abroad and the old joint-family safety net frays, families are increasingly opting for professionally run retirement homes in India’s big hubs - Kerala, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Delhi-NCR - community living, medical support, and someone ensuring your parents do not skip their BP meds.
Developers say the sharp rise in NRI demand has made senior living a serious market, now valued at over 11 billion dollars and growing steadily. Kerala remains the top destination thanks to its massive expatriate base. .
➡️ For many NRIs, these homes are an extension of care - a way to guarantee dignity, independence, and a social life for ageing parents long after the kids have moved continents.
Air travel this weekend is about to feel like Mercury is in retrograde. Airbus has announced that thousands of its A320 family aircraft need an immediate software fix because intense solar radiation can corrupt flight-control data. Yes, the sun is now delaying flights.
Around 300 jets in India will need the update, mostly IndiGo and Air India aircraft. Each fix takes a couple of hours, but because these narrow-body workhorses fly multiple legs a day, even short groundings will ripple through schedules. Airlines say they are working with Airbus to minimise chaos, but expect delays, cancellations, and harassed airport aunties.
➡️ For those planning your trips in the upcoming days, prepare yourselves for more delays than the usual ‘Indigo is working like a bus service now’.
🔗Another hunt, more bodies, no resolution
Three weeks after the Red Fort blast, investigators have zeroed in on Faridabad’s Al Falah University, where three of the accused worked. Agencies have questioned 48 staff members, including 30 doctors, to trace bomber Umar Nabi’s movements and contacts. The probe now stretches far beyond campus and into Bangladesh, UAE, China or Pakistan to map possible professional networks.
A key breakthrough came when Umar’s phone was found in a Pulwama drain, revealing his interactions on campus. Two hostel rooms linked to the accused have been sealed, along with a rented room holding hundreds of kilos of explosive materials.
➡️ A sprawling, unsettling puzzle continues to unravel but lives lost and missed intelligence are irreversible.
🔗The cost of caring for a country
Ladakh activist and educator Sonam Wangchuk has now spent nearly two months in jail under the National Security Act, and his wife, Gitanjali Angmo, is calling it what it is: “political imprisonment”. She says the allegations against him echo online troll attacks and have already been debunked by independent fact-checkers.
Gitanjali has not returned to Ladakh for fear of arrest, and says normalcy is far from restored as detentions continue. Wangchuk’s institutes - HIAL and SECMOL - have lost two years of work due to halted programmes and government scrutiny.
➡️ On talks with the Centre, she says negotiations on Ladakh’s future without Wangchuk have no legitimacy - not for her, and not for the people he represents.
Desi at heart
Kerala says it has “eradicated extreme poverty”, and the reactions range from applause to skepticism - as it should. IAS officer Anupama TV explained how the state got there: families were identified through four distress markers — shelter, income, food and health care — and then given personalised micro plans. Not one-size-fits-all schemes, but customised fixes from housing to livelihood support.
It is bottom-up, decentralised, and built on decades of grassroots democracy. But Prof. Freddy Thomas warned that tribal communities may still be slipping through the cracks, and constant monitoring is key.
➡️ The episode also unpacked Zohran Mamdani’s New York mayoral win. Despite furious online outrage from parts of the Indian right wing, local opposition was minimal. In Queens, Indian Americans — including Gujarati and Malayali voters — largely backed him, with even “Hindus for Zohran” groups popping up. Young voters sealed the deal, drawn to his agenda on rent, childcare and transit thus showing that a ground-up approach to politics can work.
Read with me
This one is not about India but one of our neighbours. This is coming to you from me because I found it to an interesting perspective on the impact of climate change.
Climate change is hitting coastal Bangladesh hard, but in Banishanta, one of the country’s oldest brothel settlements, it is pushing an already vulnerable community to the edge. Sex workers now face disappearing land, vanishing clients, rising debts and nightly anxiety as swollen rivers swallow their homes and the monsoon wipes out all income. Many were trafficked young, many are single mothers, and nearly all rely on predatory informal loans to rebuild after every cyclone.
Mental health support is nearly nonexistent, even as women report chronic stress, insomnia and despair.
➡️ As one activist put it: this is not just a climate story, it is a human rights one.
Thank you for reading this far!
With love on behalf of two women who cringe at the mention of chai tea latte,
Sudeshna
Co-Founder, DoorDesi 💃
Housekeeping
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