Roommates

My first international roommate was a South Korean guy when I was in Wroclaw Poland for the studies.

The second semester I had two roommates - One was an Ethiopian, the other was a Pakistani. The funny thing was that Ethiopian Christian, the Pakistani Muslim and I a Hindu made an interesting combination.

The third semester I stayed with two Polish guys.

Apart from this, when I was traveling, I have stayed with an Italian, An American, An Australian, A British, A Japanese as a roommate for a day or two.

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Long Answer -

South Korean Yeobi was a math nerd. He was staying there already when I arrived and he subtly told me that he preferred the room clean and tidy all the time. Later when I showed him my way of keeping the room clean and tidy, he said that I needed to tone it down a bit for him to which we had a good laugh.

I asked him so many questions on South and North Korea relations. In one of such chats, I asked if the people of South Korea would like to reunite with the North Koreans to which surprisingly his answer was no. His opinion was that the two countries have shipped in two directions and a reunion would mean an influx of unskilled labor in a highly industrialized South Korean cities.

He had respect for PM Modi because he had heard about him when Mr. Modi visited South Korea at that time and their news shows ran sections on him and his vision for India. Coincidentally, he also knew about the state of Maharashtra as one of his friends was working at POSCO plant near Raigad. Yeobi was a curious, courteous and friendly boy. He was on scholarship and had a good family background. He traveled and partied a lot and also landed a good job at the end of the semester.

Second Semester - Tame the Ethiopian and Faisal the Pakistani were my roommates in the next semester which I spent as an Erasmus+ in Austria. Tame was a cleanliness freak and this time I was the one to begged him to tone it down. Tame, Faisal and I had so many discussions on religion, history, culture, and technology.

We touched some forbidden subjects like India - Pak relations and which religion seemed more logical.

Tame would love to get on my nerves and he would praise Pakistan for their ability to irk a larger nation like India. He also would say that there are a lot of Mahindra and Mahindras in his country but he hates the sound of those. He would boast that unlike India, Ethiopians had never been colonized.

One day he said that the Ethiopians fought and brought back the Obelix that Italians had stolen from them. Indians couldn’t even take back their Kohinoor from the British. I said that Indians probably have moved on and wouldn’t believe in bringing a piece of stone back home. I gave an example of Tata’s acquisition of JLR and sarcastically asked him ‘has Ethiopia ever brought a jewel of the industrial age back home?’ and calmly watched his triumphant expressions melting on his face. Of course, all of this was to pull each other’s leg.

I also shared a project with Faisal in one of the classes. I remember the professor was noting down the project partners and when we told our nationalities, he exclaimed - “and how did that happen?”

It was one of the most enriching stays in my life. I was there in fall through winter and that heavenly country has become part of my memory now.

The third semester, I was back in Wroclaw and stayed with two bright but taciturn Polish boys. Piotr was really shy but opened up after a few weeks of interaction. Lukasz would only talk when I asked something. These boys liked the room clean but were not too much pedantic about it. Piotr would sometimes pause the conversation to look for an English word on his smartphone. Lukasz was comparatively fluent in English. They were both from computer science stream. I never had seen them spending more than 10 minutes in the kitchen. They would eat sandwiches and sausages and happily work on the machines most of the time. Lukasz allowed me to use his microwave and in return, I gave him my wifi router when I left the place.

I have written about the experience with the British guy here - Ashish Shete (आशिष शेटे)'s answer to What's the weirdest way your fast food order got messed up?

I met the Italian - Simone on my visit to Warsaw. In the first 5 minutes of we introduced each other, Simone politely asked me if I am open to answer a question. Then he asked my opinion about the incident in which two marine commandos were involved in killing fishermen in Indian waters and the betrayal of the Italian government on the matter of returning them to India. Enrica Lexie case - Wikipedia He was a student of sociology and was quite informed about world politics. I was impressed with the knowledge and maturity he had gathered at such a young age.

All these events have become part of my good memories. The time I spent with these people and my travels so far is a life reforming experience for me.

_*_

Written originally as an answer to question on Quora - How many roommates of different nationalities have you stayed with so far? How was your experience with them?