Riddhi Kanetkar was born in India and moved to the UK aged seven. She lives in Sutton, on the southern outskirts of London, with her family. This summer has been hard for her mental health, but the BLM protests and her peers’ activism are giving her hope…

Before the pandemic, I had a set routine. My days at university were jam-packed with lectures, seminars, study sessions at the library, lunches and extra-curricular activities. Now it gets to four o’clock and I feel scrambled. I’ll wake up, read the news and find myself caught in the same depressing loop I’ve experienced for the past four months.

The pandemic has changed everything. I’m no longer going to Spain to improve my language skills this summer; the gender studies conference I had tickets to has been cancelled, and I certainly have no chance of doing the American summer schools I had my eye on. Second-year exams finished last month, so now I fluctuate between sitting in a void doing nothing and trying to get back into hobbies like writing and painting. Though it’s hard. Usually I’d be whizzing around Europe with friends or visiting India with my family, but every single tangible plan is no longer there and I have an empty summer ahead of me. 

I feel a bit robbed. These are my 20s. I’m losing out on experiences I’ve never had. They say you’ll “never forget your uni years” but with remote learning in place, I think I will. Young people are often left in the dark, especially when it comes to the future of higher education. Many university students feel like they shouldn’t be paying full fees when their education has been disrupted by countless strikes and now the pandemic. Plus, students had to pay their landlords for their vacated rooms. But what is this generation of students amassing debt for? To sit at home and learn things they could have easily Googled? It’s obviously not the fault of the universities or the lecturers, but the whole system feels broken. 

Slowing down is hard when being ambitious and productive is ingrained into your character. There’s no other way when you’re a child of immigrants;  when you’re constantly reminded of the things your parents sacrificed in their 20s to get you here. There’s so much talent and potential in the people around me but there’s also competition I have to be prepared for. Fighting for security seems like the only way to survive in this day and age – you only have to look at house prices to see how far you have to go. I’m personally resigned to the fact I’ll be living at home for the near future. It makes no sense for me to pay extortionate central London rent prices to finish my final year when I could study from my childhood home in Sutton [just south of London].

But I don’t want to complain, I have cousins in India and see the vast differences in our lives. I’m afforded more opportunities here simply because my middle-class lifestyle allows me to travel, study and have independence. There, the situation with coronavirus is dire and people don’t even have the privilege to socially distance. 

My parents moved to the UK when I was seven because they wanted to provide a stable foundation for me and my sister. Coming to this country I viewed it as a utopia, yet as I’ve grown older, I’ve developed an awareness of the structural and systemic injustices that exist in every country. The blindfold I wore when I was younger is slowly slipping off.

Spending my 20s at home is strange and I have to balance both aspects of my British-Indian identity. There’s always been pressure for me to maintain my Indian side as I speak Marathi at home. I used to get so embarrassed by it, trying to shed it like an old skin to fit my “new” identity. Yet growing older, I feel grateful my parents had the patience to teach me. Without this knowledge I wouldn't have been able to look into Indian literature on my Comparative Literature course at University College London. If I hadn’t been exposed to this aspect of my culture early on, I wouldn’t have an understanding of who I am, especially at a time when life feels out of control.

Mental health is something I’ve been trying to take seriously. At the start of the pandemic it was easy to be pessimistic about everything, but I’ve been trying to practice mindfulness and live in the present. Though still, I can’t even imagine the future without thinking of doom and destruction. When people act like we have 50 years in the future, I have to laugh. How can you think about the future when you’re 10 years from the point of no environmental return?

Politically, things feel miserable. I know older generations lived through a lot, but I’m not sure they had to deal with so many negative events happening one after another. Back then they still had hope, but now, as our planet burns, we’re still trying to resolve the same Brexit issues present four years ago. I was terrified when Brexit happened. As an immigrant, I can’t forget the xenophobic rhetoric surrounding it. It’s horrible to think of England as your home and to be told actually, it’s not. 

I think people in power only care about themselves. If they didn’t, they would’ve done more to ensure the Brexit deal would be beneficial to students and the international students coming here. It makes no sense because most British people love reaping the benefits of being in the EU, but don’t realise that leaving will have such a detrimental impact on the majority of my generation.

Now we’ve also got a global pandemic, which has exposed the deep inequalities Britain’s society is built on. As Covid-19 death tolls stall in mainland Europe, ours aren’t slowing down quickly enough and Europe laughs at the way our government handled the situation here. Instead of protecting our medical staff with sufficient PPE or giving them a raise for their heroic actions, we were clapping for them every Thursday at 8pm. Instead of being given clear instructions or reassurance that the ‘R’ number is under control and tests are being carried out, the government is opening pubs and giving people incentives to go out. Yes, the economy is suffering but the government can’t just throw restaurant vouchers at people to get us out of our troubles. Most people I know are too scared to go outside because of the mixed messages we’ve been given.

I do have some hopes though. I feel optimistic about my generation. The Black Lives Matter protests in London were expected to see a turnout of 20,000 people but according to the news, the eventual number appeared several times greater.

I’ve seen a lot of people my age educating each other, going to protests, signing petitions and doing everything in their power to make a change. Maybe I’m in a south London echo chamber but when I look at what young people have been achieving through social change, that’s one of the things that keeps me going.

Staying off social media has been hard but crucial. Everyone is on TikTok but it’s a platform I’ve stayed off as a form of self care. I fall victim to wanting everything done by certain timelines and apps like Instagram only reinforce the idea that you have to live by timeframes and expectations. What if I can’t get a job when I graduate or get married by the time I’m 30? 

All I want to do is live a simpler, slower life, but my experiences so far have trained me to live at 200 per cent. I’m terrified of falling behind. The pandemic has been a good time to reflect about the things that bring me joy – believe it or not, these still exist. Most evenings now consist of Netflix parties with friends and long phone calls reminiscing about past memories and sharing hopes about the future.

Before the new normal, I’d find myself wandering down Ealing Road in Wembley when I needed to reconnect with myself.  It’s a road of Indian restaurants that’s a home away from home – the sounds of native languages, the tempo, the smells. It’s the first place I’ll be visiting as the lockdown eases. I need Ealing Road’s grounding and reassuring force in my life because quite honestly, I can't find it anywhere else.