Sonia Ortiz hails from a fishing town in northern Spain near Bilbao. "I found the way to spice up life through teaching when I discovered international life, as it combines my two passions: teaching and travelling. My first position in an International School was in Colorado Springs. After that I returned to my home country for good, but it ended up being a good two years instead, until I landed in Colombo. After my last attempt to live back in my hometown, I understood my wings couldn’t be folded."
Therefore, she embarked on a life changing experience to Yokohama, Japan. And then to a new adventure in HCMC, Vietnam, where "my driving force was born: my beautiful, heartwarming son. And then fate brought me to India, to Bangalore, where I have been living for over a year now."
She first travelled to India in 2015, to Chennai plus the cultural triangle of Delhi, Agra and Jaipur, where she encountered colours, sounds, flavours, smells that "I had only dreamt about before. My second trip was to Mumbai, Goa, and I actually came to Bangalore and Mysore. I found our city an oasis, so comfortable for an expat, diverse and welcoming. And in my third trip, India stopped being a tourist destination to become home, a home with a throbbing heart where I feel so valued, appreciated and loved."
Sonia moved to India from Vietnam at a time when she felt it was time to move on in her career as a international educator. “I had done my first interview and already, even though I had other options in other countries that were interested in me, I fell in love with the idea of moving to India and being able to experience Indian culture first-hand and to live in such a fascinating country.”
She says it is ‘fate’ that brought her here. “I really think it was fate because I really feel that I have found my place here. My heart belongs to India. It's everything from my school which I go to work happily every day, to my students and my colleagues whom I love. I love my apartment, the city. I really feel that I have found a place that I appreciate and it appreciates me and the combination makes me a full person.”
Asked about her first impression on landing in India, Sonia says when she landed in Bangalore airport, she was struck by how modern the facilities were and how everything was “was so clean and well-lit, even though it was about 2 am in the morning. And I remember coming out of the arrivals gate and seeing all the cafes and restaurants. Of course, everything was closed, but I just thought, my goodness, what an exciting place to be in.”
Of Bangalore, Sonia says that one has to make the effort to know it and it is not like “many other cities around the world, things are not obvious. They are somehow hidden, but it has so much to offer, so when you make the effort it's a real pleasure and you discover many interesting things. My favourite thing to engage in is to discover little by little the things that Bangalore has to offer mostly with my Indian friends.”
Sonia says she is lucky to have some close Indian friends with whom she loves spending time with. “I love hanging out with them and going to different restaurants and cafes trying out new foods, and of course going shopping for example to Commercial Street and seeing different fabrics, stores, the prices and the styles. I love going to the different landmarks of the city, both by myself and also in particular with Indian friends. For example when I went to Cubbon Park, I got a picture of how it used to be versus how it is now and a more personal point of view like different corners where people used to do things that now are forbidden in the parks such as picnicking or the little toy train or the different statues and the meaning they have. I'm very proud of my Indian friends and I hope I would be able to make more and to keep seeing the city through their eyes.
Speaking about the rally she participated this month with Heritage Parampara Trust, she says there is no one thing she can speak about as everything about the rally was unforgettable.
“Everything was such an incredible experience from the beginning to the end. I started the rally crying. I freaked out because it was my first rally ever and a couple of hours before starting, we were told that we wouldn't be in the amateur category but in the professional category. However, my partner, the navigator, was very supportive. The rest of the participants that I talked to were so nice and they tried to calm me down and said very nice things to me. The marshals were very supportive too. The racing parts were so filled with adrenaline rush.”
The rally for Sonia meant heightened emotions and feelings. An avid photographer she took numerous pictures of the temples and all the sites they traversed. “I took so many pictures there because I was not only feeling my eyes but my soul as well.”
The route included Kote Varadaraja temple in Sathyagala, Himavad Goplaswamy Betta, Chamundi Betta in Mysuru, Saptamatrika Chowdeswari, Karighatta Srinivasa Temple, Vaidyanatheshwara Temple, Hole Anjaneya, Ugra Narasimha and Varadaraja Swamy in Mallur. The thrill of the rally accompanied by the scenic sights of nature intrigued Sonia. “Being able to absorb the sights and the sounds and the colours of the Indian countryside was really soothing. So everything was fantastic and I would like to include the food, the hotel, the people from the company that came to see us off on Sunday, with all those little kids around. The gifts that we received, everything.”
Coming from Spain, the scenes and sights of the Indian landscape are vastly different from what Sonia is used to. “But I've been living in Asia for many years now. I started in Sri Lanka where I lived for one year, six years in Japan and nine years in Vietnam. And still I can proudly say that India is unique. Indian landscapes wouldn't be the same without all those colourful village houses which you see when you are driving by,”
“I have taken so many pictures of these houses. It is usually not the house itself that attracts my attention. It's about what people make of their lives both inside and outside of those houses. So the architecture is basically an extension of their lifestyle. They sometimes wash their clothes there, they chop the vegetables outside, they just chill and hang out and talk. There are people of different generations, which is something I find very, very warm. In the landscapes, of Karnataka, you have a mixture of forest and rice fields, mountains, some drier areas with palm trees. Driving around Karnataka is a way to experience a lot of different sites that you could never find in a travel book or even by recommendation.”
As for the temples she saw on the way, Sonia says they were all very different from each other – “really interesting and full of culture and history”. They are alive. They are not only historical relics or heritage sites, they are places where the community gathers and not only prays, but they eat and socialize and make a life there.”
This was something that touched a chord for her, because when she visited Central Spain this summer and went to a lot of villages, she found that several of the churches were closed most of the day because there weren’t enough priests to keep them open and a lot of the villages to her seemed to be dying. By contrast, “India is everywhere, so full of life and it has such a strong feeling of community and community life.:
Sonia hasn’t had an opportunity to listen to too many Indian languages. Her work environment in school, she says, is 100% in English, and as a foreign language teacher the common language of communication is English.
“So at work, I don't hear any Indian languages other than in the background sometimes. Anywhere I go, obviously as, I'm a foreigner, and I kind of stand out with my hair and my eyes people immediately switch to English, so I don't even have the chance to listen to the language (Kannada) much.”
Sonia is hoping that once she settles down and has a little more free time, she can learn the local language. “And in that time, I would like to go to the movies more often and watch more Indian movies and get my ears full of the sounds of Indian languages.”
Colour, music and dance are a big part of both our cultures. Sonia couldn’t agree more. “It's so funny that you include colour in the question, that's so important for me. And actually, I tend to identify each country that I've lived in with a colour. For India, it would be orange, and orange is actually my favourite colour. As for music and dance, I try to join every single time that I have an opportunity to join. Whether that is different dances that we do in school to be performed in front of other teachers and students, or in my community where I live, that they sometimes organize different festivals.”
For Navaratri, Sonia says it’s going to be the Dandiya Festival. Her neighbourhood is organising some workshops and “I'm very excited to go and join the dances and learn the different sounds and different tunes of the music. As for art, I've attended many different art exhibitions by different artists. I'm so proud, for example, to say that the last art exhibition I attended was actually by two artists that are my colleagues and my friends.”
Sonia Ortiz is full of life, fun and has a deep curiosity about everything she encounters in the city and country where she has made her home. Wishing her many more years of fun in India.
