Everyone warned me about my new neighbourhood before I moved in. “Not safe.” “Too immigrant.” “A no-go area.” The labels came thick and casual, like weather talk. I had just landed in Germany with two squeaky suitcases and a folder full of proofs of existence — contracts, passport photos, bank statements — ready to start a fellowship in Berlin. I signed the lease anyway.

My flat is in Neukölln, a district in south Berlin where many Arab and Turkish families have built their lives over decades. Think of it as the Malviya Nagar of Delhi or Park Circus of Kolkata — dense, diverse, argumentative, generous. If you’ve never been to Germany, picture kebab shops and bakeries lining long, straight roads; a wide canal cutting through like a green ribbon; the metro train — breathing people up and down stairways; and languages braided in the air —German, Arabic, Turkish, English, and the shy Bengali I carry inside me.

On my first........

© Indian Express