Participant ID: P06
Pseudonym: Aarav
Age: 25
Gender: Man
Occupation: Master's student in mechanical engineering; teaching assistant
Living situation: Shares a 4-bedroom student house in Burnaby with 3 other international students
Relevant context: Came to Canada from Hyderabad, India 14 months ago; first time living outside India
Interview date: 2025-11-08
Interview length: 44 minutes
Interviewer: R2
Location: SFU graduate student lounge

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I: Thanks for sitting down with me, Aarav. Tell me a bit about yourself.

P: Yes, sure. So I came here in September last year — September 2024 — for my master's. I'm in mechanical engineering, working with Dr. Wong's lab. I'm from Hyderabad originally, that's in south India. This is my first time leaving India, actually, my first time on an airplane even. And, yeah, it's been an experience.

I: When you hear the word loneliness, what comes to mind?

P: Loneliness. Hmm. I think for me, loneliness is — okay, in Telugu we have a word, ekantam, but it means more like solitude, peacefully alone. It's a good word. And then we have another word, ekakitatvam, which is more like the feeling of being alone in a crowd. The second one is what I feel here. I am never physically alone — I have three housemates, I have a busy lab, I have classmates, I am on the bus with hundreds of people every day — but I am ekakitatvam. I am alone in the crowd. The crowd is not my crowd. Does that make sense?

I: Very much. Can you say more about that?

P: Yes. So at home, when I am with my mother and father and my younger sister and our neighbours and my cousins — there are so many cousins, you cannot imagine — I am embedded. I am known. I cannot walk to the shop without three people asking how my mother's knee is doing. Here, nobody knows my mother. Nobody knows I have a sister. Nobody knows what village my grandfather is from. I am — I am a person with no background, almost. People here meet me as a clean slate. And at first I thought this might be freeing. Now I think it is the loneliest thing.

I: How does it feel in your body?

P: It is a kind of tiredness. I am tired all the time, even when I have slept. I think the tiredness is from translating. I am translating, all day, even when I am speaking English. My English is good, but it is not — it is not the language my soul speaks. So everything I say in English, some piece of me is missing from it. By the end of the day my head is heavy. I want to call my mother just to speak Telugu for ten minutes.

I: Do you call her?

P: Every day. Every day at the same time. 6 a.m. my time, 6:30 p.m. her time. She makes chai and we talk for thirty minutes, sometimes longer. It is the best part of my day. But it is also — when I hang up the phone, the loneliness is worse for an hour. Because the contrast is sharp.

I: Has anything specific made it worse or better recently?

P: Worse — Diwali. Diwali was very difficult. I went to a Diwali event organised by the Indian Students Association, and it was nice, the food was good. But it is not Diwali. Diwali is your mother's hands making sweets, it is your father's blessing, it is your cousins running around. The event was, you know, twenty international students in a rented room with samosas from a restaurant. I went home and I cried, which I am not used to doing. So that was very hard.

P (continued): Better — I started cooking with my housemates on Sundays. We are all from different parts of India, and we each take turns cooking the food from our region. So one Sunday I make Hyderabadi biryani for them, the next Sunday someone from Kerala makes appam, like that. It has become a small family. Not the same as home but a thing.

I: When loneliness shows up, what do you do?

P: I call home. I cook. I work, sometimes too much, to not feel it. I watch Telugu films on my laptop, which is — okay, this is going to sound strange, but I will sometimes leave a Telugu movie playing in the background just to hear the language. Even if I am not watching. Just to feel surrounded by it.

I: Have you tried things that didn't work?

P: I tried to make Canadian friends in my first semester. I really did. I went to the events, I joined a hiking club. People were friendly, very polite. But it never went further than friendly. I think there is — there is a layer here that I cannot get past. Canadians are kind in a way that does not become close. They have their groups, you can join the edge of a group, but the centre is not for you. This is my interpretation, maybe it is unfair. But I felt it.

I: Have you sought help?

P: There is the international student wellness office. I went once. The counsellor was kind. She suggested mindfulness and exercise. Both good things. But what I really need is not mindfulness. What I need is for my grandmother to be alive and for me to be in her kitchen. And that is not what the wellness office can provide. So I did not go back.

I: What do you think your loneliness is telling you?

P: That I have made a real sacrifice for this education. Which I knew, but I knew it intellectually. Now I know it in my body. Every day I am paying for the better job I will have after this degree. The currency is this kind of aloneness. I will go home for two months in May and then I think the loneliness will be replenished, refilled — I will have enough family in my bones to last the next year. That is how I am framing it.

I: Anything that helped that surprised you?

P: My professor's wife. Dr. Wong's wife, Mei, she invited all his lab to their house for dinner in February. She is from Hong Kong, she has lived here thirty years. She told me, "the first year is the hardest, the second year you find your people, the third year you stop comparing." And I remembered that. I think about it every week. It was such a simple thing for her to say and it has carried me a long way.

I: If you could change one thing about how society handles loneliness, what would it be?

P: Make it easier for international students to find host families. Or community connections beyond other international students. The structure here is — international students cluster together because there is nothing else. But what we need is to be invited in, even just for a meal, by Canadian families. I think Canadians are willing. They just do not know we need it. They assume we are fine. So maybe there is a structural way to bridge that. I do not know how.

I: Anything I haven't asked about?

P: Just — I want to say, I am not ungrateful. I love this country. I love being here. The opportunity I have here, I am grateful. But I think it is possible to be grateful and lonely at the same time. People at home think gratitude should cancel loneliness. It does not. Both can live in the same body.
