At what point do we become insensitive people? What demarcates caring from callous?
The fact that I am sitting in the United States away from people I know and miss, just because I want to lead a comfortable, almost lazy life - does that make me indifferent and insensitive? Should I have stayed back with my parents? I assume these are questions that haunt every immigrant here.

Is it really worth all this emotional upheaval? Maybe we can take a few more power-cuts, a little more red-tapism, a lot more traffic-jams, a tad more inefficiency at everything - maybe we can take it all or maybe we should take it all just because we stay with the two people who made our lives what it is today.

Is it fair to ask them to change their lifestyle, ingrained in them for 50 years, to come and live with us, because we cannot change our lifestyle of 5 years and go back to where we came from?

I doubt there is a single person here in the US who thinks his life is perfect, however much we think we earn, do we really feel we have it all? Wouldn't it be nice to wake up in the night with the security that we are doing all we can, for our parents? Wouldn't it be nice to see them, talk to them everyday and fight with them over everything?

I dont want to look back when I am fifty and wish I had opened my eyes and felt what my parents must have felt thirty years back. I want to take control now and make a decision, but can I leave everything I think I achieved, and go back so easily and not hate the people who I am doing all this for, in the first place? Wouldn't that negate the very thing that I yearn for now? Who is really happy? The "Resident" or the "Non-Resident" ?

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Flash! and it remains in your memory forever. Ever had those moments that remain etched in your memory, as if it happened a few seconds ago? Just before falling asleep, did you find your semi-conscious mind drifting to something in the past? Words uttered ages ago, smiles exchanged, battles fought, disconnected thoughts, images and then there is a flash, a crystal-clear image that cruises in front of your mind's eye - so clear that you can make out every freckle on the cheek, dark eyes twinkling mischieviously, lips pursed as if to chide you but a mouth that cannot hide its glee at what you are doing? An image zooms in your mind and then everything clears up and all you see is that face,that faded memory that makes you yearn for what has passed…

People have that effect on me, in the middle of my seemingly inconspicuous activities, they pop up in my head and wake me up…my teacher’s face when she smiled approvingly of my answer, my mom’s face when she found out that I was kidding about my grade and I had actually stood first in class, my dad’s expression when I tease him about his adolescent crushes…some memories that I cannot forget, that come back to revitalize me and remind me that the past may be past but it has made me what I am now…I freeze in time for a few seconds and the past comes pouring through me, a series of events, interconnected, a chain that has led me to where I am in life now…

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On First Love...

First love and first crush - two emotions (sometimes one?) that one does not forget easily...it stays behind in a small recess in our minds, our hearts, unmindful of further events that try to push it into oblivion. That feeling- my pulse quickening, blood rushing to my cheeks despite my desperate efforts to push back the color rushing to my face - cannot be forgotten easily...ever. Everyone has gone through this same chaos of feelings sometime in their lives; feelings that are proudly disclosed if the same guy (girl) is with them still, feelings that are covertly hidden if they are with someone else. Often first love (crush) tends to be unreasonable - feelings for someone who is just not right for you, feelings for someone who stands diametrically apart from you on everything - but first love is just that, just an irrational subset of emotions belonging to the larger, more inclusive set called Love. Its not something that one should dwell upon, ponder upon forever; its something that one should enjoy while it lasts and then recollect it much later in their lives, sometimes unexpectedly and rejoice in the feeling.

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