India -- Days 0 & 1

Travel: The first thing I noticed in Brussels (Ok technically not India but let's let's assume it is) airport was the restrooms. I walked into a restroom area, saw the full doors and almost assumed I was in the wrong place. I have always been a supporter of restroom doors that don't stop 1/2 way through like shorts instead of pants (or 3/4ths) especially in those years when I was still new to the US but when the third person tried to lower the latch of my restroom door to see if someone was in or not, I discovered an advantage to the American style restroom -- you always know when someone's inside and the size and style of the shoes they wear!

I was thrilled when I saw that my snack for the last leg of the flight was Paav Bhaji. Welcome home RS. In flight entertainment for Jet Airways rocked -- The Devil wears Prada (4th time?), Athithi, tum kab aaoge, Karthik calling Karthik :)

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Service providers: Yesterday, the electrician came home because my dad had asked him to come and we realized he didn't have to fix anything, so my mom gave him 20 rupees and 2 mysore paks and sent him away.
"!"
In the US, that would have translated to $120 for just showing up.

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Mornings: Heard the Kokkarako Sevale sing it's good morning song yesterday morning at around 5 (because we hadn't slept yet) and today at 5 (because I woke up already)!

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r~: r~ has a lot less stranger anxiety here which is surprising because she is surrounded by more people (and more strangers) here than back in Lex. And if I spent a couple of months here, she would be a lot more fluent in Tamil (To her credit, she already speaks well in Tamil and I know that's going to change, fast, once I start school for her) than I can hope to make her given a couple of years in America. When we landed in Chicago and the lights were turned on in the aircraft, she said, "All done! Vandudthe! India vandudthe!" :) 

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RS: I have become one of those absurd moms sanitizing her daughter's hands in airports and other public places here. When did that happen?

Eat: I told the samayalkara maami that I wanted a lot more coffee than the one small tumbler she gave me and today she gave me a bigger tumbler of coffee (probably the biggest tumbler we have in the house) and it's still less than half of what I would have in the US.


More to come...someone is up :)

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Back to India?

So, I've been mulling over this for years (four to be precise - I spent the the first 2 and a 1/2 years ahem...studying for my Masters and the next 1/2 year frantically looking for a job here). So for four years, I have revisited the same argument:

To pack up and go back to India for good vs staying put.

It seems to me that NRIs suffer from a "Kal'la Chakram" syndrome (badly translates to a wheel bound to our legs :p); we want to leave India desperately (alright, don't huff and puff now, "Some of us, not all" - there, happy now?) to come here for whatever reason - in pursuit of a higher academic milieu, in pursuit of $, in pursuit of comfort and happiness - and then you would think that we bask in the glory of our achievements and look at the world with the equivalent of a satisfied burp? Naah, we want to run like the wind!

Back to India!

We talk about it at length, some of us dare to pack up and go back, some of us go back and then come running back and then there are the rest of us, that just talk about it. On and on, an unending stream of arguments, never tiring of playing the devil's advocate...a few of us even claim to have found "home" here in the US, and then wonder in the middle of the night if we still have enough reasons to support that claim and then we fall asleep wondering. Maybe our dreams will point us in the right direction?

By now, I have heard arguments from different sections of people, each section in itself offering different viewpoints, all true, quite interesting and conflicting:

- the back-then NRIs

The original settlers, "Back in 1976 your uncle traveled all the way to US with just Rs.500 in hand..." - those people. Comfortably wealthy, trademark SUV and a car, 2 kids, custom-made puja room in own house, meets with other such NRIs every weekend for potlucks and such.

They are (seem?) happy in America and do not have any intentions of traveling back to India.

- the aspiring NRIs

Finished Masters, found a job, just-married, looking for a house, planning on starting a family.

This group has started thinking about going back to India, but probably won't. I mean, visualize the excited look in her eyes as she picks out the right throw pillows for the couch or the right curtains for the hall. Think of the happy glint on his face (Wife happy-->No nagging-->husband happy :) They are just way too excited to move on with their life here to consider going back seriously.

But every other weekend discusses going back with friends, cousins, parents, anyone who would listen! Misses home.

- visiting US for a short project (work related)

Inspired by the life style here, pleasantly surprised with the traffic, wide roads, cleanliness and general comforts this country has to offer but also miss home a lot. May/may not go back. Definitely considering (at least talking about) going back for good.

- in India.

Never seen America. Don't plan to or want to (but might yield to childrens' pleas :)

My parents for instance and probably yours too :) What kind of a culture will the grandkids grow up with? What if they want to date, eat meat, marry a "foreigner"?

(There are several groups of NRIs that fall in between these categories; irrespective of the category, the confusion remains!)

Of course these are also concerns of the younger age-groups showcased above, along with which they also worry about their parents back in India. Why not just drop everything and go back to your parents? Maybe you can't, maybe you need the money for your parents' medicare back in India, for a sister's wedding...(Yeah, yeah, "thoda filmy", I know but life is stranger than fiction and life inspires fiction, not the other way around). And thus we let ourselves get pulled into a discussion that will never conclude until we go back for good. Or we eventually wake up one day and realize it's our Sashtiabdhapoorthi tomorrow and our kids don't even know what it is! Maybe they will know - "Mom, pop touched 60, ain't that like awesome?! Totally rad! Let's go like party!")

If you are a woman reading this post, you will of course know that we have a slew of additional issues to consider - day care in the US (too expensive, feel too guilty, your kid catches a ear infection from another kid every other week; back to India? No part-time, long work hours; Stay-at-home-mom - loss of confidence, "Am I a burden?", "I am worth nothing" and related positive feelings :)

Bah.







Maybe we are just stuck like the man in the hamster wheel running away from now, to relive his past in the future?







Just like we came here to the promised land, in pursuit of several promises, some of us go back in pursuit of what we left behind. Some of us don't. I don't know for sure what I am pursuing now.

Maybe it's as simple as...happiness.

Image from http://www.cartoonstock.com/

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