“When are you returning to America”?
I run into this question on a daily basis during my vacation at home in India. When I reply “In three weeks” to my relatives, my friends, my mom’s maid, the neighbors or the grocery vendor in my parent’s neighborhood, the lump in my throat remains the same.
Traveling home as a temporary visitor with the title of an NRI (Non-Resident Indian) for about a decade, there are certain phases I go through consistently.
Phase one is a cliché. An adrenaline rush that begins when the flight descends to land at the airport back home. Even the change of terrain and landscape I see through the aircraft window is an ecstasy. This continues as I hear my most comfortable language around, spot my family outside the baggage claim, the hugs and embraces. The joy that I experience on the first day is immense.
I leave my everyday sight of the surrounding endless mountains and dry landscape of silicon valley to re-enter a land of lush coconut trees and a vegetation familiar to me, growing up. The joy is invaluable. I feel belonged among strangers who speak my language. It daunts me when my father speaks endlessly about the highway expansions, untimely rains, traffic diversions and other changes in our town.
The second phase starts once the initial information exchanges end with the family. It is a complaint and comparison phase between India and America. This stage may be relatable to many as it is over-exploited for NRI memes and often gets portrayed as NRI show-off in movies and other media.
Mostly, I blame the heat and weather followed by the infrastructural issues like power, connectivity, the traffic and several others. Though the power backup at home comes to rescue during power outages and the cost for bumpy rickshaw ride multiplies in Rupees every year, they become a sought out experience for me on every trip.
I give a day or two for my ears to harmonize with the sounds and loud noises around. Be it the unnecessary vehicle honks on the road or devotional songs played on a loudspeaker from the neighborhood temple, it comforts me more than the silent environment I experience otherwise.
The third phase is the reality phase, which is my favorite of all. At the same time, thought provoking. Most of my trips are planned around a core event like a family wedding or a festival. This phase involves the shopping, planning and the actual event where I meet my extended family, cousins, friends, eat good food, visit places, walk through known streets and relive good old memories.
Once, I shared with a friend, my desire to eat from a restaurant back home. She suggested several other places which were unknown to me. When I insisted, she said, “Your clock at home is stuck ten years back. Things have changed. There are new restaurants, new malls, new shops, new brands from the time you left. ” For my friend, the changes happened at a slow pace, one at a time. Be it a new hangout or a new traffic flyover. Whereas for me, they are all thrown at once. It makes me feel that “I do not belong here anymore.”
Then comes the most reluctant fourth phase, the return. When I pull the suitcase underneath the bed at home to pack, it feels heavier. The same suitcase seems much lighter before the trip, when I carry it down from the storage at my home in America. The suitcase practically becomes heavier as I stuff them with my sentiments in the form of goods and edibles, thereby pacifying myself through a materialistic recreation of “home”.
The last phase is the Au Revoir stage. It pricks my heart to say goodbye to my close ones. Every time when my grandfather make silly jokes, when my inexpressive grandmother kisses me, the hugs from my little cousins, the bold and practical masks of my father (and in-law) and the silent welled-eyes of my mother (and in-law), they open up their wait and hope for our next trip. This phase remains the same no matter how many years pass by.
“The return makes one love the farewell.”- Alfred de Musset
After all, there is no scope for a re-entry without a farewell !
