The dream

Yea yea..long time, waiting for inspiration, whatever!

My first trip back to India was last month. The expectation of going back is the best feeling one can have. When you actually get on that plane, you feel like you have literally sprouted wings. Didn't even realize in my mind that I was finally going home, until I was waiting at Pittsburgh airport, waiting to take off. Here is some advice. When you are flying back to your family after eighteen months, do NOT listen to the song 'Maa' from Taare Zameen Par on your i-pod. If you do, total strangers will be subjected to the spectacle watching a psycho cry for mummy. Not that I cried..oh no!

India 2008 was a surprise. Surprise that it has changed so much and so little at the same time. The traffic hasn't changed. Nor has the crowd and the get-going attitude. But these are externals. Its what you bitch about being foreign-return and all. No, the surprise lay in the people. Bangalore as I remember used to be infested with eve teasers at every corner. Now, maybe I am older and less attractive (yeah, right!), but the rate of eve teasing was surprisingly low. I only got one 'Hi beautiful' on my street this time. Sad for me, but good for the community, they say. They are raping and killing more, according to the papers, but I think ordinary people are no longer jobless enough to stand on street corners and gape. Another change, which was rearing its head when I left, is the consumerism. The malls are full, reliance fresh is full everywhere, the restaurants are brimming and so are the book shops. People are buying up just about anything and seem to be thriving on it. T-nagar in Chennai has some sort of a nightmarish flyover coming up in the middle of Pondy Bazaar, but is that stopping the aunties from buying silk and jewellery? That was a rhetoric question, by the way. What can stop the forces of nature that drive Chennai aunties towards gold and silk? Not mere concrete.

There is so much that remains to change. The airports, the bribes, the petty thieving, the beggar children, the street dogs, the worried looks, the smoking teenagers, the long lines, the littering, the spitting, the pushing and the fumes. In spite of this, I see almost a guarantee that these conditions will change. Why? Because there is no longer an acceptance of squalor. I think the wishes have finally combined with the means. We want to better our lifestyle and we have the money to do it. I know that advocates of socialism would probably not agree with this statement, but nothing can be true for everybody, anywhere. We'll get there, in time.

Oh by the way, coming back blows. For about five days, I was contemplating the futility of my life in the US. Then I got sucked into the vortex of residency and I no longer have the leisure to contemplate on the aforementioned futility. The sweets have been eaten, the gifts have been given away, leaving me, looking up flights to India for next year. The India trip feels like it was a dream, the best one I ever had.