Back from India

I’m back!

It’s been about a week and a half since we got back from India. Everyone at work asks me how my vacation went.

After all I’ve been gone for close to two months – what a friend at work described to me as a “dream” since the longest vacation she'd ever managed to take had lasted exactly eight days.

So.......Where do I begin?

To answer everybody’s question, yes, the trip was memorable and all things wonderful! We finally got to spend loads of time with family and loved ones and caught up with long lost friends.

Nanu and I attended my little sister’s wedding in the Andaman islands and had a total blast. Since I hadn’t met Samit (her brand new husband!) before, a part of me was a little worried as to whether I would like him or not when I met him.

Luckily for all concerned I was relieved and happy to realize that I completely approved of my sister’s choice of a husband!

Since this was our first trip to India after our wedding, we experienced “married couple syndrome” for the first time – where everyone – friends and family included – suddenly viewed us as a couple and popped the inevitable, “So when are you having babies?” question.

Of course it being India, where you’re expected to start popping out babies the moment you get married, the questions ranged from the supposedly polite, “Not pregnant as yet, eh?” to the pushy, “Your biological clock is ticking, don’t you realize that?”

Taking turns staying at Nanu’s parents’ place in Ambernath, a suburb of Bombay and my parents home in Madras, we ended up flying a lot of times up and down the country.

Living in India for nearly two months, after being away for a few years, has been an interesting experience to say the least. It was nice to be home after so long, but the time spent away from home also made us realize how much we've changed as people.

Little things suddenly stood out in stark technicolor. Things we've always taken for granted having lived in India all our lives. The time away, has perhaps changed us - marked us out, stamped us forever with the "neither here, nor there stamp."

Not quite Americans. Not the typical Indians either. Suddenly a little more intolerant of the heat, the dark polluting smoke rising up from the tailpipes of every car and auto rickshaw, the long queues everywhere, the crazy-scary trafic on the roads, the sheer amount of people on every road, every corner.....a world removed from the calm and order of our "other life" in Carbondale.

Yet nowhere else could we be more at home, more self assured or happy. For this was where we grew up. Where we come from. This is where our loved ones are. This is home.