India trip

Happy New Year everybody! I promise to improve the quality and quantity of posts that I make this year.

Last year ended with a visit back home to India, where needless to say I had a ton of fun, did loads of shopping and ate an unimaginable quantity of yummy food thus adding to my already heavy weight.

If I started writing about all the stuff I did, I could go on and on and so to spare everyone the misery of a mile-long post, I will aim to make is short and sweet thus:

• Visited Bangalore, Chennai and Ahmedabad (first time).
• Took a few minutes to get accustomed to the number of people who looked like me once I got off at the Bengaluru international airport.
• Weather was just perfect!
• Traffic in Bangalore was horrible horrible and more horrible!
• Cornered several times by my non-existent Kannada skills.
• Enjoyed pre-wedding get-togethers with my cousins and wedding celebrations of my cousin to the maximum possible extent.
• Loved mehendi, pattu podavais, malli poo and dressing up my daughter for all three sessions.
• Watched (and almost relished, I dare say) my husband get a typical madras bashai dose from a taxi driver as he tried his hand driving in nungambakkam after 4 years.
• My daughter loved the attention from the thathas, patis, kollu thatha-patis and innumerable uncles, aunts and cousins.
• Suprised that I enjoyed my Saravana stores shopping experience – I had a personal shopper and all that. Apparently there is a group of folks there who watch out for NRIs and the like and assign shopping assistants. Wondered how they identified me as an NRI when I was in a salwar and had malli poo in my hair. May be too much English to a 3 year old.
• Scared by the utter lack of time to enjoy life by my IT counterparts in India.
• Bought a small baby oil bottle, one mysore sandal soap and a bottle of shringar “chaandhu” at a Naadar kadai for Rs.97 and felt stupid for pulling out Rs.50 note.
• Celebrated a very traditional Karthikai at my in-laws in Madisar and everything. Ate a lot of kadalai urundais – don’t really care for the pori urundais.
• Went bonkers shopping for handicrafts in Ahmedabad.
• Ahmedabad is a nice city – no crowds, bearable traffic and easy parking.
• Shamelessly bought a lovely hand-embroidered diwan set for Rs. 500, then bought cushions, and now hunting for a diwan on the Ikea website. All “thalai keezhai”.. ya I know.
• Provided daily menus (not healthy ones, only tasty ones) and made my mother dish out everything I wanted to eat, thus adding several pounds
• Changed an unbearable number of yucky diapers because my daughter got a Rotavirus infection.
• Found a new hobby – playdough!
• Made sure I packed all 4 bags to the maximum possible extent and now struggling with trying to find a place for everything I bought.
• Bid reluctant bye-byes to everyone back home.
• Successfully answered the question – “I see a lot of H1Bs adjusting their status to Green card. Why do you think they do that?” asked by the immigration officer by saying “Everyone has their own reasons!”
• Happy to be back home and still have a job!
• Damn it’s cold!

Here are a few pics..

Suda suda Masala dosai in amma’s kitchen

Karthigai in Chennai

Ready for the Dum-Dum-Kalyanam

Playdough Daddy and Smrithi eating Dosa at the table

Update:

And how did I forget this??  I spoke to Maami quite a few times and felt like I had known her all my life!

The native place of a nomad

I recently read this post by Bikerdude, and instantly identified him to be my kind – the kind that has lived in many different places, and speaks more than one indian language.

In India, I lived in 4 cities in 22 years, regularly visited one other. I liked all the places I lived in for different reasons, and therefore don’t really think any one place to be a favorite over another.

During the four years that we spent living in the ’Kongunadu’ of Tamil Nadu, I was often asked a most baffling question – ‘Onga native ennanga?’, to which I wish I had a simple one-word reply, but unfortunately didn’t. This is how it would it go from there..

Me: Well.. I finished my schooling in Hyderabad… (and before I finished)..

They: Oh.. Teluguvaa..? You speak such good tamil though.. (already wondering how..)

Me: Oh..well, I am actually Tamilian..

They: Appdiya.. Appo onga “NATIVE” edhunga?

Me: I don’t have a native place. My father grew up in many places, but you could say he is a native of Bangalore. (Before they jump to the next assumption..), but he is not a kannadiga, he is a tamilian too.  My mother is from Salem, but I’ve never lived in either Salem or Bangalore, so technically, I cannot be called a native of those places.

They: Well, then your native place is Hyderabad… I guess..

Me: Um.. well.. we moved out of Hyderabad last year, and we have no ties with the place anymore. No family there anymore.

They: (By now utterly confused, at the prospect that there could be a person without a native place).. Appo.. Did your father work in a bank?

Me: No, he is not a bank officer. He just changed jobs (and not every year), just once every 8 years may be.

So, I spent 4 years in Kongunaadu, and then moved to Chennai for the second time. Realized nothing had changed since the 80s – still no water, still too hot and humid. I worked there, got married and lived there for a year before we moved to the US.

Now that I am not in India anymore, I am still asked questions about where I am from – and because I’ve decided that the last place I’ve lived in is to be henceforth my native place, I used ‘Chenna’ to anwer the darned question.

Other desis I meet here (including my husband), often reminisce about their favourite hometowns (chennai, bangalore, hyderabad, etc.). I have very good memories, but spread across all these places, and therefore there are times when I never feel completely Madrasi or Hyderabadi or Kongu.

The perception of ‘back home’ or India for most desis here usually means Chennai, Bangalore or Hyderabad (wherever they belong), but for me, it is hard to choose one place over another. For me India is, not any one city or place. To me ‘back home’ means just India where I will be closer to my family and friends, wherever in India that might be. It is the feeling of getting off a plane and smelling the myriad of smells, hearing the cacophony of porters and taxiwallas, feeling the heat when it’s hot and the cold when it’s cold, seeing the crowds of people going about their business (and others),  those gigantic posters of politicians and super stars, be it Pondy bazar, Commercial street or Oppanakara veedhi.

Hmmm.. India…