When are you going back to India - III ?

(The first 2 parts in this series can be found here - Part 1, Part 2)

Like most people, Ram came to the land of immigrants in search of better career opportunities, which indirectly (actually directly) translated to a move towards more money. Soon he realised that it was not just money, but it was also his standard of living which was suddenly elevated. He saw things in a way which he had not foreseen even in his wildest dreams.

He could buy a car, laptop, and an I-pod when he was still doing his graduate degree. He could fly cross country with ease and visit places he had only read about. He could buy designer clothing and live in a neighbourhood with sylvan streets and well trimed hedges and lawns. The infrastructure was better than anything he had imagined. He enjoyed the detatchment from bureacracy in his daily activities. When obtaining a license back home used to take him Rs. 1000 worth of bribing and 3 months of wait time, now it took him only 5 minutes of driving test. He no longer faced a situation where trains would be cancelled because somebody insulted a leader or a somebody defaced the statue of a dead personality. He was no longer affected by communal riots or water scarcity or power outage or flooding. He lived his life the way he wanted to live in the place he wanted to live. Soon he settled down with his family and his kids grew up in this new environment.

Often times he would be faced with the inevitable question - How long am I going to stay here ? What are the reasons driving me home, and what are the reasons preventing me from going back ? Despite embracing the alien culture to the fullest, he never considered himself as a part of it. Unlike many other immigrants, he did not despise the culture, but rather loved it. However, he had grown up in a land far far away and hence could never come to terms with identifying himself with this new culture. The adolescent and teenage years are the most formative and defining years of a person's life, and the lessons you learn then are the lessons you live with your entire life. Hence he could never develop the ability to drag his heart out of his homeland.

But on deep introspection, he realised that the real reason compelling him home was the comforts of his family and friends. So he finally abandoned his cushy job, his huge house and powerful car and relocated back home with his extended family. His kid continued to grow up with an american accent and struggled to adapt to the new surroundings. But their problems were not as big as Ram's himself. There were definitely simple things which he missed - like opening a faucet to get hot or cold water, or cruising at 160 Kmph on his car, or the omni-present restrooms in public places :)) But it took him no time to adjust back to the life he had grown up with, and such materialistic longings were thing of a past.

However, a few years down the line, reality hit him hard. He had abandoned everything to be close with his friends and family. But most of the elderly relatives passed away after a few years. The entire second generation of his family (his siblings, cousins et al ) had already migrated to US and esconced themselves over there. As he went in search of his old school friends, he was met with a similar fate. Some of the best friends he had made off-late were his colleagues in America. Deprived of his best buddies and closest relatives he finally felt a stranger at his own home - a home he so fondly returned to, after following years of selfish pursuits elsewhere.