Sometimes you have to travel long distances to find your roots

WHEN THIS KIND magazine contacted me for a column on Indians living abroad, little did they know that they would be chasing the proverbial nightmare.

Being from the same community as them (the journalist brigade that is) I know exactly what a pain I have been to them.

I have never been a fan of turning up late anywhere. In fact, I used to turn up five minutes early to the cinema hall and then miss the first 10 minutes because my friends would not be on time. Yet, now things are different. I turn up late or never turn up at all. I take ages to write an article that would have taken me an hour at most. I don’t bother about what I wear when I step out as opposed to being power-dressed like the editor I was in my previous job.

I also wake up to cuddles and the sweetest recitation of “ABCD” ever and enjoy watching Inside Out for the nth time with my little boy. Alex was born in Muscat, Oman, in 2014. I had completed nearly eight years as a resident of Oman by then. Yet, I never thought of myself as an NRI. How could I? Oman was full of Indians. I never felt like a foreigner, except for the inherent lack of language skills while negotiating taxis.

The first time I went back to India, I was heralded as an NRI and I did the shoulder shrug and mumbled something remotely funny, like “I travelled only two hours to get here. It could very well be the city next door.”

Yet, being an NRI is more, is it not? It is about travelling distances to find your roots. Oman was my first foreign destination and it gave me my entity as the NRI, who would forever miss India and seek it in packets of Maggi and Haldiram’s bhujia.

I met my husband, a British national, and got married while both of us were working there. Although we were from culturally stark backgrounds, Oman became our meeting ground. We were both new to the nuances of the Arab world and in some ways, it allowed us the luxury of learning things together.

Alex’s birth and then job changes for the husband meant I would have to leave Oman and travel to yet another destination that I would learn to call home in a few years time. I quit work and we moved to the UK, where summer is a mirage and weather is the most talked about subject after beer and curry. UK is yet another cultural upward climb for someone with the knees of an octogenarian and a new human being to look after.

Moreover, it was home for my husband and a new place for me. We weren’t equals in that sense anymore. I am in the process of learning the ropes on social etiquettes. As a cynical Indian journalist, I am not used to strangers smiling at me and nodding their head in an “I see you” hello on the streets. Yet, when a polite Briton makes eye contact with you and acknowledges you with the nod of the head, then it would only be considered rude not to nod in response. Thankfully, the words “thank you” and “sorry” have been with me forever, so it does save me some learning time. (The British like to say sorry for everything, even if it is not their fault!)

Apart from these tiny bridges to cross, I have realised that the UK is more India than India itself. More so in its love for the curry; the British have not just developed a taste for it, they have even “adopted” it and made it their own with culinary abandon. Indian food abounds, with curry and chips as the national dish. Asian faces pepper the crowds across malls and shopping outlets. Once you move down south (near London), you might as well have walked into Delhi or Bombay with its cosmopolitan outlook.

I have been struggling to juggle motherhood, working from home and sundry other things. But, struggling to fit in, I am not. How can I not fit in? I have so much of my country around me: in shops, on streets, and in the culture. It allows me the comfort of knowing that my son will know his mother’s roots. As he grows older we will be able to celebrate Diwali and Christmas. I am looking forward to introducing Alex to the aromas of streets filled with samosa stalls and chaat. He is only 20- months-old now and already shares his mother’s love for all things spicy, so introducing him to Indian food as we Indians know, will be a delight. He won’t have to order the “blandest thing on the menu” wherever he goes.

He might develop an accent as he grows up but he will learn to talk three different Indian languages apart from English. And who knows, by then Hindi might become one of the languages of the UK. *wink*

A part of me does wonder if by settling for “India” in foreign lands, I am doing injustice to the India I grew up in. It calls for a boisterous debate with myself on whether this is a good thing or not. The jury is still out that one. However, one thing is for sure: “You can take an Indian out of India, but you cannot take India out of her.”