missing india
i dont know what it is, maybe it was that my trip to india was short and sweet. it didnt give me enough time to see any bad things or get homesick. now i feel homesick here in new york and want to go back. i miss it there..things are so different. life is exciting there in all senses. you go through a lot, you experience a lot. maybe that's
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I must say, your last line there made me giggle a bit!
I know exactly what you're talking about. I've been to India twice as a young adult (before that was when I was under 12, and it was just all fun and games and being showered with attention from relatives). Both times, I remember coming home and feeling this intense feeling of loneliness. This is nothing far from ordinary in 99% of cases, where people go to India to meet family and friends, and then come home to their nuclear families, households of hardly more than 5 people after being surrounded by 5 at any given moment throughout the day while in the motherland.
I was born in Canada, and with parents who have separated, it's difficult to go and visit certain family when one parent accompanies you on the trip. My dad chaperoned me both times, and we never saw any of his friends or family. We just made friends as we went, and while we didn't make all that many, we absorbed so much of the positivity that India has to offer, which is just what you explained in your post. The warmth, the openess, the intense emotions (how bollywood, but how true!), the character, the depth, the...everything. It's such an amazing country. It blows my mind when I think about it.
You absolutely should follow through on living between India and the States. I really want to do something like that, or at least a month each year in the winter maybe, or hell, anytime! Where I'd want to set myself up though, I don't have anyone, so that sucks. I wish I had memories, people, something like that. But even without all that, I'm so drawn to it. Your attraction must be so much greater, I can only imagine.
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Where in India do you usually go? You are right-I'm sure alot of desi people go through the feeling of loneliness after coming back from India/Pakistan etc. I guess because all my life I never had desi friends I didn't have anyone to share that with or have someone to talk to it about. The scary part is though that India is changing fast. Those nuclear households are becoming so much more common now...there are even senior citizen homes popping up everywhere and more and more families new generation couples not wanting to live in extended families anymore. It's funny because in America I think the opposite revolution is starting..since the economy is so bad alot of newly married couples are actually staying with their families because they can't afford to invest in a house and live separately. Maybe we will have a reversal of culture from West to East.
But back to the subject haha..i so hope you get to travel to India more! I mean myself I have not really gone much out of Delhi but I've often considered doing a semester there for cultural graduate studies or something like that. Maybe in a city like Calcutta or Varanasi or something completely out of my comfort zone. I feel like we are so young we can do it now..before life sucks us in to a complete routine.
It's okay if you don't have too many memories there..I think no matter what you'll always feel a deep connection to it. I don't know if you ever saw the movie Rang De Basanti but that was all about feeling connected to the country even if you didn't necessarily ever live there or even if you do and don't care about it. But the more you go..the more you'll long for it..it's very bittersweet.
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