Returning, This Time –

Return Home

 When we were in U.K. we were offered language classes, as we had been in Germany, by the MNC that had brought us there. We had said we don't need the language classes, upon which we were offered acclimatisation classes for a day. That was quite an experience though it turned out to be not so relevant to what we would have found useful - it was conducted by British men and women who had studied some fixed material, rather than a bunch of foreigners living in Britain, so it had more to do with their idea of what to tell us rather than any realistic discussion and help.

 It had of course been our choice to go to U.K., being fed up with the way we were always stared at, intimidated and so on by more than a few people wherever we went in Germany, and going to Switzerland however pleasant was no antidote to feeling we couldn't be quite so safe out as in the house or car, if there. So we had diplomatically asked for a place that was English speaking - and having been for a week in U.K. for a conference we had been pretty sure it would be ok there. In the event it would turn out to be a bit different from the life we had experienced in U.S. in the eighties but it was still quite ok, only it turned out to be short and we had come home in less than half a year. 

 One of the topics at the class had been about getting us ready psychologically to return home if and when we needed to - since they thought it would be traumatic to face being back. I had cut that short by saying it was always good to go back to India, and he had sarcastically said "Ah, "Mother India", eh?" - I had simply smiled wide, refusing to take any notice whatsoever of the sarcasm and the underlying implications, and emphatically said "Yes, of course".

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 I had experience to rely on, of a far more drastic sort, when I had returned after a good part of a decade lived in U.S., where I had not only worked teaching in various universities and done research work for a doctoral thesis, but also had arrived at a fragile stability - which had been fragile indeed, and I had returned to try and find my feet in India, easier thought then achieved. It was during one of the not so stable periods when I was travelling regularly on the trains from Mumbai to Pune that I had realised it was home, and wonderful. We were all crowded in the non-reserved compartments, and after the initial half hour of struggling to settle it would become a train full of people friendly and helpful, chatting as friends and helping out in various ways. It had not mattered how crowded and where one sat. If that could feel so wonderful, now after being semi-stable was certainly not going to be a problem to return to India. So that was not just an assertion for sake of pride in a discussion.

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 When we did come back in half a year it was not a shock to return, only that it had been so soon, so unexpected. One day we were planning to go home for a vacation, for a week or two, and next we had a call telling us to pack up and go home for good, in one week flat or so. We had been part of the global level effect of two companies merging and a high-profile CEO charging about sacking employees (and when a couple of years later that CEO had been let go with a very high package it had not helped anyone that had been unsettled unnecessarily). We were lucky, and it was only that all of the employees in the branch where we were were being sent to the home branches to resettle, not sacked. 

 But we had been led to expect to be there for a decade, until that phone call, and had consequently bought all we needed - since neither the company nor the landlord had provided all we needed and it was better to get along and do it ourselves rather than stay deprived for a decade. So now we were returning to India with a lot of things we couldn't either throw away or sell, from spoons and dishes to Indian music and film collection (it had been quite horrendous in Germany to have to watch only German programs in German and we had rented videos for a little variety from reading books from the library) - and we already had quite a lot of stuff back home in India, stored till we returned. 

 So when we returned we had stuff worth about two to five households - his and hers from the U.S. when we had not yet met, from Pondicherry and from the earlier stay in Bangalore. The flat was crowded (-we do not throw things away that have so much memory!) - and there was just about enough space to walk between furniture. Fortunately the flat was just about ready when we returned, and we did not have to rent again.

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 A lot was changed though. When first we saw the place, before we paid the deposit and so on, before the building came up, there had been not only a deep shaded road to the place but the land had been surrounded by groves, and we were assured that would remain so. So we had bought the flat that would face those groves on two sides, at a corner of the building. When we returned half the trees or more were gone - those on the east were gone then, and as we lived and enjoyed the tranquil life suddenly in less than a year those on the northern side were gone as well, as were the birds that were nesting in them. We mourned them and realised we could not depend on someone who is trying to sell. 

 As for the various works that needed done the situation was aptly described by someone wryly recently - anyone with a hammer is a carpenter these days in Bangalore - and the work done on the flat and the building was no exception. If we pointed out the doors that did not quite fit, they simply shaved off the ends until the door did not extend beyond the hole. 

Most of the workers had no knowledge of their work, they were here from another province - come to think of it they were quite possibly illegal migrants from another neighbouring country, - and therefore even more resentful of our pointing out their mistakes. As far as they were concerned they were suffering great deprivations for their living and we could put up with things that did not fit, and pay up already! If the nets or screens in the doors that were supposed to be for insect proofing the flat had gaps - well, what could they do! So we had paid hundreds of thousands and they had laboured, and if we did not have what we had asked for it was not their fault. They had carried out the actions they were supposed to and if the result was not quite adequate we ought to tolerate and have patience to suffer after we paid them, first and foremost.

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 One of the great mysteries of human psyche is this - we were told by various people that they were happy we returned, and while questioning their motives is another part, I wonder if they realised they were declaring a discrepancy in their own attitude. One went so far as to ask us when this "bhoot" (dead ghost) of "foreign lands" was going to get off our necks. And yet all these people have much celebrated, much valued relatives abroad who are much pampered when they visit or call, and we are always shown as examples of how they behave - often false, too.

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 So we settled, slowly. I was in a shock though, and couldn't as usual get over it and bring myself to do things. I wondered why this was so until I thought about it and reflected - this was roughly about fifty-first time I had been moved from a home to somewhere far away, and I was not fifty yet. Few of the moves, in fact hardly any, had been of my intentions - so it was only natural to be in shock at some point. Fortunately this time I was neither alone nor homeless any more and could afford to take time to look within, to heal. 

 Music helped.

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