Before I say, "Yeh perspective ki baat hai" (It's a matter of perspective)...let me shut up and post this piece from the NYT blog:
http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/22/why-i-left-india-again/
Does one have the stomach to withstand change without flinching? One requires a stomach made of tungsten, for this effort. But then again, should one need that much endurance to re-adjust to a country one once knew? We put up with its eccentricities once. So why not once more?
Time has passed.
People have changed in India.
We have changed.
We ought to know better than to ideally recreate what has passed.
We are falling under the spell of instant gratification and we want whatever wherever whenever, regardless.
Something has shifted, and we have to accept it.
Doubtless we NRIs are discovering surprising stuff about ourselves - we can withstand any amount of workplace pressure but not long-term change in returning to one's own country, and having to deal with all kinds of pressures - work, family, community, the India at large, etc.
Having moved ahead, getting married, havings kids who know of no other life than a homogenous US suburbia (however cosmopolitan and diverse a la California or NY), we begin to take decisions jointly, like everyone else in the world who has chosen to 'settle down', and we take the consequences as well as we can.
I was an alien by virtue of my thinking, in India. I still am an alien, now in the U.S.A. - literally and figuratively. My thinking is still avant-garde. Perhaps my eccentricities make me an alien whenever wherever. Or perhaps, like one of the most affectionate (and yet most chideful) of my Indian friends told me, "You are seeking depth at the wrong place and at the wrong time." I disagreed then and I still disagree. Maybe I am the eternal fool who will keep seeking that depth - I like to think that it exists somewhere. I'm optimistic, and no, not unrealistic. Just idealistic maybe.
Like the guy who wrote that piece for the NYT blog...always, in search of...
http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/22/why-i-left-india-again/
Does one have the stomach to withstand change without flinching? One requires a stomach made of tungsten, for this effort. But then again, should one need that much endurance to re-adjust to a country one once knew? We put up with its eccentricities once. So why not once more?
Time has passed.
People have changed in India.
We have changed.
We ought to know better than to ideally recreate what has passed.
We are falling under the spell of instant gratification and we want whatever wherever whenever, regardless.
Something has shifted, and we have to accept it.
Doubtless we NRIs are discovering surprising stuff about ourselves - we can withstand any amount of workplace pressure but not long-term change in returning to one's own country, and having to deal with all kinds of pressures - work, family, community, the India at large, etc.
Having moved ahead, getting married, havings kids who know of no other life than a homogenous US suburbia (however cosmopolitan and diverse a la California or NY), we begin to take decisions jointly, like everyone else in the world who has chosen to 'settle down', and we take the consequences as well as we can.
I was an alien by virtue of my thinking, in India. I still am an alien, now in the U.S.A. - literally and figuratively. My thinking is still avant-garde. Perhaps my eccentricities make me an alien whenever wherever. Or perhaps, like one of the most affectionate (and yet most chideful) of my Indian friends told me, "You are seeking depth at the wrong place and at the wrong time." I disagreed then and I still disagree. Maybe I am the eternal fool who will keep seeking that depth - I like to think that it exists somewhere. I'm optimistic, and no, not unrealistic. Just idealistic maybe.
Like the guy who wrote that piece for the NYT blog...always, in search of...
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