Confessions of an IBCD….

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd,
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd,
From wandering on a foreign strand!

Yeah, I am back in India after two and a half years and both Sir Walter Scott and convention demand that I say I couldn’t be happier. What I really would mean by that statement, if I said it, is that the banana skins on the sidewalks, the lori and bogi fires on the middle of the road, muddy puddles of water, stray dogs running haywire, the chaotic autorickshaws and horsecarts and the occasional cow streamlining traffic on a not-so-busy street all set my heart pounding and give it the sense of elation it has craved these past two and a half years.

If I did dodge my forthrightness enough to say “It’s different. I grew up in this kind of a scenario”, I still wouldn’t be meaning that I missed any of this. Why I would want to breathe sand off unpaved mud roads, see dust settle on every knick knack at home, put up with unwarranted sights and sounds from inconsequential passers-by, worry about ants infesting my favorite rasmallai on the dining table, refrain from walking out into the garden in fear of citing a menacing little roach, encounter a constipated face at the store counter instead of a cheery “how are you?” and wait hours before finally connecting to yahoo.com is completely beyond me.

Pardon me, but I certainly don’t believe that being born in a country is reason enough.
And it’s not just about fast cars and ATM machines and high speed internet. It’s about living life the way you have always wanted to live it, about being able to do the things you want to do within the bounds of crippling finances, about finally being free from the clutches of society and its stringent rules, about living without the restrictions that come with being born into the weaker sex.

Yeah, I know it for a fact now. I belong to that rare class of people that don’t fall into either of the known categories of Indians living in America today. IBCDs they call themselves, for Indian born confused desis.

Ten things I miss most about the US:
Fox news channel
Philly cheese steak
Life-saving Google.com at the click of a button
Uninterrupted power supply
Air heading at the democratic presidential candidates’ debate
24/7 Friends
IHOP
Left lanes and 100mph
Live coverage of the Australian Open
The rockies…..