Moving back to India? Preventative Health Measures...

It looks like my typhoid fever is back again after  a couple weeks' break. How I wish I had taken some preventative measures before leaving the US! I never even so much as thought about it.

Much as we would like to think ourselves Indian and the matter of moving back as simply getting up and getting back home, it is not so. Whether we like it or not, long term stay in a country like the US changes us physically as well. 

This is not to say that everybody who moves back will be prone to illnesses the way I have been. However, if I had but given it a though I would have realized some of this before I moved. The only problem I had while growing up in India was health issues. I would very often have little niggling problems ranging from respiratory infections to allergies and sinus inflammation. The healthiest I have ever been was in the US. So, having gotten my body used to the environment there, I should have been a tad more thoughtful before hurling myself onto the relatively harsher environment here.

What would I have done differently?

1. Considered vaccination and immunizations options before moving.

2. Moved during the Winter months.

3 Being very careful and taking my first year as easy as possible - stayed put in one place as much as I could instead of running around and travelling like the world would come to an end tomorrow - Tried my darnedest not to use public restrooms - Avoided eating out as opposed to frequently eating out ( You would think that that would be a no-brainer except it is kinda hard when you step out of home in the evenings and come smack upon deliciously spicy aromas all around you from street food vendors to cafes and restaurants !!SO, GUARD AGAINST TEMPTATION!) In my defense, Food addiction seems to be a major issue in this city and just happens to be another one of those contagious diseases that you can easily catch upon moving here. Ok...to put it in a nutshell placed myself under voluntary house arrest for at least a year.

Why do I keep saying "a year"? Apparently, the human body needs to experience one complete cycle of seasons to thoroughly acclimatize itself to new environments. 

The key is to be extremely careful and guarded when it comes to issues of health and personal property when you move back to India. The casual, carefree attitude fostered in you by the relatively comfortable lifestyle in fully developed nations is best left behind when you move back home.

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"Talent is a species of Vigor"

I came across this line somewhere along my always intense reading journeys. This made me ponder about the talent required to readjust as a repatriate in home country. I am beginning to think that the key is to rigorously  or VIGORously persist as that is the only way out of this conundrum of feeling alien but you are not an alien, you want to belong but you secretly long to fly back to your previous life, you love being back home but hate everything about it, you are supposed to be the host here but feel like an unwelcome guest...etc etc.

In other words, like everything else in life this too requires some hard work, persistence and also talent to recreate yourself to meet the needs of your familiarly unfamiliar environment and feel at home again.


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The dreaded heat has begun...

The temperature's steadily climbing up and my body's steadily revolting against it...feeling burned inside and out...wonder how to survive the summer....

Hanging upside down with a bad haircut!

Ever heard of a little guy called Trishanku? If not, you can read up on him here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trishanku

The longer I live in India this time round, the better I appreciate the poor fellow's condition. I am not drawing an exact parallel here, for instance, I don't presume to choreograph any metaphorical dances with the concept of heaven and earth etc. I mean to draw just one definite line of connection between Trishanku's state of being, hanging upside down in a world created due to his desires and my state of being in the land of my birth.

There are days when I FEEL as alien as if I am walking around on my head. Then there are days when I feel I LOOK alien with my short crop because women in this part of the country have such lustrously luscious long hair that when I go out I spend most of my time shamelessly ogling female heads...which reminds me...keeping my hair short here is such a trial because hair stylists are so inexperienced when it comes to short hair cuts.

The first guy I went to did a fairly good job of cutting my hair except in the course of the conversation when he finds out I just moved back from the US goes..."Oh, my short hair techniques are American" and I am impressed and relieved when he goes on to say "Yes! I learn from YOU TUBE and CDs"....whew! Do you mind if I snatch my head away from you boy???!! However, I was happy enough to want to go back to him except that the next few times I went/called to get an appointment with that guy I began to get the run around which in the end made me fear I might be mistaken for a cougar (he's a very young guy you see!) so I had to give up and find someone else...and someone else again...and nothing's worked out so far...they do a fantastic job of coloring but short cuts are another story altogether....so then I proceeded to give my dear husband a heart attack by announcing that he needs to start funding my periodic trips to Paris for fashionista purposes...thereby also rounding up my identity as an alien Desi! (To clarify, by history, heritage, nature culture etc etc we Indians are happier saving our money rather than spending it...just like it's said in the new Maruthi Ad!)

So now, what with a crazy hair cut that's growing out into it's "in between" stage, typhoid induced weight gain because when I am not eating, I am sleeping and my general air of bewilderment at finding myself in a little alien world of my own creation where I am happily empathizing with Trishanku, I truly well am hanging upside down and boy is it enervating!!

When Typhoid comes, can Malaria be far behind? And the lucky thief...

It has been a while since I wrote anything here or anywhere else. Moved back to India in May 2010 and life was a whirlwind of activities - settling down stuff, family issues, travelling frequently - come Feb 2011, I heaved a sigh of relief as we had nothing significant to focus on and I determined to put an end to aimless travelling and refocus on my LIFE. I planned on finally staying put in Ahmedabad and looking into my career needs and options as well as finish up something else that I had committed myself to months ago in the writing field.

Well, so much for my plans! I spent the first two weeks feeling progressively ill, then it looked like I had come down with viral fever but it finally turned out to be typhoid fever. Spent a few days in the hospital getting, I know not how many bottles of IV fluids and antibiotics and came home with more medications and extreme weakness. Now I am focussed on "regaining my strength" and "trying not to eat anything that might overwork my weakened digestive system"...apparently it will take some few weeks to get back to normal again...groannnnnnnnn! BTW, this is by no means the first time I have fallen ill since I moved back to India, this is the second time I was hospitalized and I have lost count of the number of times, I have been ill at home...whew! 

As if this were not enough, one day I had DH take me to a book exhibition as I was beginning to get cabin fever staying cooped up at home. Now, when I am around books I forget everything else including my existence and some lucky thief made away with my wallet which had everything from cash to cards and ID cards etc!! 

SO anyways....I am beginning to think I need to consult an astrologer and see if my stars have all aligned themselves in a way peculiarly inimical to my existence!

And Oh! When Typhoid comes, can Malaria be far behind? Hmmm...maybe I should spend the next few months vaccinating myself with every known vaccine to man...along with consulting the astrologer of course!!

Do you want an Audi?

Hey Ya'll! Do you want an Audi free of cost? Just come on over to Ahmedabad, India. I am right now on an "Audi Agent" hunt and I am sure to find one soon...If you are wondering what this is all about, here goes;

There was a very interesting bit of news in the paper today. A guy with flashy clothes and jewelry walked into an Audi showroom nearby my place and took an Audi Q7 for a test drive accompanied by the sales guy. After he had driven it for a while, he requested the salesman to drive it so he could sit back and enjoy the drive and the "view" alongside SG Highway (What view???Grimy rooftops and massive hoardings???) 

So the poor fool got out of the car and walked around to the driver's seat, when the "cool customer", slipped back onto the driver's seat and drove away, literally and figuratively leaving the sales guy choking on his dust!!! How easy was that?! 

Check this out..the showroom does not have security cameras, so they have no way of identifying him...apparently they have relayed information to the police check posts along the highways. Will this guy really try to get past police check posts with that car looking the way it did? My guess is, he will lie low for a while somewhere around here, change everything he can beginning with the color of the car and drive away with his aged parents, wife and kids or a bunch of kids or in some such "good citizen" avatar! 

Anyways, I finally got myself a bank locker and stowed my remaining jewelry in there...I don't recall if I ever mentioned this but our apartment was burgled a couple weeks after we moved to India and the stupid fools that we were, we had left some of our valuables here while we went out of town so, the thieves definitely had a ball...the police then told us that this city attracts out of town robbers due to its wealth but now I have this sneaking suspicion that it is not wealth alone but carelessness as well!

So, people moving back here, do watch out! We have some of the world's most enterprising people in our country!!

India Repatriate - to be or not to be? Or Why relocate to India?

I received an email from a blog reader who is currently pondering this question. As I finished reading her mail, I began to think back to my decision to move and how I would go about making my decision if it were now - that is, when I actually have first hand knowledge of what it is like to move back to home country.

It had always been my intention to move back to India but in my case, the timing sucked....however that's another story!

I never really had an answer to the question "why do you want to move back?" The reason being, there is no material reason to move back. Much as we would like to tout the progress India has made in recent years, it is still far from being the United States. It probably never will be...India is too tropical and too crowded to ever have the kind of space and resources that makes the US such a pleasant, easy place to live. Philosophically, we Indians are too relaxed, easy-going and fatalistic to constantly innovate, recreate and figure out the next best thing to improve our lives and our country at a rapid pace.

Living in the US, I not only had access to every single thing that I needed but was free to let my "wants" grow like weeds on steroids, fully secure in the knowledge that they would be gratified sooner or later! Living in an atmosphere where space, system and technology conspire to help you grow rapid and large it was easy to believe myself to be this bold, confident person who can make it anywhere in this world...and then I moved back to India, thinking, "so what if this is not exactly the right time in my life for relocating, I can make it work!"

India brought me down to earth with a nice big crash. Wading through my swampy first few months here, I cannot find words to describe how badly I regretted my decision and how many times I have spoken and still speak about moving back to the US. The question "Why did I move back?" haunted me endlessly until one day a few weeks ago, I realized that I will never really have an answer to that question...There is no answer to that question. I don't have reasons;

I am not here under the illusion that India is progressing and so this is the place to be.

I am not here under any delusion that my country needs me and I need to give back; whether I am here or not, whether I do something or not India will survive and move on. To put it another way, I need my country far more than my country needs me!!

If you ask me, I will say that I loved my American life better (and that despite being a totally stressed out mental health social worker for most of my life there!) than I love my life here.

If I did not have the option to move back and were forced to settle down permanently in the US, I would have happily made myself at home there for the most part. (Once upon a time, I would have thought that a traitorous attitude but not anymore. We are who we want ourselves to be and if you are born Indian but feel American and are happy being one, then so be it...all of us are human beings first and different nationalities next!)

However, would I have completely forgotten my country? No, somewhere, deep down, I would have continued to miss India and that emotion would have resurfaced from time to time, preventing me from resting content. And that is the only answer I have to the question, why I moved back to India. This is home, this is my heritage and ultimately, this is where I want to be.

Having said that, I will also say that I could have timed it better and prepared myself better for the move, in other words, I could have been a little smarter about it!