Shifting continents again... and jetlag

4 a.m. Jetlag. Back home after a trip to India. That familiar inexplicable hollow feeling inside. Homesickness? Yet I’m home. In my own bed. To some extent, even happy to be. 

I stare at the ceiling. Vignettes of my trip flash before me. It’s mostly people. I think of travels within India – of beautiful sights and scenes. Yet that hollow feeling inside takes me to the people – those I may have met, family and friends I’ve left behind – my people.

I dig up something I had written on my return from my last trip to India. Of loving two places. Of not fitting in anymore. Of leaving behind. Of being the same. Of change.

http://lettinggoexperiment.blogspot.com/2014/02/shifting-continents.html

I try to numb myself and try not to feel whatever it is I feel. I make grocery lists in my head. I start to make mental lists of things I need to do.   

Then I think of the people I was unable to meet. Of those I could not meet long enough. Of those I could not meet a second time.

Being with those who have known you a long time is often fun and comforting. Being with people who have known you before you became guarded, or poised, or formal, or whatever it is we do to grow up acceptably, is a treat. They know you. They know many mad things about you. There’s no fooling them. Since there’s no fooling them, might as well be yourself.

At times, a small part of the old-us comes out. We become our old selves – that may be a good thing or bad, pleasant or painful.

5 a.m. Still awake. Still staring at the ceiling. I decide to stare at my laptop instead. I walk about the kitchen. I find chiwda. Spicy. My mouth prickles in delight. Ah…to wash it down with a cup of ginger chai… I think of endless cups of chai in India. I think of people I had all that chai with.

In India, you cease to be simply you. The Eastern collectivist takes over the Western individualist. Even if at times, you miss your personal space, you realize you are not, you cannot be simply you. I am someone’s daughter and daughter-in-law, and sister and wife and aunt and friend. Relations don’t seem to stop at a single level.

I run into my parent’s neighborhood friends. I may have met them only a few time, but they seem to know everything about me. They seem to have a connection with me – one I may not be aware of or remember. I am surprised that I am even surprised by this. I wonder if the West has changed me. I have mixed feeling about the change.  

At times, I need to keep my sense of humor handy as near strangers dole out advice on how many children I should have, how I should raise them, what I should do for my health, which religious mantra I should chant… you get the gist. They may be near strangers to me, but by token of my relationships with family and friends, and their relationships with the same family and friends, we are more entwined than I imagine. I take their interest in me as an overall indulgence and try to enjoy it, at times clutching hard to my sense of humor, hoping it will not betray me.

My mother’s friend (who I have known only a few years) crochets me a beautiful top. She doesn’t have time to cook something for me. She hands over a special kind of fish – now frozen, with specific cooking instructions to my mother. She says I will like it. I do.

I meet an Ayurvedic doctor, who is also my mother's friend. With understood ease, she extends to me the friendship she feels for my mother. I receive advice and health tips and suggestions for alternate medicines. I may have known her all my life. Yet this is the first time I’m meeting her.   

Sharing of embarrassing secrets and youthful exploits are the focus of conversation and hours of laughter when we meet a group of my husband’s closest friends. Many hilarious details are now a collective knowledge between over thirty people. We may know each other for several years now, but I remember meeting them for the first time and hearing these stories. It was their welcoming me into the group.

I try to make sense of the individualist vs. collectivist nature of relations between the west and the east. I wonder if relationships are more measured, more careful in the West. That may stem from respect for personal space or hesitation to get into someone else’s personal space. It may stem from wanting to hold on to one’s individuality. I wonder if it is simply a case of roots running deep, with reference to the place we grow up.  

In India, it is not unusual for people call on you without intimation. It is not considered rude or an imposition. Kids shout out a friend’s name from downstairs, continuing to shout till the friend or an annoyed parent shows up at the window. We’ve all done so. Why on earth would you climb stairs, or ring the bell, or get off one’s bike, when strong vocal chords are available.  

The West is more focused and directed. The East in contrast, seems more cyclical and entwined. I may be a bit of both. I am not sure where I belong. I know this matter will slide… until I shift continents again and stare at the ceiling in jetlag again…