Homecoming

It's a funny frame of mind when you're heading back home as a tourist in your own country*, when things you once considered trivial suddenly seem invaluable, even profound. Went home, shook off some of the phoren dust and rolled over in desi soil all over again. Some blast it was, I tell you. You should try it sometime.

(*Am pretty sure I've heard this phrase in a movie, but after a sleepless 10th night in a row, the name still eludes me. Help me if you can - it's driving me nuts.)

Visited a hair salon the first morning I land. Was good to see salons where men (emphasis added) charged you a trifling 30 roobees (about 75 of your amreeki cents) for a haircut, with the local radio belting out chartbusters from the 1960s and 1970s in the background. Ever heard this one on radio, all ye youtube lovers? And the icing on the cake - there was no karaoke, or for that matter, drunken ladies handling razors anywhere within the danger zone. Good times had just begun.

Woke up most days at 5 am IST (emphasis added) to the smell of steaming hot filter coffee. Saw cricket matches live, without having to scratch the unmentionables hunting for 'working links' and putting up with 'poor streaming speeds'. Better still, the Indian team actually beat the living daylight out of the greencaps (and as I write, they just gave the finishing touches to the ODI tri-series. Woohoow, boys!) . And if the games weren't entertaining enough, there were the ads. The variety, the wit, the sheer strength of the message conveyed, the crispness - loved this and this in particular. Ads, strangely, weren't worth missing anymore.

Helped sister with high school mathematics, or atleast tried to. Turns out she could solve cubic equations on paper faster than I could get my scientific calculator or Matlab to do the grillwork for me. And don't even get me started about geometric theorems and lemmae. 'Elementary' mathematics was never scarier. About time I stopped letting machines do the thinking for me - am getting back to first principles.

Got to call the shots at the menu each day, and each meal of the day at that. Was a welcome change from the oh-so-delicious 'veggie buhguh and smaaw fries'. Thanks Ma, thanks Grandma - you're the best. And the chaatwallahs, the roadside bonda shops, Hot Chips, Shanti Sagars, the Coffee Board - bless you fellas. Britannia was right all along.


Drinks for a change didn't mean choosing between the Dew and Dr. Pepper. Lassi, tender cocos, sugarcane juice, spiced-up gulpable versions of buttermilk, badam milk (hot or cold, for choice) or that all-time fave, lime masala soda with a dash of ginger - beat the variety, I challenge you. A teeto couldn't ask for more.



Hit the roads with all its bumps and potholes on Pa's Eterno - Shtreet Hawk shtyle and all. The brakes and the horn incidentally remain the only things you need to drive on desi roads (a foul temper helps, but that's optional). Had an autorickshaw steamroll my foot while I was waiting a tad too patiently for the red signal to turn green. As I was to learn a painful scream later, patience was never a virtue in desi traffic. Was soon bully-honked into giving way for everyone behind me not willing to wait. Oh BTW, the signal gleefully remained red while all those gentlemen and ladies went past it. Me? I waited, and waited, and waited..

Kept fiddling with the indicators and the wiper lever on Pa's car - what was once right's now wrong/left. Asked Pa haughtily if the new car he'd bought had cruise control and all that stuff, and was challenged to make it to the 4th gear within Bangalore in the first place. Goes without saying, I gave up.

Was back on the BMTC as soon as I got a chance to. Inspite of all those sealed-door buses, some of older doorless Leylands and Tatas still do the rounds in Bengloor. Some rides they were - one foot on those few inches of space left on the footboard, the other foot hanging somewhere safely out of view, one hand clinging onto the support rod or the window grill (the nearest of the two - though given the circumstances, the distinction barely mattered), and the other hand multitasking between feeling for the purse in the backpocket and scratching that itchy nose. "Saar, swalpa adjust maadi" ("Saar, kindly adjust. This 2-seater should be able to hold a third me) remains Karnataka's most (ab)used line. No more polite 'STOP REQUESTED' stuff, buses answer only and only to a WOLDEN!! shouted loud enough to penetrate through the hullabaloo. And if I thought fun was to be had only on buses, I couldn't have been more wrong.



Encountered cows, buffaloes, sheep and even a jumbo on highways and cityroads alike. Cabbiebhai was right, after all. On another note, was a relief not having to hunt for restroom exits when the higher forces called. The gentlemen's conveniences were always around. Shame shame, puppy shame?

Picked up the American street-friendliness attitude and tried it in India out of sheer habit. Went about streets in Bangalore nodding and smiling at every face that passed by me, with the occasional Namaste and Chennagiddeera (howsitgoin') stuff. Got a few blanks, a lot of stares and almost got killed for smiling at the wrong someone. Learnt my lessons and promptly got back to the pokerface.

Stuff like Mrs. Rai-Bachchan's first Karva Chauth still make the headlines on leading newspapers, taking precedence over what some might consider matters of higher importance. Recently heard, Facebook makes it to the covers of a leading weekly. We are finally catching up with the rest of the world, no?

Karnataka still has no CM. President Patil continues to administer the state. Hope she does a better job at it than she did with that co-op bank of hers. Maya Memsaab and Miyaan Mulayam have now penetrated down south, with Bengaluru streets lined up with their hoardings. Deve Gowdre, Hushaar! You've got company competition at hand. In national news, the High Command gets shielded away from any and all blame for calling (in chaste Hindi - she's getting better, I tell you) a certain politician the 'merchant of death', whose return to power is blamed on good governance. High Command Junior seems all set to become the next Prime Minister of India, if all goes fine. Will it? Will he?

Caught up with desi movies - Bollywood, Kollywood and even lived through a Jaggesh pickchar (Cincywallahs can consult Kiran BV for further details on that gentleman). Air India, in all its love for me, treated me to Nanhe Jaisalmer both ways over headphones that played stereophonic white noise all through the movie with an extremely well-engineered sound quality. I'd love to go on and on in praise of AI, but I think I'll save it for later. Besides, buddies back home have issues with us phorén-returned desis cribbing about anything and everything Indian. "We've aped the pizza-burger-coke and hip-hop culture from The West, haven't we? Who needs the good stuff - the customer-friendliness, higher standards of public hygeine, social friendliness, ethics for most part, and rules where they are needed? We've managed without them all these years, haven't we - why need them now? We are like this only. Chalta hai, you see. And who the beeping beep are you to do the talking? You get back to chasing your big American dream and keep your armchair musings about India's development to yourself. Leave India to us Indians." I am an Indian too, or am I?

Was a month of solid fun in India - the joyride that was Air India, the time with folks, catching (and catching up with) friends over lunches and weekends, the good food, the hours spent walking through the serene environs of IISc, street-cricket, the rides on buses through streets that have changed (and those that haven't), the idiot box, the ads, cricket, Bollywood, Kollywood, Kannada phillums, politics, and most importantly, all those intangibles about India I can never ever sum up in words. There's chaos, sure, and while that's part of the fun, some things are changing for the better in India, in spite of politicians. Mr. Advani might have come to regret it, but some of us still strongly believe in India Shining, India Rising and Incredible India, and in due course of time, will be back to contribute our mite for the cause. Empty rhetoric? Only time will tell.

Back to the US, back to gradwork, back to burgers, fries, 98 Octane, and back to cooking - though it looks like it'll take me a little longer to get off IST. Winter's about to pass, and here's hoping for a fun spring ahead. Cheerios.

PS. That wasn't too long, was it?