They are an elderly couple living in my neighborhood. Of course if they ever came to know I referred to them as elderly, my chances of survival would become very limited. In any case they were flamboyant dressers. The 74 year old man sports strange hats, tight t-shirts and dark glasses (pet name 'dahling')while his 61 year old wife (pet name 'sweetie')wore clothes that I find very difficult to describe. Her obsession with colors comes through in the fluorescent tees and ankle length variegated striped baggy pants she wears for their daily walks. They hail from Palghat in Kerala but were citizens of Malaysia and not a day passed when that wasn’t mentioned at least once.

They are extremely devotional people who perform pujas in their house from morning till evening, recite shlokas and watch devotional serials avidly. They adorn their foreheads with kumkum and sandalwood paste and have installed various idols in the garden, backyard and in all corners of their house. So they are traditional in an extreme  way. But whenever we discuss how wonderful it is to see the growth in Bangalore and in general the rising of patriotic feel-good sensations, they start criticizing everything and say “Thank God, we are foreigners”. That puts me off totally. Their only son is in the US (where else ;-)) and has married an Iranian woman and is settled happily there and they are enormously proud that he doesn’t live in India. Their tastes are Indian, their house unmistakably so and their Gods are definitely from Kerala – so why do they boast insufferably? Why is it considered shameful to celebrate Indianness? Why is it wrong to laud the education provided by our government? Of course, we all have issues but denying one’s place of birth isn’t a sign of nobility. You might as well reject your own mother because she embarrasses you. While I expect and get this attitude from the young kids in this ridiculously snobbish place, I don’t expect the elder generation to speak in such a shallow fashion.

I can never understand why people thought me and my husband crazy for returning from California. My husband was adamant he wanted to return and I was saddled with a new baby and the news that my father had cancer and so we decided to come back and raise our children from home. I agree it wasn’t easy – but I don’t see how it would have been easy for me there either. I have two maids and a driver here and there we had to do the groceries and cleaning and baby care totally by ourselves. How could we have managed when the second one was born? How could I have done the household chores and raise the two kids especially when I was having problems with the first kid? I could have but it would have been tough. Here my mother helps me often and I am able to cope. But more than these relatively simple comparisons, there is a deeper feeling of belonging that was absent for me during the years I was away. This is totally subjective of course – I have seen many Indians who have blended in thoroughly and who did not have this sense of losing one’s spirit. So it is definitely a personal choice but be that as it may, denigrating your land of origin won’t make you a foreigner – only a laughable idiot.