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“Hello! Are you an Indian?” “Yes,” she said, “but my family is settled in America for the past 8 years.” “OIC, so what are you doing at the Vienna airport?” “Well, I am going back to India to visit my naanijee(maternal grandmother) in Delhi and had to change my flight enroute”, the way she pronounced the word naanijee with a heavy American accent brought a smile to my face, I just wanted to burst out in laughter but somehow curbed it thinking she might feel odd.
Luckily we were to be on the same flight to India. Before we met there were still 3 hours to our flight and I was really looking forward to getting bored, as another Indian student who I had met at the airport and got friendly with (I am addicted to being friendly with people I don’t know, it indeed is very adventurous getting to know strangers and then as you start getting familiar with them, it gives you the feeling of unpeeling of an orange rather slowly and seeing the real sweet fruit inside the outer protective layer which it weaves around itself)was about to leave by another flight. Though I have relatives in the US, this was the first chance I got to become familiar with a teenager of Indian origin settled in the ‘Land of opportunity’ as they call it. For me it was an opportunity I couldn’t have missed, as I had always been very keen to get into the mind of an “India born, America bred, confused Desi” adolescent.
The 3 hours that followed at the Vienna airport were really very intriguing. I was so full of questions that I started shooting immediately. One of the first things I observed was, her slight inhibition in the beginning to let go, which is so characteristic of Indian girls. But on the contrary she was very comfortable and had no airs about her when chatting to a stranger of the opposite sex that was ‘Me’, this is so uncharacteristic of most Indian girls.
I noticed that her watch was still set according to the American time. The reason she gave for this was , that by doing this she always knew what was the time back home and would know when her parents and friends were awake, this was something which I found really amusing. Although she didn’t make it obvious, her eyes showed that she was missing her family. She was also very cautious about the flight timing, there was still more than an hour to the flight and she wanted to move towards the departure lounge, this again made me smile. I am sure like all Indian parents she had got strict instructions from her family to be careful and alert all the time (well, the same was the case with me, but you know ‘Boys will be boys’).This was more evident to me when I saw that she was carrying a piece of paper on which her father had so carefully compared the time zones in the US, Austria and India.
She was very excited to be visiting India after 8 long years. I think she still had a mental picture of India from her 8 initial years spent here. Her mind too, was filled with all sorts of questions about India. One of the first questions she asked me was that how normal was it to have a boyfriend/girlfriend in India and to hang out with him/her. I really wanted to laugh out loud this time. “Well, it’s very common as long as you are spending the days together and not the nights!” She just blushed.
One of the most interesting facts I came to know from her was, in spite of spending so many years in the US, most of these desi’s still hang out in the desi circles majority of the time. I also think that the range the word desi covers these days has increased manifold. Most of the friends of Miss Confusion are Indians, Pakistanis, Afghanis(her best friend is an Afghani girl who speaks hindi)and Bangladeshis(she calls them Bangaalis).This was personally very nice to know as back in India ,majority of people still don’t have a very good opinion about the Pakistani’s and to see how these south Asians live in harmony in the US reiterates the fact that there is hardly any difference between us ,we are all so same in terms of our language , culture, food habits, social values etc. Let me tell you that the boyfriend of my Miss Confusion is a Pakistani.
Now, as confusion is an integral part of the life of our desi’s ,in spite of all the peace and harmony I just talked about, her mom is dead against this Pakistani boy and has given red signals to our poor little gal that “No getting involved!!” From what I can make out, it has nothing to do with the boy in particular, it’s just the fact that he happens to be a Pakistani, more particularly a Muslim. Now this is something which I have never been able to figure out. I used to think that after so many years in the US these anti Muslim feelings (specially if your son/daughter wants to marry one or go around with one)might be getting reduced but I should have known, its hard to change us desi’s, no matter where we are , “Aakhir dil hai Hindustani.”
I always thought that it was these western people, specially the Americans who were racists, but my my…never underestimate us Indians. I donno whether its just she and her friends or the whole Indian community in America, but they call the white Americans the ‘Gore people’ and if you thought that nigger was a derogatory word ,then so is calling the African Americans ‘Kaale people’ !! The way she uttered these two terms with her heavy accent really made me laugh (Ya, once again!!), she really sounds cute speaking Hindi.
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Writer Profile
Priyank Nandan
Confused is what I am, and am constantly looking for answers to those ambigious questions of life like,what do I want to do?what is my calling in life?do I realy love what I am doing?what is my purpose in this life?
Currently I have just joined a software firm and am engaged in some social activity and ofcourse I love writing...it keeps me sane.To know more about me visit my homepage:www.geocities.com/rishu_nandan
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Comments
nice R Kahendi | Apr 7th, 2007
nice piece. perhaps we all are "confused"!
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