To Return, or Not To Return : that is the question

This is the question that every Non-Resident Indian has asked himself/ herself many times. I was sure that I wanted to return back to India in around 10 years. That was 5 years ago. A lot has changed in these 5 years, in India and in my opinion as well.

Recently, I have started to put my reasons down on paper. Reasons, I want to go back – thats Option 1- and reasons I dont – Option 2. I have to say none of my reasons are logical. They are all emotionally driven because my attachment to India is emotional. If I come to think of it, am I really attached to India? Or is it just my hometown, Mumbai? To answer that question I asked myself another question. If I decide to return back to India, would I be happy to live in say for example, Bangalore, or Delhi? The answer came quiet quickly to me. It was No. I am biased towards Mumbai. Infact I would not give the time of day to any other city in India. Well to relax my obsession a little bit, I would not mind living in cities around Mumbai. Cities like Navi Mumbai, Lonavla, upto Pune all sound the same to me. As long as I can access my beloved Mumbai any day I want.

So far it looks like Option 1 is already contingent on Mumbai. Lets look at the various points that I would need in order to make Option 1 possible. This answer comes quickly as well. I need to live a content – aka emotionally fulfilling – aka happy and comfortable life. Wait a minute now, “comfortable” is a very subjective term. For me comfort is living with my family in a home that has 2 bedrooms and 2 baths atleast, having good food 3 times a day, having a car, having some kind of domestic help, good educational system for my children, being close of family, investments for retirement and then some. :-) Ok so my definition of comfort is pretty cliched then. But that is not all I need. Being happy involves more than material pleasures for me. Many people have told me, “if you have enough money, you can have the same or better standard of living in India, than here”. For me this statement has no meaning. I lived a happy life with a decent standard of living (for Mumbai) coming from a medium middle class family. I had basic things in life, no show-shine as they call it. So I know that I dont need a lot of money to be happy. If I want to live happily in a world, the world around me needs to be happy first. If I live in paradise, I know I will be happy. Paradise is any place of complete bliss and delight and peace – by definition. The place is made by the people who live in it. Unhappy, discontent people make for a unhappy place.

The thing that breaks my heart when I go back to India now is the plight of the street children. Poverty is not new in India, so why is it now that I have suddenly started noticing it even though I have been in an out of the country so many times before? Maybe because I am a mother now and my motherly emotions are stronger than ever. It breaks my heart to see children begging on the street, maimed and hungry, being abused, left to die even sometimes. I cant help but see that many of them are unwanted, mere byproducts of lust, or sometimes just a product to be made money from. I see them everywhere now, when I visit, their silent eyes screeming for a chance. I want to help them all, cure them of their suffering, give each of them a chance to make someone of themselves, being joy and smiles into their lives, give them a chance to become better individuals, show them the path to endless possibilities......it is just extremely overwhelming. A tornado unveils in my heart every time I see a street kid crying.
Can I really live in a place, where a day does not go by when I dont cry at night, because I feel helpless and angry?

There is no shortage of unfortunate godforsaken children in the United States either, but people have invested a lot of time and resources in efforts to make the situation better. You would not see kids hungry, abused and dying infront of you in day to day life. Thats is the reason it sticks out like a sore thumb when I come to India. People in India say, westerners only photograph poverty, naked street kids etc when they come to India. Just sit back and think carefully, what would you photograph if you went to a foreign place? You would photograph the things that you have never seen before and are completely out of the ordinary for you, right? So thats what they see and that is precisely what they photograph. The statement that there is more to India, than just poor people is cowardly at best. There are castles and temples and lots of wonderful things in other countries too, and its sad that the uniqueness of India lies in its Indifference.

I cannot cure my country from poverty, but I can atleast help a child get a better life. That would be doing my part and my duty to my country. I have now decided that my visits to India will not be vacations anymore, they will be missions, dedicated to helping kids. I am fortunate to have a family back in India who is already driven in this task and I will be more than happy to join them and help in any way I can.

So wait a minute, what conclusion does that bring to the eternal question of “To Return, or not to return”? The answer to that, looks like, is not easy. I can be happy and give my all and help only if I am mentally strong and emotionally stable. I can do that living here, in the US. If I return to India for good, I fear I will break. Handling emotionally draining situations is not easy for me. So for now I will stick to where I am, try to work on my passion in the best way I can and never forget that “...this is just another day for me in Paradise”. Another day in this Paradise, trying to create a Paradise for someone else.