I returned from a month-long trip home on Thursday, and am still wading through the sleepy mist of jetlag and homesickness. The uncertainty of knee-jerk changes and choppy execution at work is so exactly as it was before I left on my 5 week vacation that I am for the first time comforted by the familiar absolute lack of stability. It isn't that I once more report to a new manager and belong to a new department (this has happened to me now 4 times in 3 years of employment - no big whoopie) - actually its not work at all that has me riding the waves and crests of my meandering mind. I find that rather than solidifying my beleifs that had emerged from long years of experience as a woman, a daughter and an Indian - this trip home has tossed out all my pre-conceived notions and put the onus of my decision-making process squarely on the shoulders of my own intellect. For all my posturing as an intelligent, largely self-sufficient, emancipated woman of the here and now -I find myself terrified without the crutches of culture, tradition and ritual to back me up or conveniently hold me back from decisions I didnt want to face. The time-tested scapegoat of duty and sacrifice have deserted me and I learn that I knew nothing of my own insecurities and strengths until those trappings had been stripped away. In the long hours of exhausted sleep this weekend, my sub-conscious mind only conjured up torturous and inventive scenarios of regret. Surely it is not a divine warning but only my simply mind that communicates using such unsophisticated signs and obvious symbols.
At this juncture in my life when I have been handed everything I had asked for, whined about, made a production of sacrificing - I have to grit my teeth against turning tail and running from the reality of my desires. Not only is its beauty terrible - but like the heart of roaring flame, or the savage crashing of ocean waves, it is also mesmerizing in its potential for destruction. I am not afraid that it will go away - I cannot imagine not being releived to be released from its strange hypnosis. What I am afraid of is that it will consume me and everyone I have always wanted to protect and spit out the bones of my mistakes. I feel prickly will my doubts sticking like needles into my loved ones' contentedness and hardwon peace of mind. I have not mastered the art of turning those needles inwards and never allowing the bruises to show - but I am learning to everyday.

I just started reading Jhumpa Lahiri's "Unaccustomed Earth" and before I started on it, I had made myself beleive that it was only "The Namesake" that was so immeasurably depressing. But I see now that it was perhaps her earlier work "The Interpreter of Maladies" that was relatively uncharacteristic. Don't get me wrong - her portrayal of the second generation Indian is accurate - perhaps too accurate to make for comfortable reading. And there are some works like that - intended to make you hot under the collar, intended to prod your conscience into perhaps inspiring a change - if atleast for the first few fired up moments before the inertia of convenience or habit forces things back to how they used to be. But in JL's book, I feel no such uplifting motive. Rather I feel resentment that she is offloading her underlying personal sense of guilt (the legacy of all second-generation Indians in America) on the readers by brutally honest insights into the minds of her main characters. I think she makes their flaws and weaknesses larger than life so that she (and her reader) can feel comforted that they are better by comparison. Note that this tirade is far from well-researched or backed by any fact - so if it turns out JL is a model daughter and was raised exclusively in India, and her uncanny insight into the minds of her American-born-or-raised characters is pure creative genius - then don't hurl brickbats at me. Regardless of the veracity of my resentment, I do think her first generation Indians are often plastic beings - infused with just enough life and thought to influence the story in the direction it needs to take. There is only strife in the differences, no glory, no growth, no revelation. And yet her title was chosen from words that extolled the virtues of transplanting generations onto new lands!
Perhaps this tirade is not so much against JL's storytelling that evokes all that is melancholy and challenging about being rooted in unaccustomed earth - because after all, it is her enormous talent that forces opinion and painful truths to the surface for her reader. Its perhaps resistance at being self-labelled along with some of her characters as self-centered, individualistic, lacking in true depth of emotion for anyone outside of the self and what is gratifying to the self in the fleeting present. It is perhaps denial that 40 years of marriage and family could've yeilded less true love for a couple than a fleeting summer romance with a stranger. It is perhaps guilt, that while not as abandoned as her characters, I too am nurturing neglect and shame wrapped in defensive individualism.

An old friend - once a very close friend - dropped me a line today that set me to thinking about my life - yesterday, today and tomorrow. It brought to mind many conundrums I have mulled over before like the nature versus nurture question, about what ingredients in a woman's personality drives her decision-making process.
I have always attributed my own choices to circumstance. Amma often says that feeling responsible for my family was only a convenient scapegoat for my own ambitions. Perhaps she is right to some extent - couldn't I have done my duty towards them without leaving India, without choosing to pursue years of expensive education, without claiming complete independence? I could have I suppose - but in my defense I was genuinely impatient to begin contributing. I didn't see myself as ever being more than a burden with an arts degree and some teaching job waiting for me that paid exactly as much as Amma was getting paid. I couldn't wait until a marriage Amma had financed came to fruition to explore opportunities for a lucrative career, for the possibility of earning in a currency that could convert into enough Rupees to wipe that perpetual look of worry on Amma's face. Besides - I was 19! Only the most grandiose schemes occur to one when one is 19! I would never have thought of a ladder where an elephant could take me to new heights. You know what I mean?
Whether it was selfish ambition or age and circumstance - where it took me was a life of perpetual challenges, uphill climbs and the constant struggle to stay afloat. I take pride in the fight it put in me - though when people talk about strife building character, I wonder if that is necessarily true in my case. I have not visibly improved much -but I have learned to curb an acid tongue and hair-trigger anger. Having many roomates who dont speak your language can help you do that. I am still irresponsible and do most hair-raisingly important things at the last minute - but now I have the resourcefullness to correct my own mistakes. Almost having to go home mid-way through your precious education because you forgot to fill out a form will do that. But in true qualities that define character - honesty, sacrifice, kindness, generosity, fairness, dependability, strength of mind - I do not beleive I have changed for the better. Rather - I am more ruthless in acheiving an end, more cautious in trusting others, more focused on protecting myself and my assets, less open with every thought and desire. I even feel less guilty when I prioritize myself or my need over someone else's - I am more easily convinced that after so many lonely hard years, I deserve to take care of myself.
Apparently flying without a safety net for many years enhances those qualities in me that sent me soaring off on my own in the first place. I must then conclude that circumstances have nurtured in me only that which my nature possessed in the first place - selfishness and ambition.

I just saw Jodhaa Akbar on one of those wonderful sites where you probably just handed over your identity to be stolen and your credit to be looted - but how well worth it for the free movies!
I loved the movie - not because I take Ashutosh Gowariker's romantic spin on the most renowned Mughal ruler and his still foggy relationship with a Rajput princess at his word. But because it was wonderful to suspend intellect for a while and not think about the books I'd read about Jodhaa actually being Akbar's daughter-in-law. I also firmly suppressed the niggling thought that Akbar had a harem full of many wives and concubies who would've shared his affections along with Jodhaa if she had indeed been his wife. Instead I chose to buy into the beautiful tale of true love and secularism that the movie told and I was well rewarded for it.
The story-telling was so comfortingly without bells and whistles, that it was refreshingly absorbing. The events unfolded like your grandmother would've told it to you right before you fell asleep. The love embellishments to the story satisfied even my romantic streak and it helps that the beauty of both Akbar and Jodhaa and the splendid palaces surpassed what even the most exacting imagination would've dreamed up.
Aishwarya captivated only with her beauty - her Rajput princess lacked the fire that would've enslaved a great Emperor. But Hrithik more than made up for her mask-like perfection by becoming, embodying, channelling Akbar. I will never think of that historical giant without seeing the actor's beautiful face. The movie shouldve been named Akbar Jodhaa - because it was Akbar who shone brightly troughout the movie. Every emotion - anger, arrogance, intrigue, desire,devotion - lived in Hrithik's acting so intensely that I quite forgot he is a flesh and blood man of today and not the mythical prince of fairy tales. I have not lost myself in a story so much in a long time.
Never fear - I have not turned into a self proclaimed film critic. I simply lack desi kindred spirits to bore with these thoughts :). Let me know what you thought of the movie too if you've seen it.
Have a wonderful weekend folks!