After India, everything's easy

Thanks to Gaurav Gandhi for forwarding this article on alumni_dit:
After India, everything's easy
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Columnists/Chidanand_Rajghatta/INDIASPORA/After_India_everythings_easy/articleshow/3110265.cms#write

To quote from the article:

"Most feelings for India among immigrants seem driven by extremes of nostalgia or nitpicking. They tend to either romanticise or demonise India, forgetting that there are advantages to life both in India and outside — depending on how you approach it. The karmic, roll-with-the-punches, cup-half-full, theory is that there are pluses in both places."

The above is so so true. It is applicable to me as well. I could relate to the story in 100s of levels.
The author, Chidanand Rajghatta, has written just what has been on my mind for so many days.

2 cents from my side: In California, there is a train service called VTA. It covers about 50 stations and it runs very slowly. To give you an idea, how slow it is, there is alternate train called Caltrain which covers the same pairs of station in 20 minutes where VTA takes more than an hr.
And people curse VTA, and literally curse it. Jokes like walking is faster than VTA and many of better quality can be heard. Now, the speed of VTA and the number of stations it covers is very very similar to metro in Delhi. There is a stop after every 2 mins in Delhi metro and same is true for VTA. While Delhi metro is hailed as the biggest development in Delhi in the past decade (and indeed it is, if you ask me), VTA gets a low-caste treatment here. Ofcourse the context surrounding both, the alternative transports available etc affects but if we look the two train services independent.

Another point that i have observed is the way we (or some of us) are unable to bear the cultural differences. A common example seen pointed to me by many would be two people passionately kissing each other in public. What can be a mere expression of love to them, for us it becomes a matter of public obscenity. And there are hundreds of other examples. I do not want to say that we are not open, we do have made significant progress in appreciating their culture and try to live alongside but still we all have a limit. And here i am talking about people who belong to my generation, i wonder what cultural shock it would be for people a generation earlier.

I often wonder about the life of a person(fictitious, probably a sikh) who was born in 1930 in Pakistan. He must be 17 years old when partition happened and he had to move to India, 50 years old when 84 riots happened and then at 60, his sons decided to settle in US/Canada and he ws forced to abandon his Indian land, relationships etc, come here and start life over again. I would like to hear his thoughts on all this, how he took it and most importantly, what advice he would have for us.

Finally,
it is like watching hazarron khwaishein aisi(HKA), or listening to indian classical music or eating authentic kolkotta rasgulla or reading Ghalib. Many of my friends have liked HKA but if you ask them what you like about it (a) everyone has his own explanation (b) No one can define it properly. Its the abstract, the idea, the visual image one develops in mind, that gives that joy, the aha moment!, the wah wah. Well that is India to me. Like ghalib's poetry. I will never fully comprehend, may stop reading for some time but after some gap, it draws me. US has lots of things that are very good, but all can be defined. There is comfort leading to pleasure. And it is not at all wrong to live here. It is a person's independent decision and should be respected. Enjoying one's own life is not a crime anywhere. Those who criticise about brain drain, about people betraying their motherland should try to live without maids, without free labour and then speak. We all crave for comforts (materialistic comforts) and it is not at all bad. If someone has decided to settle in anyplace on Earth for whatever reasons he feels apropriate, if it makes him happy, it should be respected. You may not like the reason, i may not like the reason, the reason itself may be wrong but in all cases it should be respected.

[Addendum]
Arey humare yahan toh rawan ki bhi pooja hoti hai, ram ne bhi rawan ke saamne haath jode the.

And finally, finally, as some scholar said "India is a land of spiritual fools". To him my answer would be the way Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind says it - So what, its okay. Its okay.