Of stones and apathy

In the movie 'Outsourced', this American guy who had lived in India for a while gives advice to the new guy who has just arrived there. "Don't fight India," he says. "Let it wash over you. It's the only way to live here."

In India if you don't let things wash over you, they will hit you. Like a stone thrown in your eye. Some days it may be a pellet, on others it may be a boulder. On yet others it could be a flower. But it's always something. That is India. Now if you find a way to do a little dodging dance when you see a stone coming at you, you might be able to avoid being hit some of the times, maybe even most of the times when you get real good at it. It's an art staying for the flower, bending down and avoiding the boulder.

I wasn't able to dodge very well when I first got there. The stones hit me square in the face but then so did the flowers which felt like caresses of soft breeze. My highs were high, my lows, pitifully low. How could people be this way? How could they affect me this way....enter my life on a daily basis and affect my day this way.

Good sweet people, callous people, rude, horrid people. Why was it that in India they were able to get to me in a way I can only describe as intrusive. Completely. My life became an open house. Depending on who entered my day and did what to or for me, I was happy or sad or miserable or livid or...........enter any human emotion in the blank space.

Everyday.

This is good, I thought at first. Good for me as a human being to be this close to humanity--all forms of it. I tried to help the people who needed it. Some appreciated it, many didn't cooperate, others wanted more and more.

I tried to stay neutral to the people and circumstances that affected me badly. Its not a problem, I tried telling myself if I was almost run over by that guy, if the man cheated me of money, if that woman tried to sell me bad product, if the experience through security at the mall was harrowing at best. It's a good exercise learning to cope. It's good for the kids to know that there are so many different types of people in the world.

It was hard to dodge the stones that rained when we stepped out of the Hyatt after a Sunday afternoon brunch only to be confronted by a beggar woman and her three month old tied close to her chest. It became difficult when mistrust became the first emotion I began to feel while dealing with any new tradesman.

I started becoming a stranger to myself when I saw how I made appointments with people for 10:30 am and didn't think twice before staying away until 11:00 am and not calling to cancel. I had been stood up by so many people, it was no big deal to do it back. Sorry, I'd say to them. You came at 10:30? Wow really! Ok. I had to buy some eggs. Oh well, I'll see you next time. And he'd say ok, next time it is.

I had started dodging. All that dodging started making me apathetic. Apathetic slowly to that around me which would have previously made me cry, things that would have previously made me want to take a stand, make a noise. I realized that dodging was giving me more peace. I was surviving. I was making do.

The bad thing though was my apathy began to run into callousness. I became someone I didn't recognize. Mistrust took over fully. Lowered expectations became the norm. That and a sever case of disinterest in anything but that which affected me.

I had let India wash over me. I was back. I had become the survivor in India--the person who knows what cards they are dealt and learns to play only with those. I began to not care how many cards other people had. Most had less. A lot less. Some had more, a lot more. I became self absorbed only in what happened to me and mine. Kept my cards close to my chest and made the best of the hand I had.

Then it began to dawn on me that this was how I would now live forever. It was a choice I had made with much deliberation. I had persuaded my husband that it was the right choice. And now I was seeing him change too. He expected nothing and so when little he got he was happy with it. Fewer stones had to be dodged because he was already an expert at the dance. That and he stayed as cut off from society as he could.

What was pathetic was how much the few altruistic things I did made people gush on about what good people we were. If we were such good people, what did that make the rest?

Its not that people in the rest of the world are any better or worse than in India. In India as I'm sure in many other countries, various conditions of humanity are always close, always at the doorstep. You cannot glance in any direction without seeing the human condition up close and personal--be it ultra decadence or marked wretchedness. Its all there within arm's reach, sometimes closer. You can smell it, taste it, be in it. Its virtual reality extreme.

And all of it was changing me as a person. Not having lived most of my life in these typical Indian surroundings and later living in the US for fourteen years, I had thought I had lost touch with humanity, with my heritage, my people.

I wanted my boys to have a life where they could truly understand the world, truly be in touch with the human condition. And now I had it. My boys were thriving. The family--extended anyway was happy to have us back. Grandparents loved having the kids around. There were wonderful moments of joy.

But forever, I told myself is a very long time.

I came back to India for my family. If we went back to the US, away from this life in India, it would be for me.

I didn't want to change anymore. I wanted to be able to cry at the sight of a skinny, stray puppy. I wanted to feel a lump in my throat and feel the need to make a difference at the sight of a starving child. I wanted the soppy, un-cynical me back. The naive, trusting, foolish dreamer. The spoilt brat too, if one must call a spade a spade. I wanted all that back.

And so we returned. To Chicago. To the place we had once called home.

This may or may not be home. I'm not sure. I'm still torn. I miss the touch of all those human conditions sometimes. I miss India. Perhaps I miss an India I have created in my mind, an India that does not exist. Perhaps I am a big fool.

And so, I am not sure where is home or if there even is such a place for me in this world. But I plan to keep looking.