A homecoming
By Navjyoti Dalal
What does a journey back home evoke? Is home truly where the hearth is? Or does it lie in our roots? Your columnist grappled with these questions on her recent trip to India, her native country. The answers revealed themselves at times in ways that were comical, at other times taking on a profound stance.
Around the time when migratory birds from Europe descend to India, for a winter less punishing, I found myself on a plane, following a similar trajectory. After having missed a few weddings in the family, I was summoned to show up at the next big event, which happened to be my first cousin's wedding.
Of course there were other areas (and cities) to cover as well, like visiting your in-laws, catching up with friends, meeting relatives you haven't seen in a decade, shopping at your favourite craft markets, satiating your desire for Indian food. But if there was a thought that guided me during this trip, it was to spend as much time as possible with the parents, even if it feels out-of-practice now.
Carpe Diem-ing With Parents
From food to language, to festivals, even movies and music concerts, an immigrant lives a constant FOMO. But the biggest missing out revolves around parents. Seeing many of our peers rushing to India to attend to ailing parents, or worse, their funeral, is a reminder of the borrowed time we're living on with our parents. Each visit back home reveals a new layer of age (and ageing) to them, leaving you feeling somewhat guilty of not being around.
Clearly, I was taken over by a desire to make up for lost time, and tea. I am multilingual when it comes to my love language(s), and tea is one of my primary ways to show affection. In the Delhi winter, tea became the choice of brew for my father and I. My mother joined in, minus the tea, for she prefers a cardamom-rich tea (little wonder that the spice ends in 'mom'); while I favour a ginger-tulsi-lemongrass beverage.
The charming teacups I bought as presents from Dunnes Stores listened in on the stories as my father traced our family tree for me. We managed to go back upto five generations, and I learned that my great-great-grandfather was a very noble and progressive man, with two very difficult wives.
Picture Perfect
One day, we landed on a mine of stories while going through the pictures of my parents' wedding album. My mother recounted her days as a new bride struggling for
One of the many perks of having your family scattered across cities is road trips. Our journey back from my in-laws to Delhi entailed a detour to Agra. This picture was taken outside the grand door of the Taj Mahal campus, grand enough to hide the Taj entirely. This was also the first time I felt like a tourist in my country.
faint-hearted, and I had always laughed at it, until this visit. Despite all my love for my country, I felt sensorially overwhelmed. The noise doesn't leave you. Roads are flooded with honking cars, at home an orchestra is conducted by the sounds of television, fans, people, calls of the vegetable and fruit vendors.
The noise doesn't rest even at night, it just changes tone. The dogs on the streets take over and begin discussions, often ending in disagreements reminiscent of spousal conflicts. Noise apart, air pollution enjoys a special attention during wintertime. As the temperatures plunge, so does the quality of air we breathe.
The masks come out, the cars keep in (as a result of a government order banning cars older than four years from plying Delhi's roads), and your lungs stay in a chokehold. What makes all of it, or any of it worthwhile is the tender sun, showing up almost everyday, to give people compatibility with her mom-inlaw.
My father shared the twists in the tale of their arranged marriage caused by a villainous relative, and a jealous neighbour. "I had a feeling, she is the one," he said, we awwwwed. Photo albums don't just carry memories, they hold within them a roadmap to home, but they are not home themselves. Your people are your home.
The Setting
Life in Ireland carries a mellow quality. There's a palpable softness -- in what you see, hear, feel and experience (except the winter). Such idyllic gentility might die of claustrophobia in India, perhaps that is why it is rarely found there. As I landed at the IGI Airport Delhi, I was already missing the mild manners of Ireland. From the salesaggressive duty-free attendants to porters, taxi drivers, even the pigeons outside, carried out an onslaught on my senses. They say India is not for the
Photo album time is an immersive family experience each time I visit home. Each session yields stories I haven’t yet heard about my parents’ wedding. In this picture, my parents as newly-weds.
I already knew how many plates of chhole-bhature (chickpea and fried bread), samosa, gol-gappe and tikki chaat (spicy street food items) I must consume before I returned home to Ireland. And I had ample amounts to last me another year or two, what I didn't anticipate was my love for fruit take over me the way it did. Guava is my most favourite fruit, favourite enough to evoke a poem titled 'I want a friend who brings me guavas'.
To my delight, guava season had just begun. My love for the guava fruit, and tree has root in nostalgia. It was the lone fruit tree we had in our small garden, which was later cut for reasons my mother knows best. I have since, nurtured a fervent desire to pick fruits from a guava tree.
One early evening we were headed to the temple. While my husband drove the car, I was looking out at trees in residential gardens. We were to make a quick pit stop outside the Agriculture Research College, where guavas from the college's orchard are sold by local sellers.
"Look at what we as humanity have done to ourselves, for a desire as simple as eating guavas, one has to find a guava seller, not the tree. We have created transactions for every yearning," I said to my husband and began to weep.
I was sobbing at the loss of land, and a lack of land ownership to grow my favourite fruit trees. In a few minutes we were outside the agriculture college. The seller didn't have fresh fruit, but promised me he'll pluck a new batch right then. I asked him if I could follow him to the orchard and pick a fruit or two. "You can pick them all if you want didi (sister)," he said.
I was gobsmacked, to say the least. I was on the way to the temple, but it was in the guava trees that god revealed himself to me. hope (especially those returned from Ireland). As you sit on your terraces and gardens shelling sweet peas, sipping chai, or munching on kinnows (a close cousin of the mandarin), the sun evens all the odds out, and you thank god that you have a home where the sun is ample and benevolent.
Euro Power
With a Euro equalling Rupees 91, one feels rather chuffed at the prospect of affordability (read shopping). But the change (in native currency) that comes with you in a jacket's pocket breaks many myths. I am looking at a few notes of cash which total 80 rupees and wondering.
If converted it is less than a Euro, but it can afford me more -- say, a full loaf of bread and a chocolate together, or a kilo and a half of tomatoes, or two kilos or more of potatoes (roughly a kilo of any vegetable), or four apples, or a litre of milk, or a cup of tea at a not-so-fancy tea stall with buns, or two cigarettes etc.
I wonder what would 90c fetch me in Ireland. I am not saying that India is cheap or inexpensive, that it is not by any measure. But India has a large spectrum of affordability when it comes to consumer goods. One can get a fancy boule of organic sourdough between Rs300 and Rs600, or a pashmina (cashmere) shawl from Rs8,000 to Rs1,80,000.
I found myself staring at the powerlessness of a Euro within Europe. While I may enjoy the conversion rate and the disposable income, it was not a very contenting feeling. I stood at the threshold of Euro and Rupee, not able to choose which is a better trade.
Food And Other Miracles
I had already compiled a mental food-list before I arrived in India. I already knew how many plates of chhole-bhature (chickpea and fried bread), samosa, gol-gappe and tikki chaat (spicy street food items) I must consume before I returned home to Ireland. And I had ample amounts to last me another year or two, what I didn't anticipate was my love for fruit take over me the way it did.
Guava is my most favourite fruit, favourite enough to evoke a poem titled 'I want a friend who brings me guavas'. To my delight, guava season had just begun. My love for the guava fruit, and tree has root in nostalgia.
It was the lone fruit tree we had in our small garden, which was later cut for reasons my mother knows best. I have since, nurtured a fervent desire to pick fruits from a guava tree. One early evening we were headed to the temple. While my husband drove the car, I was looking out at trees in residential gardens. We were to make a quick pit stop outside the Agriculture Research College, where guavas from the college's orchard are sold by local sellers.
"Look at what we as humanity have done to ourselves, for a desire as simple as eating guavas, one has to find a guava seller, not the tree. We have created transactions for every yearning," I said to my husband and began to weep. I was sobbing at the loss of land, and a lack of land ownership to grow my favourite fruit trees.
In a few minutes we were outside the agriculture college. The seller didn't have fresh fruit, but promised me he'll pluck a new batch right then. I asked him if I could follow him to the orchard and pick a fruit or two. "You can pick them all if you want didi (sister)," he said. I was gobsmacked, to say the least. I was on the way to the temple, but it was in the guava trees that god revealed himself to me.