Swish! And lets start all over.

Wouldn't a lot of people like to do that! Just start life all over again with a clean slate. Immigrants find themselves forced to leave behind everything and everybody they've known. A lot of them don't like having to leave behind what is probably all of their childhood and (most or all of their) adolescence. Leaving behind all their family and friends. But some of them actually immigrate because they want to cut all ties and literally start afresh. Isn't it like a new lease of life? To start where people have no prejudgments about who you are? Where you might find that you find that you, who were an outsider in your own country, fit in well in this alien land (and its not so alien culture). Where you find that you wouldn't be considered elitist, but your ideas and tastes belong with the masses. Wouldn't that even change your self image?

If you live there long enough, you'd find that you have changed so much that you can't be recognized by your old friends. So when you move, sooner or later, you will have to break most of your old ties. Unless you keep in touch with people constantly, the small changes that creep in over the years transform you so much that you won't be recognizable after a few years. Think that is one of the reasons that immigrants who want to continue ties keep coming back every year or two.

If you don't want to even be reminded of who you were - or have changed so much that you no longer identify even slightly with wo you were - would you still want to go back? Wouldn't home be where you are now rather than that place that you've left behind!

Talked to this friend of mine (who btw is and was always a real ubergeek, unlike me) who belongs to the first class of immigrants - the sort who comes back home periodically to refresh memories of the homeland and refresh the homeland (or those there who have ties to him) of himself. He keeps pining away for India and his memories are distinctly colored. He recalls himself being happy with his set of friends and a social life of sorts. But I really wonder whether we can trust our memories of times that have gone by. My own recollection of his time in college didn't mirror his. We had both been total misfits and quite unpopular - or not popular anyway (I didn't care while he did). Back then, he wanted to get away from India as fast as possible. And now! Ever since he's gone there he's become more Indian than Indian. Isn't that how it is always? When you are afraid of losing something (like ties to your homeland) you cling on to what you can of memories of it. Funnily enough, if he ever does come back, he'd probably be very disappointed because nothing would quite be the way he remembers it to be - not the people or the places. And India right now is a place that is changing very rapidly. 1995 seems like half a lifetime ago (and for me it actually is close to that) with little internet access, no cellphones, just a handful of cable channels, limited access to most 'foreign' goods, and when shopping would definitely have been considered a chore - instead of the weekend outing that people have now made it out to be! Think that I'm rambling as usual ;-)

ubergeek, the