Identity can lie in the oddest things - like craving for a spicy potato bun when all you can get is a salty bagel. For generations, the Indian diaspora has battled with the idea of leaving behind a country, a home and an identity as they set off in search of the Great Indian Dream - a job in America, a house in a suburb there and a Green Card. Today, NRIs struggling to make a living in the West look towards India, wondering whether joint families are really as bad as they seem and if the cow and elephant jokes that made them so popular with their American friends are really as funny as they thought.
Shoba Narayan’s latest book, Return to India, talks about the many conundrums of the Indian diaspora, of having many houses and no place to call home. “The book is about culture and identity, it is about returning to one’s roots, understanding what is important and how you want to make it happen”, said Ms Narayan.
“My family and I gave up a comfortable life in New York to come to Bengaluru”, she says. ‘Return to India’ is a highly personal account, dealing with the many tribulations of adapting to a foreign culture and being plagued by self doubt and one’s own ways of doing things. “We came here five years ago and it took us two years to settle down and make friends, which is the most important thing when you are getting used to a new home”.
For those accustomed to the easygoing ways of an Indian household, where hospitality is a way of life and friends can come and go as they please, the cold formality of life in the West can come as a shock. “In India, relationships are rich, people knock on your door when they feel like it and time is elastic. The West was very lonely, you have to have an appointment even to see a friend”.
That geographical distance is a measure of cultural differences is a point Ms Narayan explores in her book, as she recalls her journey to America, her life there and her eventual decision to come back home. The book opens with an 18-year-old Narayan rebelling against the joint family system and the cultural constraints of growing up in India, of being bombarded with opinions and surrounded by judging eyes. “I wanted to run away from all those voices - and I did, as an undergraduate. America was wonderful for a new student. But gradually, I found my friends were not what they used to be, they just did not belong anywhere anymore”, she explained.
The initial stirrings of discomfort soon grew into disturbing pangs, as Ms Shoba and her family prepared to take a decision that would shock most Indians – to give up on the Great American Dream and come home instead.