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East or West, home is by far the best
GOPA BANERJEE
More than 40 years ago, my uncle migrated to the U.K. To us, then in middle school, he was our hero. We would regale friends, classmates and neighbours with tales of his adventures in London. The brightly coloured and chic designed clothes he bought for us used to be flashed and preened about. When he left behind pictures of his visits to other places in Europe, we would show them around with pride and much enthusiasm. The earliest memories of the pictures he had given us were of the Olympic Stadium in Helsinki and the city. I hardly knew where Helsinki was; but to me then it seemed like Paradise.
Twenty years later, my sister and her family migrated to the United States. Although I had my hands full with a new born baby, I always found time to hear the stories and escapades they encountered in the States and in their travels to Europe. We would listen wide-eyed to their stories of how they hired a car and travelled all over Europe – right from the Mediterranean regions in the south of France and Italy, Monaco and up to the Scandanivanian countries.
Temporary relocation
Circa 2006 — my husband was selected to represent India on behalf of his company as a part of the worldwide team for SAP implementation which meant we had to relocate temporarily to the U.K. for at least six months. Initially he resisted vehemently until his CEO convinced him that we would be back in India on completion of the project. So with much rumblings and reluctance, we boarded the flight to London in February 2007.
Initially, we simply loved it. England in spite of its unpredictable weather is still very beautiful. We soon settled into a swank brand new house in a plush modern gated complex in a pretty town just outside London and invited all our friends and relatives to visit us. With the prospect of home cooked food and a warm comfortable bed, we were never short of visitors and in fact had our calendar booked for a few months.
Then we started visiting the places we had always dreamed of but could not do from India — Paris, Barcelona, Rome, Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin and Switzerland. We saw plays in the famed West End theatres of London, visited the capital almost every week, gazed at the daffodils in Lake District. We had done everything when it dawned on us that besides each other we knew not a soul.
I have been living in this house for the last one year and haven’t met a single neighbour. In India if you live in a flat or a neighbourhood for a year or more you are bound to make friends with at least one or two families. Besides, office colleagues and their families form a major part of our social milieu in India. Out here office social networking is restricted strictly to office colleagues — both male and female — and entertainment is strictly in a pub or restaurant.
Strange feeling
It’s a strange feeling to be living in a place and not knowing a single person. Check up the Yellow Pages and get in touch with the Bengalis in your neighbourhood, advised my sister. But I get a dirty feeling that Asians who are living in the U.K. for a long time have picked up the habits of the Brits and are not as warm or friendly as they used to be (maybe it has something to do with the cold weather).
An Indian colleague of my husband lamented that he conversed for over half an hour with his Indian neighbour, outside his doorstep, but was not invited into his flat for a chat at a later date. And mind you this was a retired elderly couple.
Which sets me thinking — why should we now want to work in the West? With the plummeting of the dollar and the rise in Indian salaries and with the availability of everything in abundance in our country, why should we still hanker for working in the West? Twenty years ago, when things were different — our economy was a closed one — and salaries resembling peanuts, it made sense maybe to go to the West. Except for higher education and research facilities, there is absolutely nothing that the West can offer us today which we do not have.
So here we are — my husband and I — pining away for home and keeping our fingers crossed hoping to be sent back home soon. What if it’s hot, dirty, dusty, noisy, chaotic and crazy — it’s home after all, lively and full of life.
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