Visit home

It is true. Absence makes the heart fonder. How beautiful Mumbai looked to me on my short visit home. Even ten minutes before landing, I kept staring out of the plane window, looking at the green hills, a meandering stream and the low clouds and remarking how different it all looked from Dubai- with its flat landscape and sand and torny bushes. Even the sight of the slums could not mar the scene for me. On landing, the cool, rainy weather, which was such a marked contrast from the 40 degree desert heat, felt so pleasant and bracing.

Even on the drive home, the trees lining the roads, looked green, inviting and somehow real, unlike the trees in Dubai, which, because of the lack of breeze to blow the leaves, or maybe because they are so clean, look somehow artificial. The reality of heavy traffic and bumpy roads soon set in, but did not diminish the love I felt for the city. Truly, if any place is home to me, it is Mumbai.

It was such a nice change to be able to step out of the house and get it into an auto to go anywhere, so nice to be able to walk down to the stationery and grocery stores. True, there is shit on the roads to be avoided and when it rains, it is not pleasant to think about the shit mixed with the floodwater that you are wading through. But love, love, love the mobility.

Also love the fact that culture is so accessible. I booked tickets for a play the very next day after my arrival. I would have normally booked the cheapest ones, at Rs 750, but now, with the comparison of the Dubai theatre ticket prices in my mind, I decided I could splurge and bought Rs 1000 tickets. I could buy four of these tickets for all the oldies I had come to visit, and still spend only as much as I would have for just one ticket in Dubai. Joy!

It was quiet and relaxing without the kids, but after a couple of days, the rain got to me. It did restrict my mobility to an extent, so I couldn't go out as much as I would have liked to and thus, got bored. I was more than ready to leave when my departure time came, in short three days. It sounded strange to think of going to Dubai as going 'home' but of course that's exactly the case now.

On coming back, I stopped to watch an episode of the News Hour on Times Now and was a bit taken aback to see that Indo-Pak relations had gone all sour following the Uri attack. The most patriotic Indian in the world, Arnab Goswami (who else?), had invited several Pakistani fellows for 'debate' and was tearing into them. The voices were shrill, loud and tempers were high. Clearly this was an attempt to whip up emotions. It seemed that Arab wanted war between India and Pakistan desperately and the only way he would quieten down would be if war was declared.

Ofcourse there was the usual hysteria by Shiv Sena and MNS in Mumbai about making Pakistani artistes leave India and about not having any cultural or social relations with Pakistan. After watching a lot of coverage to this tune, I started to worry a bit about my driver, Akhtar. He comes in side the house to sit, to avoid the hot sun. and the TV is usually on when he is around. I wonder how he would feel when he listens to all this venom. For that matter, I wonder, how do the people making these strident noises want all the Indian diaspora around the world to react? Would the MNS expect me, for example, to fire my Pakistani driver, as proof of being a patriotic Indian?

It's really ironic how India and Pakistan have poor diplomatic relations back home, while the world over, for most part, the Indian and Pakistani expats enjoy camaraderie on basis of shared culture and language. Maybe it's just me, but I've always felt so much more comfortable with people from Pakistan and Bangladesh while abroad, than with people of other nationalities. They look similar, talk the same language, eat the same food and love the same films and film stars. I remember back in Canada, when a Pakistani boy called me 'didi', I felt so happy. It was so nice to be called 'older sister' instead of by my name all the time. It is not a feeling a white person would understand, this facile creation of relations or bonds, where none exist, merely by addressing someone as a relative. the feeling of 'apnapan' can be so precious when you are in a strange land.

I would think that troubled times require more diplomacy and more track two diplomacy, rather than calls for blood, but maybe I am wrong. I always was politically naive. My naive take on shrill Indian jingoism is this: I have never understood the point of blood being shed and lives being lost, just to defend borders which men created, arbitrarily. I wonder if this would happen if women were in charge instead of men. Not because women are more peaceable creatures. But because, having gestated life for nine months, maybe they better appreciate the value of life, knowing how difficult it is to create and nurture it and therefore would be more discriminating of causes to expend it on.

I totally understand that not treating borders as sacred, makes sense only if everyone in the world thinks the same way. It is a utopian school of thought. and perhaps futile. But I can not change the way I feel. No matter how much I love my country. and I do love it. see the outpouring of love for Mumbai above.

I remember the lyrics written by Javed Akhtar for the song of the film refugee, which I think are so pertinent at this point- 'panchi, nadian, pavan ke jhoke, koi sarhad na inhe roke. Sarhad insaanon ke liye hai, socho tim ne aur maine, kya paaya, insaan ho ke?' Loosely translated- birds, rivers, breeze- no border stops these. Borders are for human beings. Just think, what did you and I gain by being human?'