Its pretty iconic, if you think about it.
I managed to avoid it for about four and a half years and finally, I had to leave India for the first time on a 15th August, at midnight!!!
It was only for two weeks, and a lot of my friends didn’t even realize that I was gone.
But trust me, I did.
I always thought it would be terrible for me to go and stay outside India for even a few days, let alone leaving back my bitter half. But, I imagined nothing nearly painful as the actual case. I discovered this intense sense of belonging in me for this country and all the people who made me call it mine.
It was like razor scraping the heart since the moment I boarded the gigantic A300-460 to Frankfurt, and was there till I landed in Kolkata after two weeks.
Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not what you would call “patriotic “. In fact, I’m pretty westernized in some ways. But strangely, no matter how much I love my paycheque which owes its obesity to the USD-INR conversion rate, it was a horrible experience being in the land of it. In fact, I don’t know if I can really define this sense of belonging to my country. Thankfully, I’m not here to do it.
But, perhaps this would help you to understand why this post is what it is about.
Actually, the thing that struck me most during this trip is not something we typically associate with the “U.S of A”.
The beggars.
Well, maybe that’s not the best word to refer to them. I should rather say….. homeless. That is what they call themselves at least.
Now, I am from a country where, if population is considered an iceberg, the part above poverty line represents the seagull sitting on the tip of it. (This metaphor is even more appropriate since this part frequently aspires to fly to another iceberg.)
Anyways, what I’m trying to say is that beggars and homeless are almost as normal as air in the streets of my city. I feel sympathy for them, wonder how someone can live between so much stink, but I have a fixed demarcation in my mind that I, armed with all my education, culture, an assured roof and two square meals a day, belong to a separate world.
But this…… was different.
Well, for one thing, there is the appearance. Beggars in our country simply personifies pain. Most of them has at most a filthy rag wrapped near the waist, irrespective of seasons….and sex. They don’t seem to have any flesh. It seems that someone has wrapped their skeleton so tightly with the skin, that they can’t even breathe. More often than not, they have some ghastly and miserable wound on their hand or leg which flies buzz around. But probably, the thing most miserable about them is the expression on their faces. They just open their mouth a little and stares at you. Saliva keeps dripping down the cheeks, and the stare is just……. Blank. It has nothing in it – not hope, not misery, not even an expectation for alms. They just wear a very deep, very elemental sorrow. Its too deep to name, or even look at. You just want to drop what you can in the bowl in front and run away. I have been told countless times that they are professionals and all these are fake. But, I would not like to know what someone has to go through to be able to fake that stare. You may hate me for presenting the ugly side of my country so crudely…. but believe me, I know no other way.
As for the other side, I’ll share an experience. On my first day there, I was coming back from the office. The dusk had already set in. The footpaths are pretty empty at that time, except for the weekends. I was walking with my eyes on the footpath, wondering how spotlessly clean it was. Suddenly, at a crossing, a voice caught my ear. It was a meek, musical voice. It wasn’t loud, yet crystal clear over the sound of the early evening traffic. It said “Would you help a poor homeless lady with a quarter?” I turned, not knowing what to expect. And I saw an old woman, looking exactly like my grandmother, with soft brown eyes, wearing an old overcoat and scarf, with a hat in her hand for the quarters. It took me a few moments to convince myself that this woman was, really begging for alms. She seemed so much like…..me.
Poverty from the poor is depressing because it is expected.
Its coming from you is what makes it scary.
Now, you are probably asking me, how on earth did I identify myself, or rather my social standing with that woman? Well, the answer is tricky. Firstly, I guess my country had put in me something apart from what I know as poverty. Something that has been flowing through her veins for 200 years of colonial rule. Someone speaking good English with a flawless accent is necessarily sophisticated and should be respected, not pitied. We do not realize this probably, but it is very much there. At least, in my case it was. It was difficult for me to take the fact that a person who could write on a cardboard sign – “TERRIBLY HUNGRY. ANYTHING HELPS” can really mean it. I know it sounds weird and it took me a lot of thinking to come to this conclusion, but it is true.
But even with that, this shouldn’t have come as such a shock. After all, I’ve seen this scene quite a lot of times in American films or read about it in stories. Still, what I felt there brings us to the insecurity I was talking about earlier. It was true that I had a comfortable hotel room with a soft bed and warm bath waiting for me in San Diego, it was true that that night I was going to have a seven course dinner at an exotic seafood joint on the Californian bay with my team in the seminar and it was true that my wallet had an international corporate credit card with a quite fat credit limit. But, the trouble was, there was always a sort of sinking feeling, a queer sensation that this can, at any moment slip away under my feet and then, I shall have nothing. Nothing at all.
Don’t ask me what causes this sensation, I can’t tell you. Its just an underlying sense of helplessness that’s there.
Back home, my bed may not be as soft, the roads may be littered every inch with garbage and the houses may not be as proud and elegant, but they have a way of making me feel they are alive. The ground seems solid, where I can stand, which would be there if I fall down, and everything else leaves me. It is this sense of belonging that makes my country my home, my cocoon, my recluse, whatever you call it.
What I’m driving at is that, I felt that both that woman and me, had this in common, - Neither of us could call anything in the country truly ours, neither had the sense of security to belong there.
Anyways, I guess I am being too emotional. Perhaps its just my way of making a big deal about my first trip abroad.
But I learnt this there. To me, patriotism is not about loving my country. Its just about the assurance that SHE loves me. Its not a question of being proud at all, its about being content. I am basically being very self centred when I say I love my own country more than ever.
Its just because it shall always be the only country I can call my own.
I managed to avoid it for about four and a half years and finally, I had to leave India for the first time on a 15th August, at midnight!!!
It was only for two weeks, and a lot of my friends didn’t even realize that I was gone.
But trust me, I did.
I always thought it would be terrible for me to go and stay outside India for even a few days, let alone leaving back my bitter half. But, I imagined nothing nearly painful as the actual case. I discovered this intense sense of belonging in me for this country and all the people who made me call it mine.
It was like razor scraping the heart since the moment I boarded the gigantic A300-460 to Frankfurt, and was there till I landed in Kolkata after two weeks.
Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not what you would call “patriotic “. In fact, I’m pretty westernized in some ways. But strangely, no matter how much I love my paycheque which owes its obesity to the USD-INR conversion rate, it was a horrible experience being in the land of it. In fact, I don’t know if I can really define this sense of belonging to my country. Thankfully, I’m not here to do it.
But, perhaps this would help you to understand why this post is what it is about.
Actually, the thing that struck me most during this trip is not something we typically associate with the “U.S of A”.
The beggars.
Well, maybe that’s not the best word to refer to them. I should rather say….. homeless. That is what they call themselves at least.
Now, I am from a country where, if population is considered an iceberg, the part above poverty line represents the seagull sitting on the tip of it. (This metaphor is even more appropriate since this part frequently aspires to fly to another iceberg.)
Anyways, what I’m trying to say is that beggars and homeless are almost as normal as air in the streets of my city. I feel sympathy for them, wonder how someone can live between so much stink, but I have a fixed demarcation in my mind that I, armed with all my education, culture, an assured roof and two square meals a day, belong to a separate world.
But this…… was different.
Well, for one thing, there is the appearance. Beggars in our country simply personifies pain. Most of them has at most a filthy rag wrapped near the waist, irrespective of seasons….and sex. They don’t seem to have any flesh. It seems that someone has wrapped their skeleton so tightly with the skin, that they can’t even breathe. More often than not, they have some ghastly and miserable wound on their hand or leg which flies buzz around. But probably, the thing most miserable about them is the expression on their faces. They just open their mouth a little and stares at you. Saliva keeps dripping down the cheeks, and the stare is just……. Blank. It has nothing in it – not hope, not misery, not even an expectation for alms. They just wear a very deep, very elemental sorrow. Its too deep to name, or even look at. You just want to drop what you can in the bowl in front and run away. I have been told countless times that they are professionals and all these are fake. But, I would not like to know what someone has to go through to be able to fake that stare. You may hate me for presenting the ugly side of my country so crudely…. but believe me, I know no other way.
As for the other side, I’ll share an experience. On my first day there, I was coming back from the office. The dusk had already set in. The footpaths are pretty empty at that time, except for the weekends. I was walking with my eyes on the footpath, wondering how spotlessly clean it was. Suddenly, at a crossing, a voice caught my ear. It was a meek, musical voice. It wasn’t loud, yet crystal clear over the sound of the early evening traffic. It said “Would you help a poor homeless lady with a quarter?” I turned, not knowing what to expect. And I saw an old woman, looking exactly like my grandmother, with soft brown eyes, wearing an old overcoat and scarf, with a hat in her hand for the quarters. It took me a few moments to convince myself that this woman was, really begging for alms. She seemed so much like…..me.
Poverty from the poor is depressing because it is expected.
Its coming from you is what makes it scary.
Now, you are probably asking me, how on earth did I identify myself, or rather my social standing with that woman? Well, the answer is tricky. Firstly, I guess my country had put in me something apart from what I know as poverty. Something that has been flowing through her veins for 200 years of colonial rule. Someone speaking good English with a flawless accent is necessarily sophisticated and should be respected, not pitied. We do not realize this probably, but it is very much there. At least, in my case it was. It was difficult for me to take the fact that a person who could write on a cardboard sign – “TERRIBLY HUNGRY. ANYTHING HELPS” can really mean it. I know it sounds weird and it took me a lot of thinking to come to this conclusion, but it is true.
But even with that, this shouldn’t have come as such a shock. After all, I’ve seen this scene quite a lot of times in American films or read about it in stories. Still, what I felt there brings us to the insecurity I was talking about earlier. It was true that I had a comfortable hotel room with a soft bed and warm bath waiting for me in San Diego, it was true that that night I was going to have a seven course dinner at an exotic seafood joint on the Californian bay with my team in the seminar and it was true that my wallet had an international corporate credit card with a quite fat credit limit. But, the trouble was, there was always a sort of sinking feeling, a queer sensation that this can, at any moment slip away under my feet and then, I shall have nothing. Nothing at all.
Don’t ask me what causes this sensation, I can’t tell you. Its just an underlying sense of helplessness that’s there.
Back home, my bed may not be as soft, the roads may be littered every inch with garbage and the houses may not be as proud and elegant, but they have a way of making me feel they are alive. The ground seems solid, where I can stand, which would be there if I fall down, and everything else leaves me. It is this sense of belonging that makes my country my home, my cocoon, my recluse, whatever you call it.
What I’m driving at is that, I felt that both that woman and me, had this in common, - Neither of us could call anything in the country truly ours, neither had the sense of security to belong there.
Anyways, I guess I am being too emotional. Perhaps its just my way of making a big deal about my first trip abroad.
But I learnt this there. To me, patriotism is not about loving my country. Its just about the assurance that SHE loves me. Its not a question of being proud at all, its about being content. I am basically being very self centred when I say I love my own country more than ever.
Its just because it shall always be the only country I can call my own.
3 comments:
But at least you had some place to run to, some place to go back to. Theirs have been shattered for a long time now.
I agree... perhaps, that's one more reason to be scared...
Good one :)
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