Saturday 13 October 2012

The Visit to the Motherland

Warning: This is very brown post..You may be very confused by all the cultural and language references if you choose to read on.

Ahh, so here we are going to Vicky's weeding in the middle of punjab at some small hick town - Hosiarpur. It still eludes me why one goes to Hosiarpur to get married. As with any trip, the first should be highlighting the dreadful  flight to that location.

So I left with the lil sister, ahh the flight to the from Calgary to London was fantastic, but the flight from London to Delhi..omg..what a painful process. All the Indians have absolutely no concept of lining up...they are pushing and shoving trying to get on the plane ...its a plane...we get there at the same time, and wait for our luggage at the same time too. I just did not understand. Then luck would have it, a annoying little girl finds her seat right behind me...and omg...the chair kicking, the jumping. and the crying. The best part was when her mother got mad at me for having my chair too far back. Then, when I decided to ignore that request, her grandmother called the air hostess to complain about my seat. I confused air hostess just gave her best shot to explain to the uneducated idiots the process of flying. Don't get me wrong I understood your kid had less room, but your kid is 3 feet tall, and but I am 6..and so was the guy in front of me. Anyways, the plane did finally land.

So,  8hrs from London to Delhi, 5 hours at Heathrow without WiFi, and 8 hours from london to Delhi, and then 10hours from Delhi to location of ladies sangeet, 2 minute shower upon arrival..and then we are off...only to find no air-conditioning working at hall. We still danced the night away..had a blast..till bed time. We were so restless that we couldn't really sleep, and the most disgusting toilet I have ever see was available, along with mattresses with the original plastic still on them, which made that beautiful sounds that doesn't let people sleep!!

We have three days before we the wedding so we went to Ludiyana to go see Puneet bhaiya, he came and got us. I love Puneet bhaiya, since we left india, we made more of an effort to be part of our life than anyone else there. Now, he was a changed man as marriage and a child does that to the best of us. But I have to say Bhabi was wonderful, and it was an absolute pleasure meeting her, and Bhavik (their baby) was also just soo adorable is soo many ways! Loves to make a mess that one. That was prolly the better part of the trip, I just genuinely had a great time with Bhaiya, and as far as extended family goes, there is real love there, and going back, it really made me realize the value of that, especially I don't feel like me and Sheetal get a lot of that on our dad's side.



Bhaiya, Bhavik, Sheetal and Sam

Thats my adorable nephew taking me for a drive


And the wedding itself was a blast aside from India's infamous 10+ blackout happened that time. I am glad I was part of it, inspite of the heat...meet some great people there I want to be in touch with for a very long time, Roshaip was a blast. The the atmosphere was great. There were some some shanagans with Sonu, and we were all having fun...he even went ape shit on a waiter and a glass... Does all this sober too, what a guy.



As the wedding concluded, me and Sheetal headed of to our Nanke ( mom's side of the family). And the conversation here..."so why are you not married, when are you getting married" and I was like in disbelief on how long it takes to move to another conversation topic, and often times I would just fail to get to that topic. I felt very distant from my aunts and uncles, because it was tough to relate to them on an intellectual level, but my cousins who I still pictured as kids had all grown up, were now adults.  But there were also kids around the house going through a cultural change.  India's been move progressive than the Indo-Canadians here...mostly because I think they don't feel like their cultural identity is threatened by an external force. Either way it was great to see them, most time in Ferozpur we were terribly sick, Mosi came to to visit, but 3 days after and only a few hours. My sister like cousin, Eku hasn't changed one bit, still mostly whipped by her crazy mother (my crazy Mosi).

Eku, Sheetal, Me, Anan and Vasu


Me and my Nani even had a fight because me and Sheetal choose not to go to Muskar, where my Dad's two sisters who are the worlds biggest drama queens live. We haven't spoken since we left India, and apparently it was big deal that we didn't come and didn't want to visit them. I don't understand why they think they have a relationship with us. I went to see Puneet Bhaiya (who is in a similar relationship), but thats not because we are blood related, Puneet Bhaiya took a lot of time and effort to keep in touch while we where here, and we really wanted to go back and visit him. This idea of family being family cause of blood is something I don't agree with, its not some thing my Grandpa (who was the greatest man I have known) would have wanted. He was a strong believer in cutting crap people out of your life, and I like to think I'd do the same. It was funny too see how when we didn't care about a relationship, someone on the end could. In Truth - they didn't, and they just wanted drama.


 My 14 year cousin, Vasu, playing the field..in a village in India..something I thought I would never see in India lol.  I felt all the kids had lost that part of the language where you address someone with respect...and I feel like it is not healthy for the language..as one of my all time grievances with English has been that it is a rude language and it is tough for me watching Hindi become that.

There is something special about the youth of India. Anyone who wants to develop and work to make a better tomorrow for themselves and views progress as a collective effort of society leaves India or wants to leave India. In India, I felt mostly the youth want the corrupt culture, and they want to be able to profit from it, and considering the existing coverage it is hard for me to look back and blame them as honest life in India will leave you pennyless. It is in every way Gandhi's broken dream, instead of the corrupt British ruling Indians 60 years ago, its just the top 0.01%'s absolute rule. And because there is so much growth at the current time, and everyone's standard of living is rising (slowly), the population doesn't feel the need for a revolution.  My cousin's have grown up very relatable and very intellectual and I hope for the best of them, whether it's in India or somewhere else, ideally somewhere else and hopefully those opportunities will exist for them, and I'll be in a position to help them in the future!


A week in Ferozpur was great, we took Anam and Eku back to the capital city. We also had a chance to see our other Mosi, with her baby boy. I have never seen a baby love butter so much, but then we consider the circumstances he came into the world and it all makes a lot of sense.  I was also very impressed with Charu's english, defiantly the best I'd seen in Punjab, and second best I'd seen in India.

Then we were in Delhi, and God said, "let there be WiFi and electricity". Delhi was completely a new place from what we remembered it to be. All the building are bigger, no houses are the same, the traffic moves, and the people are..well the people were mostly the same.  We arrived at Rekha Didi's home, and stayed there till the very end. Anjil Jiju was doing great, he was the one person in India I could relate to the best. I really felt like he had a very holistic view of the world, and very fresh progressive thinking. I didn't find that even in the youth of India, but I saw it in Anjil Jiju, and that was nice.

Here we saw more people than we planned to when we originally arrived, but for the few hours it took, it was defiantly nice. We finally got a chance to see the downstairs crowd in the house we lived in when we were young, all the Didi's were doing well. We walked around the neighbourhood, and checked out all the shops we use to go to, and it because it was raining--ohh it brought back memories. Childhood is such a precious time, even if its spent in India. That rain, that smell, those neighbours, and those people - they bring out something which can't be described in words. We saw Gudiya - who was the only intellectual I met in India and her brother Montu.  We also went to Tanu's work, honestly, all the shit I say about India, Tanu will be my anchor which will keep making me go back to that hellhole. Sahil and his newly discovered poetry was out of this world. At this point my complaining about how the system was so broken, and frustration around how no one wants to fix it was driving the people around me insane.  And far as touristy things go, we went to India Gate - which was ideal...I don't think we'd want to go any further!!

We went to India to go bowling lol, its taking the country by storm.


Also the last day we were in Delhi, I got a chance to meet up with my closest childhood friends Ankit, Isha, Vipul and Aki, except we missed an opportunity to meet Sameer.

Vipul, me and Ankit

The whole gang

My oldest Childhood Friend

Vipul, Isha, and me


The time spent in Delhi was nice, but by the time it was all done - Me and Sheetal were excited to return to our regular lives, we went through the whole bullshit at Heathrow again. Sheetal's flight was delayed by a few hours too. Overall the trip, we didn't do any touristy things and we didn't want to. We went there to reconnect with family and friends, family and friends that we value.  If I look at the trip for what I wanted out of this, I got exactly what I wanted and  I am happy. I would've been nicer if I didn't get sick or solve the solution to all the India's problem...but both of those things are out of my control for now. Was it worth the money spent? - Not at all. Would I do it all over again..hmmm..not for a while, a very long while.

I also really missed India when I got back, and realized I had to cook to feed myself. I didn't realize that I hadn't been in a kitchen for the last three weeks.





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