Home Sweet Home

Mammo was on the Air India (AI 343) , enroute to mumbai. It was one of his trips to India, his annual pilgrimage. 400 odd people crammed into a flying enclosure, non-stop for 12 hours, this was bound to be deadly, combustible stuff. Around him, others - beautiful airhostesses with their curt work-like namastes, students like him typing away on their laptops appearing to be seriously researching but secretly wishing the hostesses were taking notice, business men wearing swatches refusing to part with their cellphones, saree clad ladies wanting to go to the toilet because they had to and not because the flight was taking off, and the odd child crying wanting the window seat and not the isle. This was it, it was feeling like home, his niche.

The air hostess was now on her route serving beverages and peanuts. The businessman next to Mammo, (say Mr. Kaul) asked for tea. Sipping it Mr. Kaul immediately yelled out expletives and cried out to the hostess condescendingly , "Hello madam! you call this chai ? (Indian tea) . It tastes like hot water. It is worse than the tea on the Indian trains". The airhostess was not one to back away, she landed a killer blow of her own -- "What sir? aapne chai maanga, ghar pe biwi ke haath ka chai nahi miltha.". (You asked for tea, not tea made by your wife!).
Just then the intercomm went, "Welcome aboard Air India AI 343 to Mumbai. The flight duration is ... ".

Yes finally! mammo thought Home Sweet Home.

To evocate further eloquently,

.... And yet
Day after day
Gleam after gleam
And year after every scathing light year
We claim our advancement
To ourselves
And gleefully toot our horn
With trumpets of loud, chuckling misery
Man, indeed, is a wondrous animal
He feels hope

By being hopeless...

-Sandeep & Percer's Anthology

Cat on the Wall

Birds of a feather flock together. Mammo lived in this huge apartment, populated by indians, mostly. It was indeed a true microcosm of india's diverse culture. Almost all the states had representations on the post box boards on floor 1. Reddy garu, Jaspal singh, Gupta bhayya, tamil arasan, Mallu mon, Marathi kar, everyone. He felt at home, once inside the apartment complex.

Anyways, a few days passed by. One evening, waiting for a college shuttle outside his complex. He ran into Dave from his lab outside. Since, the comfort zone between the two was still not attained, the conversation was entirely confined to level of "elevator talks". It became worse when Mammo answered to Dave's question, if Charles(another freshie labmate) also lived in the same apartment? He replied "No. there are no foreigners here!". Ouch! a lower lip was bitten and the customary speech of explaining india's varied diversity ensued. Mainly damage control talk, from a stranger in a strange land.

A few months rolled by and he had finished an year of graduate schooling by now. He was now finally going to india for his vacation. One month at home, sweet home.

Strangely enough, he was now questioning the calories in his mom's mysore pak, prepared to celebrate his arrival. On the streets, his father would relentlessly honk his Santro, at a pedestrian just about to cross the street and he would chide his father, saying in the US no one honked and educated him on noise pollution. One fine day, given the bumpy roads and the ecstatic driving by his father, the Santro had a flat tyre. While returning by the public transport bus, from the garage, the bus was crowded to the hilt. Mammo was in the bustle too, jostling and thinking of the sweat and the smell etc. The conductor slowly made his way through the bus collecting tickets etc. and finally it was mammo's turn to pay up. Mammo replied "Yeah! one to Jubilee Hills" in his now accented put-on english. The conductor retorted back saying - "Call center kya?". Sudden realization - he felt naked.

A hypocrite! that was what he was. A cat on the wall. He had gone abroad to be educated. Enlightened, he would be in his homeland though.