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| One of the first pictures from last August. Berkeley, California, Circa: 2014. |
In four short days I will be a year old in the U.S of A. Like any other almost-one year olds, I have grown multi-folds and picked up things and skills and what not to advance exponentially in every aspect.
When I was born here, in the melting pot of the-obese, the-ignorant, the coke-heads, the-hardworking, the-optimists, the-generous, the-confused and most importantly the-determined from all over the world, I remember taking a few days to acclimatize myself to my surroundings. The roads were undeviating and wider and smoother. The buildings were all Art-Nouveau meet post-modern and grander and sparklier. The air was passionless and crisper and purified. The food was unimaginative (read:unhealthier) and blander and brighter. Finally, the people. (Apart from being scanty in number as they are 1/36th of what we have, per square inch, leaving a lot of hollow chunks of land in between them!) The western demographic were a complicated potpourri of all the adjectives used above, times twenty and some more. I met people with extreme characteristics- the very good, the baddest bad and the pure fugly. And each of them rubbed off on me, in a way that gave me an immense clarity on who and what not to be, making me more comfortable (if it was even possible!) than ever, in my own skin.
I got singed a couple of days ago, when talking to my best friend half way across the world from me. So the thing with this girl is that we have been best friends for only a 100 years now, which sort of gives her the license to say absolutely anything (right/wrong) on her mind without playing it in her head for a sound-check. We both usually listen to the words coming out of our mouths, at the same time as the person on the other end. Owing to our failure to carry out any impact evaluation before we speak, we sometimes unknowingly and of course unintentionally burn the person involved.
She said the one thing that has been my trigger, for a year now, in all the arguments I've had with my mother. I have come a long way in the tolerance/endurance department and as a result become an excruciatingly patient person, except for when you tell me that "America changes people. You have been Americanized too." FTW. *Roaring lioness unleashed* I said nothing to this, when she said that very subtly about someone else, to me. Now I know it wasn't intended for me but I just took it upon myself and charred myself with that oft-heard-typical-agitated-Indian-comment.
I didn't react to it but it got me thinking as to why it agitates me so much. And I realized that it did because I don't have a good way to explain it right now to the person connoting it in such a negative way but I have changed after all. Americanized, with all due respects to all the Americans, I have not been. But changed, I have. In a very very good way, at that. I have learnt so much in this one year that I haven't in a lot of years put together before this. One can take me out of India but no one and nothing will ever be able to take India out of me. America in its full glory with its jam, is responsible for this change but not in the bitten-by-the-big-bad-western-vampire kind of way.
How it has changed me, who is responsible for bringing about that change and why I will never go back the same person again..are all questions, the answers to which, like I previously admitted, are not a breeze for me to elucidate en este momento! I am who I was, only better (if I may be boisterous enough to say so myself). I'll be one in four days and may be I would've grown enough in these traistionary days to answer these questions. For now, you will just have to trust me on this as I can't just yet tell you how I have been bettered. Though honestly, how many of us are lucky enough to be one more than once in our lifetimes? So I deserve to be cut some slack, as a one year old ( and may be even a giant slice of cake!) for not having all the answers instantly.
This has been more real than anything that I have ever experienced. This has been a mammoth roller coaster of a year. Deets to follow on the day of the next outburst.
Till then..
Signing off,
Almost One in America- Me.
(from the Dining hall, International House, Berkeley 1:51 P.M)
