Always nostalgic ...
I got a mail from a friend showing a rekdiwaalah making tea in Bombay. That got me thinking as to why do we always have to feel nostalgic about anything related to Bombay or India. Why do pictures of a cutting chai waalah, Marine Drive, a BEST bus, local trains, a boy flying kite standing on a platform roof, anything and everything to do with Bombay/India have to make us nostalgic and if they dont then people makes us believe there is something wrong with us, that we are unpatriotic, that we have become Americanized, in short ... we have lost it.
According to me this all-the-time nostalgia is not justified at all. 3 or how many ever years back we had 2 choices in front of us; either continue studying/working in India or come to the US for studying/working. We had 2 clear choices. And we chose to come over here for earning those American Dollars. And we are doing that right now. Now if we think that we are missing so much by staying over here then we should move back. But no, we dont want to move back also, we want to earn dollars.
We should learn to live in the present. We are in the US and thats the present. India/Bombay is a thing of the past and maybe (hopefully ... definitely) of the future, but its certainly ain't the present. We are losing our precious present over a thing of the past; past which will always be there, past which cannot be changed.
Nostalgia is just glorified cribbing .... methinks.
I got a mail from a friend showing a rekdiwaalah making tea in Bombay. That got me thinking as to why do we always have to feel nostalgic about anything related to Bombay or India. Why do pictures of a cutting chai waalah, Marine Drive, a BEST bus, local trains, a boy flying kite standing on a platform roof, anything and everything to do with Bombay/India have to make us nostalgic and if they dont then people makes us believe there is something wrong with us, that we are unpatriotic, that we have become Americanized, in short ... we have lost it.
According to me this all-the-time nostalgia is not justified at all. 3 or how many ever years back we had 2 choices in front of us; either continue studying/working in India or come to the US for studying/working. We had 2 clear choices. And we chose to come over here for earning those American Dollars. And we are doing that right now. Now if we think that we are missing so much by staying over here then we should move back. But no, we dont want to move back also, we want to earn dollars.
We should learn to live in the present. We are in the US and thats the present. India/Bombay is a thing of the past and maybe (hopefully ... definitely) of the future, but its certainly ain't the present. We are losing our precious present over a thing of the past; past which will always be there, past which cannot be changed.
Nostalgia is just glorified cribbing .... methinks.
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