Eons ago I was in a place I so detested. Being in that place made me despise the place even more. I kept wondering what makes us do this. What makes people so happy even when they are so humiliated? What makes people say prayers and get all anxious to get the permission to enter some god-forbidden (?) land to be treated like slaves? Right from the way they check your whole body for "possible-hidden-weapons" to the way they make you stand in long queues to the way they ask you to leave the premises once the business is done is all so humiliating.
I saw an old couple appear in front of a one-of-them and fold both palms together and say "namaste". The one-of-them asked them so many questions to, supposedly, ascertain their good intentions and said "Do stay in my country for Christmas. But make sure you don't stay beyond that!". The dialogue ended with a huge belly laugh, of course from the one-of-them. The couple was so overcome by his words that they were speechless. I was shocked to see the expression on the old couple's face. Instead of scorn or even hurt or at least a straight face, it was filled with gratitude! Gratitude? Why? Is that one-of-them doing them a favor? Isn't it the least he can do to enable an aged couple visit their child working like a slave for them, who probably doesn't even have time to come back to his country to see his parents?
Why did I do it myself? I still wonder. I can safely say, because my employers wanted me to. But the reaction of all my relatives was so overwhelming. For a split of a second I felt as though I had unknowingly won an Olympic race when I know I can't even run for my life. It was like "Oh!! Finally!! She has arrived. She is a bit slow on the uptake though. See my kids, they are two years younger to her and already left the country 4 years ago. Anyway, better late than never." Suddenly, "Yene visa banthante? Yavag horadthee?" "Hearty Congratulations!!" were shot at me with wonder in eyes. The unbelieving, we-have-lost-hope-in-you-to-be-a-khandaan-ki-roshni, looks were replaced with joyous smiles. It made me feel as though I was about to commit a huge crime and at the nth moment decided not to, keeping in mind the "family values". A kind of "just miss" :)
When I was growing up, the definition of a successful child in the family would be: has a good job, with a good salary, taking good care of parents, teaching his/her kids good values and taking his/her parents to kaashi and rameswaram. And now it has changed to: Touring the world every 10 days, on company's expense (mind you) and/or staying in a godforsaken land and sending "papers" to his/her parents with ticket money so that parents can "visit" them. It so happens that these "visits" always coincides with the birth of their offspring or transfer of their spouse or some illness. As we say in kannada "Idella Yaava Purushartakko?"
There were only two people who were unmoved (rather displeased with the whole business) by the results of my "holy pilgrimage". One was unhappy because he could have gone to the beach and soaked wet for the whole time that I spent inside a god-forsaken, paraniodly-secure building. Another, because, well, she thinks just like me, rather I think just like her!
