It was birthday party of my friend’s son and so it was time to dress up, go and have a fun time with some lovely food as well. We are all middle class families and not necessarily rich folks who belong to the partying type. The reason I am stating this is because once you are in India, you don’t get to organize or have fun parties like these. It’s not necessarily the cost factor but more than that somehow, I find that in India people are not generally inclined to celebrate their birthdays or other functions with much fanfare. It’s more traditional in nature like going to a temple and offering prayers or seeking the blessings of elders. I am not here to compare what is the right thing to do or do we need to spend that much of money at all. Perhaps, we do that when we are abroad because we are away from our families and we pick occasions where we can socialize and come together as a group. It is more like finding solidarity and unity as a community or group of individuals who have come out of India in search of money, primarily. Therefore, these occasions give us a sense of bonding that there are folks from our country with whom we can make friends even if they belong to different regions, speak different languages, with different cultural affinities and food habits. Ultimately, we are Indians. Nothing else matters, really….and once you are back in India…we go back to our own shells….my state, my language, my region, my religion, my cultural affinity…so on and so forth….the chasm widens and keeps growing with endless variety of options….I just wonder what happens to all of these when you step out of your country….how do you identify yourself with the notion of one nation….India….why is that lost when you return back home….where it is needed most….
Beautiful Life 