ALL THAT GLITTERS IS DEFINETLY NOT GOLD

THE ORGANIC THOUGHT wrote about desh ki Mitti today. I was just musing over his thoughts and then I was reminded of 2-3 incidences which made me express my feelings through this post.

I was talking to my travel agent today regarding my ticket to Boston and then he informed me that in USA air travelers have to pay $15-20 for every check in baggage.

I was surprised to know this fact. Was it to discourage the people to travel or was it to generate more money? (In India thank God, we are still allowed to check in huge bags free of cost)

And then today morning Neha informed me that she was not feeling well ,may be food poisoning.

I felt so helpless as I couldn’t do any thing sitting so far off from her except for advising her to take some medicine from the available stock with her or go to a doctor?

And then again I was in for a shock.

“ Mumma , you cannot just go to a doctor. You have to take an appointment with him”
“ But beta if there is an emergency?
“then go to the emergency department of a hospital and get admitted” she replied

I told her, “in India we visit the doctor any time we want, for a simple ailment we don’t take appointments. We can even call him in the night for an emergency situation. For that matter I can go to a local chemist and ask him to give me some medicine. Why don’t you go to your nearby chemist shop and take some medicine
“yes mom, but this is USA yahan aisa nahi hota. The chemist will not give any medicine without prescription”

The above facts along with my conversation with one of our family friend who had come for a vacation from the big world known as USA made me express my self so vehemently today

This friend of ours who had been living in America from last 25 or so years very emotionally expressed his views about the life in the advanced country.

I am putting his views now, sometime in his own words and sometimes in my own words
According to him most of the Indians there are ABCD i.e. AMERICA BASED CONFUSED DESIS.
They enjoy the comforts, the style of life there but when it comes to their values especially with their children most of them are in a fix. They want to bring up their children there amongst the natives of America, but they don’t want their children to adopt American culture, they want their children to adopt Indian moral values.

How is it possible? You let your child grow in that free environment yet you want them to adhere to Indian spiritual and moral values.?

Then he talked about the isolation most of the Indians feel there. They may form a major work force there, they may be earning fat pay packets, they may have invested in huge houses or cars or other comforts or they may have acquired the much sought after Green card, Yet they don’t feel the emotional attachment to that country which has given them the way and style of life which they always wanted.

He said, “ inspite of living in this part of world from last more than 25 years , I still feel my roots are still in India. Moreover the fact remains that we Indians are always considered as outsiders here. We may have Americans as our friends, we may work harder than most of them, but still they don’t consider us as one of them. We don’t feel that we belong to this world”.

“ we still feel a special bonding, a special attachment for India. Daily we follow the news of India, we celebrate all Indian festivals, any thing untowardly that happens there causes concern to us.

To quote him further, “the worst part is most of the Indians try to adopt the culture of America but the fact remains that they are neither there nor here. We try to become practical and unemotional like them but in deep in our hearts we still want the show of love, affection. We miss the warmth of India. We realize the worth of Indian culture only when we are away from that .

“ in India a working couple can by just spending a few thousand rupees can employ a full time servant or even part time ones who will clean the utensils, clothes, house and who will also cook the food. By spending just few hundreds rupees one can get his clothes ironed by a dhobi. And also in India we have parents who give us that emotional backing which we lack there”

“In India we can go for work, employ a servant to look after our child and we are rest assured that the child would be looked after properly under the supervision of our parents”
( how true).
He further said, “ most of the Indians settled there wants to come back to India ( only after saving a huge bank balance to that they can live a luxurious life in India)

He narrated an incidence when his child suddenly fell ill there and his wife was all alone. He said that was the time when they missed India.
“ If we would have been here, our neighbours would have run across to help us, our relatives would have come home, we could have knocked at the door of neigbhouring doctor in the middle of night and he would have come to help us without even raising his eyebrows.”

He went on and on about comparing both the life styles and the advantages of Living in India

“ yes, we get good salary there, we have big cars. Even students can afford cars there. We can wear branded clothes, we do have a better life style, we enjoy so many luxuries there but at what cost?”

“ we are still strangers there, we try to pretend that we are very happy with our big bank balances our jet life but deep in our hearts all ABCDs are emotionally starved”

I just wonder what is that attracts most of our youth to that world. Is it the glamour of a advanced nation or independent and free life style and of course lots of money ( in terms of Indian rupees because in dollars they may not be earning so much but when converted to INR it does make an impressive number) and if it is so than why do most of the ones settled abroad talk of coming back to India?
Another thing which I have noticed while talking to may people settled abroad is their guilt feeling towards their parents who are still in India.
Being Indians with Indian values and Indian upbringing where respect of elders, taking care of old parents is still given importance these migrated birds feel guilty as they are not fulfilling their duties towards their parents but then again the greed of having their own independent life lures them and takes precedence over their guilt feeling

Is it just the desire to acquire materialistic comforts which pulls the Indians to foreign countries? Because after talking to many NRIs I have realized that very few are really satisfied with their life there.
Is it really true “ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT GOLD”