Hello, California!

Barely a week into our great California adventure, and I’m already feeling like one of those mothers who can’t wait for school to reopen so that the kids get out of my and each other’s hair. Our empty house resounds with shrieks of “Shaddap! … No, you shaddap! … I’m going to punch you … kick you … slap you … Don’t touch me … I hate you!” as sibling rivalry reaches a crescendo.

A momentary truce is reached only when a parent loses his / her cool and yells above the din to separate the warring brother-sister duo. At such moments (and there are too many to count in an average day), the tailor made-for-children gated community environs where we used to live in Bangalore are recalled with a wistful sigh, and the mind travels back to all the times when the children were nowhere in the vicinity even when we wanted them to be because they had such a hectic social life.

“Will I ever make friends again?” my nine-year-old daughter, Kuki, wondered aloud one day, during a brief respite from her busy YouTube watching schedule. The first few days after I landed, I was so desperate for fellow Indians, I asked my husband to drive me to the Livermore temple. I was ready to be best friends with Mrs. Patel whose lower half I haven’t yet seen since she’s always behind the counter at Bharat Bazar. I almost called the old Punjabi lady who served me my Subway sandwich at the corner store ‘aunty,’ and was even tempted to smile at the sneezing, snorting, coughing, stuffy-nosed, oily-haired desi guy who sat behind me on the train last weekend.

With each passing day, however, the desperation subsides, and I become a little more like the Indians here – make minimal to zero eye contact with fellow desis, but go out of your way to be polite to the white populace.

I’m also reliving America through my daughter’s eyes. Her fickle child’s memory seems to have erased portions of her past so that most things here seem alien and foreign to her - “Wow, the toilet paper is so soft! Everything’s so clean here! Why is that lady wearing a bindi in America? So much candy everywhere! No one’s begging at the station … are there no poor people here?”

In much the same way, California is also new and alien to me – “Look at the size of these peaches/cherries/grapes! A vineyard behind the mall? How picturesque! So many Asians in one place! $20 for eyebrow threading? Day light robbery!”

Kuki and I went to the Indian grocery store the other day. As soon as we entered, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “It smells so good in here,” she said, running her eyes over the familiar packets of Maggi, MTR spices, and glucose biscuits. She happily bounded down the aisles, expressing a sudden interest in all things Indian, while I worried about the smell of the spices clinging to my clothes and hair. For a brief moment, I suppose, she was transported to Bangalore, on a trip to More or Hypercity that would soon end and she could return to her beloved friends and their familiar ways.

It is at times like these – when I watch her listless expression in the car; when she asks, “What time is it in India?” as soon as she wakes up; when she fingers items at Claire’s and mentions Friend A has the same bag, Friend B the same hat; and did we know (for the hundredth time, if I may add) that Friend C’s dad used to work for Target; and can we run into the Apple store for a few minutes, please, please, please because Friend D’s mom works for the company – that I swallow a lump in my throat and wonder yet again why I am cursed / blessed with this nomadic spirit that doesn’t allow me to settle in one place for too long.