After 6 long years, I am finally home! Home, the city where I was born and brought up, the metro where I have spent more than 80% of my life, the city where all the people dear to my heart reside....I am here finally....after 6 years of pining for their company, dreaming about the looks on their faces when they see me, reliving old memories from college and school, thinking of all those places that I used to know and hang out at.... Boy, was I in for a rude shock!
Home? What home? Mom, I have come back to a strange town... It seems vaguely familiar, but nothing like the place that occupies most of my memories! I have seen cities evolve, growing to be a metro from a small town... But this change seems almost grotesque, for lack of a better word! From the metro that still had a small town feeling, with almost no night life and untouched by the "western" influence, this place is now a typical "wannabe New York"!
Love the extravagance of the United States? Look no further! You name it, we have it....the over priced clothes, the rich "italian" ice-cream, the malls, cell phones, cars, the list goes on to cover a lot more consumer items.... but, the comparison stops right there! For someone who has spent 21 of her 26 years in this city, I am still shocked by the noise, pollution, crowd and most importantly, the total lack of sophistication! You can look like an American with the plethora of choices that this city offers, but can you act** like one? Even with the numerous cell phones in the hands of every Tom, Dick and Harry (in this case, Muniandi, Karuthamma and Pichaimuthu), etiquette is one topic that has eluded the public here... It has been the same story for a long time... I had the same complaints even before I left to the Wild, Wild West, but now they just seem magnified 100 times! And now, if I complain about them, I am branded an "American". And since I look like most of them here, people just give me a weird look if I practise and exhibit some form of social etiquette!
Is this the same place that I left behind? Or have I changed that much? I never expected to feel like a misfit in my own homeown. I wonder if anyone else feels the same as I do or am I all alone here too?
** Act = Behave
