Sometimes, untold horror is best left that way - untold. When the tsunami struck my first instinct was to thank God that no one I loved and cared about was hurt. With Katrina I have counted my selfish little blessings again. No one I know was in the area. Millions of others have not been as lucky. Next time tragedy strikes I may not be either - it is only fair that we take our turns at experiencing tragedy at a raw, visceral level so when someone else hurts we hurt along equally.
An expat desi friend and I were discussing what it means to return to India when you have cobbled together a life in a foreign country no matter how flawed and imperfect. We have both spent over a decade outside India and have kids who were born abroad and have spent very little time back home. Returning "home" is something a lot of new immigrants like L and myself think about. We want very much for that to be an option because a full assimilation into our country of domicile is likely never going to happen. L has visited India more often than I have and has a much better pulse on what's going on there. For me the strongest drag force working against my desire to return home is my experience of life as a woman in India. I neither want to live that suffocatingly sheltered existence myself nor subject J to it. The freedom, independence and safety I have had in here in suburban America was not even something I knew I could expect to have in India. I never knew what it felt t
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