An analog wristwatch in this day and age is quite redundant - a fashion accessory at best. Many of us wear them because we are creatures of habit. The digital clocks on the oven, computer, microwave, cell phone and the car dash tell us of every passing minute. There is nothing approximate or languorous about the passage of time anymore. A watch that reads "Around Six O'clock" between 5:57 and 6:03 would do much to soothe the nerves on those overworked and overscheduled days.
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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