Yet another work-out time movie. This time Waiting. I first saw Kalki Koechlin in Margarita with a Straw. She was great there and here in very different roles. It was interesting to read about her background and that of Mikey McClearly who producted this catchy tune for the movie. Both made me think of cultural assimilation and what it may have meant for Koechlin a "white-skinned woman growing up in Tamil Nadu", who had to defend her "Indian-ness" at numerous occasions. McCleary has a very interesting background that almost makes this piece of music possible. I always wanted to believe that India takes a big tent approach towards religious inclusion. Everyone has a spot in the Hindu pantheon and if they are lacking one, it is not too hard to make room. The news of Hindu nationalism and the politics of fear I read lately makes we wonder if I am being too naive. My distance from the everyday realities of present day India make it impossible to separate fact from spin. The experience of "outsiders" in their adoptive country can be very asymmetrical. The way Koechlin or McClearly have experienced India is hardly representative of those who feel ill-served and discriminated against everyday. While both experiences are real and valid, it was heart-warming to read about outsiders who feel at home in my country of birth. Thinking about India fills me with nostalgia for things that no longer exist and yet I am not able to feel at home there anymore.
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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