The comparison of anyone whose life revolves around their smartphones to B.F Skinner's rats is a very poignant one. Friday afternoon I stop being a lab rat and try my hardest to remain human until at least Sunday evening. My work and personal cellphones are separate so it is a little easier to get out of the rat mode or help myself from slipping into it as I try to be human and enjoy the tiny pleasures of the ordinary day - have J tell me what happened at school, enjoy a quick walk in the warm afternoon, listen to the birdsong while I make my first cup of tea. Checking email is not compatible with any of those things.
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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