Return Ticket

Sitting within view of a three hundred year old pleasure palace, I was part of a lively discussion yesterday on what motivated us into coming back to India.

I moved to the USA relatively late, having traveled back and forth for something like a decade before I decided to change residences in 2003, just after 9/11. When I finally did move to New York, I was already an experienced hand at American basic like driving a car and ordering at McDonalds. Most of my friends, on the other hand, had been dunked in cold straight out of college. Returning, for me, was thus somewhat different - I had not grown the same roots that people who had lived there a decade or more had. It was still a very large move nevertheless, not quite like moving back to Mumbai after a few years in Bangalore. America wasn't just another location change, it was the adoption of a different way of life that was very attractive in many ways. Coming back was therefore an event of some consequence, even if you had just landed there.

I left India at the edge of a time when people still thought of an international ticket as an escape to a better life. Growing up, the only people who preferred India to the cars and houses of the prosperous West were the insistent patriots. We in India with sneaker-clad relatives living abroad were clearly poor cousins who subsisted on yearly injections of Lego bricks and Kellogs cereals while admiring photos of mansions and mercs from another world. The IT industry and its legions of frequent fliers had started to change that. Salaries in India had started to rise, cars to stretch and mobiles to shrink but change was still some years off. Even in 2003, tickets were intended primarily to be one way; return for most people a little more than a romantic dream. I too returned by accident; a job opportunity came my way while I was renewing my visa.

Coming back was interesting but I think I will mention the one thing that, for me, defines what drew me back. One of my first outings in Mumbai led me to a nice modern multiplex to see the latest Hindi blockbuster, and halfway through the initial popcorns and trailers a nice bold sign said please stand for the national anthem.

And everyone did.

Everyone in a full movie theatre stood, stopped talking, removed phones from their ears and stood the few seconds that the national anthem played itself out. Here was a Mumbai where - as before - even basic civic rules were casually flouted by everyone, yet a simple message on the screen made a few hundred people stop what they were doing and stand respectfully. Even more strangely, it was no exception; every movie I have been to in the last six years, everyone has stood respectfully every time. They grouse about politicians, complain about the cricket team, despair at the infrastructure, criticise the state of the nation, but stand up and keep quiet for the national anthem.

Yes, there’s still a lot that’s wrong with India, but somewhere with the booming stock markets, the burgeoning malls and the newest Japanese cars, a nation has managed to gain pride in itself. That's what I came back to be part of.