Instructions For When Going Back to the Homeland
The first thing you should know about travelling back home is there will always be a part of you that is nostalgic for the life you could have lived if you had stayed. It romanticises it. Idealises it.
The minute you step off the aeroplane and out of the airport, the greetings of smiling faces with excited waves will cement it for you. “Aaah, you’re home.” Excited chatter will soon follow, voices overlapping one another, diction and grammar muted while pure pleasure and happiness ring loud and clear. This will reign all the way home. Home. To your relatives. Your blood relations. Your people. A space where you’re not the minority. Relish it.
Take a moment to reconnect with mother nature and the warm embrace she offers you in the form of lush green paddy fields as you drive through them; almost like God parted the way for your car to get you home. Watch the crops sway in the gentlest breeze. Wonder at the fact that this, turns into the rice on your plate.
Get excited for the aarthi the moment you step out of the car. Brace yourself, as this could be one of the rare moments you see your parents cry, overcome with emotions. Blink away your tears because you need to be strong for them. More enthusiastic gibberish will follow. None of it matters. Joy, pride, and warmth have no language. Settle in.
This will be your life for another month, or a couple if you’re lucky. Watch time come to a standstill on the giant grandfather clock. Watch, as your routine blurs. Watch, as your control over your life dissolves. What can you do when you have an unrelenting thunderstorm for a week anyway? As the rain either whimpers or rages, what can you do? When the earth turns into a slushy, warm mud and all semblance of a road disappears, what can you do?
So, move around the house then, poking at the most mundane of objects. Look how different the onions here are from those back in Singapore. Look at the colour of the utensils. Look at the texture of the newspaper. Ah! Paper! Pester an older relative to show you how to make those paper boats again. There you go, that’s a solid hour of entertainment. Train yourself to make paper boats even with rectangular pieces of paper when what you need is a square. That dexterity will soon become muscle memory. Float them down the continuous puddles that stretch for the length of the road outside your home. Neighbours who are fond of you and know your house is the only one to have kids for miles will “find” it, pick it up and stop by your house to exclaim, “Did you know? I found this in the MARKET on my way home??” The market that’s an hour’s drive away. And you gullibly believe it, marvelling at nature and the strength of your little paper boat. It’s a blessing to be a child and have your hobbies indulged. It’s only a matter of minutes before the same things are considered absurd. And the difference will be jarring because while you compare a memory with the present, people will compare the ages you were then and are now. Girls become women fast.
But not all is nought. Monsoon season brings fireflies. Hold dear to that fascination of little bugs that become luminescent at night and lull you to sleep. It will be the only time you see it; never again as long as you’re in a city.
There will be a trip, a visit to the temples of Madurai, or further up to the palace of Mysore. Or maybe, as you and your sister beg, a hundredth trip to the Thanjavur temple, palace, and the palace museum. It will be fun! The diversity of India and even Tamilnadu will be amazing. While you grow up in a country where Tamil or Indian is a uniform identity, it will be enchanting to be in a place where you’re identified by your native village. Where people guess your background based on the way you speak Tamil; your first language. You smile, intrigued by it all. Grow immune to the stares as people recognise you’re not “local”. Curiosity can’t be helped. But some will ask smugly, “America, Malaysia, or Singapore?” with a Cheshire cat’s grin – they have figured it out. It will feel like a violation and you would want to scream, “I was BORN here! Stop trying to take that AWAY from me!” Let it slide. You will have enough to worry about.
Like the role you will have to play – the girl. The eldest daughter. The girl from overseas who’s still “cultured”. The girl who’s juggling her life and has it all under control. Play that role as much as you can so the comments will stay on the colour of your skin and your size at the least. Brace yourself for those. Everyone from those younger than you who have barely grasped the concept of the human body to those older, and in surprisingly poor health for their age will ask whether you exercise. Pass comments about your “small” portions of food. Ask if you’re on a diet. Push you to eat more rice, “‘It’s good for you, it won’t kill you”. Tell you “good” with hints of approval and undertones of patronisation that overtake the scent of the ladoos and jamuns you politely refuse, stating your dislike for sweets.
Be on guard for the passive-aggressive comments about how you can afford the heavens and the moon now. Stay silent as you watch the guesses of your income in dollars and your expenses in rupees. There is no point arguing that Singapore is one of the most expensive countries in the world with someone who has convinced themselves of a false narrative; that your life is easier. Everyone’s life is difficult for them. With years, you will gain practice, and it will become a role you perform in a play. Smile a smile that doesn’t reach your eyes or pretend you don’t understand the innuendos when people speak about your “duties”. On that note, it really, really doesn’t matter when it comes to the older generation sometimes. It’s your life, yes, but PICK your battles. Fighting someone who is probably not going to be around much longer and would simply refuse to see your point of view is borderline ridiculous at best. Especially when you live in another country altogether and travel back home maybe once a year with no clue of whether you will get a chance to say goodbye. Suck it up for a few hours. Blast some feel-good songs on the journey back to wash that taste out.
Sometimes you think about having something to do, like your life in Singapore. Warn yourself to cherish this. Because your parents will say you don’t know if you will come back next year or the year after. You’ll be in Singapore longing for peace and quiet then, so savour this. Take a slower sip from the coconut that’s from your own backyard. No other coconuts would come close to that. You don’t have to pet the cows if you don’t want to, you can just watch them from a distance. But be sure to just watch them for a while. Watch how they’re always chewing. Watch how they recognise you. Watch how they try to follow you to show you they like you. The odd scent of cows fused with straws will become a source of comfort you pine for in Singapore.
Don’t even worry about photographs or mindfulness in savouring the moment because you will be shocked at how much will be etched in your memory, even after you turn thirty. You will become nostalgic for the life you once lived. You will romanticise it. Idealise it.
Subscribe to my monthly newsletter, "Thendral's Telegraph" here!*
