The Immigration Officer and The Identity Crisis
By now you guys probably know that I’m an Indian transplant living in Singapore. And since almost my entire extended family lives there, I have shuttled back and forth pretty regularly. I have also traveled some so I can confidently say that I have quite a bit of air miles under my belt. And from these years of getting into another country and trying to get out of it, I can honestly say that the most uncomfortable part about air travel is the interaction you have with the immigration officer.
The whole thing is sooo awkward. I have been raised to fear authority so even though I have done absolutely nothing wrong, I’m usually sweating my pants out when I’m standing in front of the immigration officer and waiting for them to get the documentation done. I flinch inwardly if they look at the picture of my passport and me more than once, I never know if it’s time to take my fingers off those scanners and I muck it up 98% of the time by taking them off too early or leaving them there for far too long and I never know if I can look at or away from that camera that’s taking a picture of you.
Despite my fear, jet lag and exhaustion, I always try my best to give my most polite hello and smile to the immigration officers. I usually get iced out. But if I am in the airports of Chennai and Tiruchirappalli in India, the whole dynamic is different. These are the ones where the immigration officer says a minimum of a sentence to me. The conversation starter being my name (for the non-Tamil people here, my name is this super literary and poetic term and it’s pretty rare for people to have it as a name, so it usually invites comment about it). I get anywhere from a polite comment on how pretty it is to something inappropriate. I used to be embarrassed and awkward about it when I was younger, but now I have just learned to roll with it.
Apart from its unique quality, my name is also an instant giveaway that I’m Tamil. There’s no dancing around it like “Are you… Tamil?”. No. It’s a “HEY! YOU ARE TAMIL!” And if someone knows I am Tamil, there’s a 98% chance that they know Tamil as well. Takes one to know one. It's how I knew that the vaguely Indian looking airport staff at Atlanta who was checking my passport and baggage knew Tamil (She's mixed race, but her mum is Tamil. I was so amused my name got a reaction in Atlanta.) And since these immigration officers know I’m Tamil simply from my passport without me saying a word, most try to have a conversation – the whole “Here’s another Tamil person! Let me talk to them simply because of that!” As a regular chatterbox, I don’t really mind the chitchat either. Chitchatting with immigration officers has become one of the nostalgic parts about my trips to India. But of course, this is not always pleasant. Some have tried to intimidate me for no reason at all, quite a handful think that that would be my first time to India, and some try to test how much of a newbie I am, even though I have a decent knowledge of my hometown.
During one of my travels to India, I had the grand luck of having a particularly interesting immigration officer. You know how when you come across a man and you know instinctively that he’s misogynistic without him saying so much as a word? That. He had this smirk pasted on his face when I walked up to him and I just knew it was going to be an awful process. He gave quite a reaction to my name and kept repeating it. Not addressing me by name at the end of every sentence or anything like that. Just my name. And he kept chanting it as if he was muttering it to himself. I was so discomfited and just gave curt, one-word answers to the standard questions. At one point during his more than necessary scrutiny of my passport, he read out loud “Born in India. Citizen. Singapore” and with a sarcastic harrumph, looked up and asked why I bothered to come back. I was so taken aback by the question that I just went “HA?” and stared blankly at him. He said, “If you were lucky enough to get a Singapore citizenship and get out, why do you bother coming back here? What is here?” I stared at him, unable to get the thoughts that were flying around my head in a coherent sentence. “Why did I bother? My extended family lives here. Why did I bother? Because even if I come here for two weeks, it feels like I’m coming back home. Why did I bother? Because even though I left 22 years ago (I was 24 at that time), this is where I belong. Why did I bother? Why do you bother with this question in the first place?” I was so put out that this man thought I shouldn’t come back to part of my identity and that he considered India to be inferior to Singapore. I wish I had said something witty or put him in his place, but that was not the case. I blanked out – I have dealt with all sort of insensitive comments about India, and with Indians asking me if Singapore is as nicer as they make it seem than India all my life. But never have I had to deal with an obnoxious question about why I bothered going there. I just stammered out that I had relatives here, that I visit them often and that I just like my hometown. He smirked again, chopped something and tossed my passport back at me with an air of dismissal.
On the outside, I probably looked like a confused child that was travelling alone as I walked away but, on the inside, I was seething. I was annoyed at myself for not shutting him down and I was annoyed that he would bother to poke his nose in my personal space and identity. “Why did I bother?” What was it to him where I go? Who says things like that? Four and a half hours later when I landed in Singapore, I was still raging. I had to go through the biometrics clearance for the Singapore end of immigration, I got reminded of the incident, and I felt so agitated all over again. “Why did I bother?” How dare you ask me this question, asshole.
The incident continued to nag at me for the next few days before I realized why I was so upset – it wasn’t the man’s attitude that picked away at me. It was the question. Because I didn’t have a proper answer for “Why did I bother to travel back to India?” By this time, I had managed to discern that it wasn’t India that felt like home, it was just my hometown and Tamilnadu. But beyond saying this is my home, I couldn’t articulate why going back to Tamilnadu regularly was so important to me. I felt like one of those far rights who can’t explain why gay marriages are wrong and go “because God said so” and “that’s just not right” and stubbornly cross their arms, unable to elaborate. The fact that he pointed out that I was “lucky” to get out of India and implied that India was less than just dug its claws in my doubts about my dual identity.
After stewing in this incident for three years, I think I finally know why I bother to travel back to India. Sort of. When I was younger, I would bawl my eyes out all the way from our home in India to the airport when it was time to leave, often times in the airport as well and sometimes even after I got on the airplane. I just couldn’t bear to leave the place and the people. Somewhere along the way, with each year, it got lesser and lesser, and now I don’t anymore. Sometimes I wonder if this is the case because I just matured about the process and knew I can see these people again in a year. But sometimes, I wonder if I had gotten indifferent. And that terrifies me a little. When you are young, you love things and people in a fierce and pure way that only kids can. But as you get older, you see more – the flaws in people, the things that you glossed over as a child are suddenly jarring and everything just isn’t the same anymore. Sure, I go back once a year, but so much changes within a year. The infant you last saw is now walking, that prepubescent cousin has shot up and his voice has changed, the cow you were fond of during your last trip has been sold off and what were once well-regulated visits to an older relative are no longer part of your trips – you didn’t know the last time you saw them would actually be the last time and you didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye. It’s a lot. Some years, it feels like the more I try to hold on to that part of me, the more it slips away.
As a kid, Singapore was this shiny new toy for me. It was different – people spoke differently, the streets were different, the “blocks” (local for apartments) were so different from the thatched houses along the roads of my village. And I’m not going to lie, there was a phase in my life where I thought Singapore was better than India – things are more streamlined here, Singapore is a whole lot more modern than India and telling people in India that I live in Singapore often got a look of admiration and wonder. With time, I realized that things about India can’t compete with things about Singapore and that things about Singapore are not necessarily superior to my hometown in India – sure, we have fantastic plumbing here but it’s nothing compared to the sight of paddy fields in the shade of a lush green stretch out and merge with the clear blue sky. Which is why I now stand steadfastly by the belief that absolutely no country in this world is superior to another in any form – it’s just a matter of which “cons” you can live with. But sometimes when I lie in bed waiting for sleep to take over, I do think I’m the lucky one that got out. And with that shadows a sense of guilt. Especially when I see kids on Indian talk shows talking about their dreams and how determined they are to improve their quality of living and their socioeconomic status. Kids who don’t have the means and resources. If things hadn’t panned out the way they did for my dad, I could have been one of those kids. Though this knowledge happened so much earlier on in my life, it didn’t light a fire in me to work harder or be appreciative of what I have – I whiled my time away in school. And yet, I still have been blessed with this “better” life in Singapore and so I feel like I have taken things for granted. I haven’t been to my hometown for a proper trip in over 3 years, which feels like a lifetime, because I’m avoiding questions about my unmarried self and don’t want to launch into an entire speech about individuality to people who are not even going to bother to understand. Despite that, I’m terribly homesick and I whine about it all the time.
So, dear jerk of an immigration officer, here’s why I bother to come back: It’s still home. You can put me in another country for as long as you want, but you can’t change the fact about where I was born and where my roots go. I get homesick about a place I spent the first 2 years of my life even though I have no memory of it. It might seem complicated and I have tried to explain it as home, identity, and a sense of belonging over the years, but it’s actually really simple – it’s love. You can’t explain it, nor can you dismiss it. Wandering around the cities, especially the temples makes me feel connected in an enigmatic way – to the lives that once lived, to the culture that thrives and to the legacy that will carry on. Tamilnadu feels like part of me and being in Tamilnadu feels like I’m part of something much, much bigger than life in itself. I bother to come back because it reminds me of what I have been blessed with in life, and it reminds me of what I still lack in life. It reminds me of how far I have come, and it reminds me of what I have yet to do. More importantly, coming back shows me who I was, who I am, and who I have to be. But you won’t understand any of that because you have never gotten out. And you know what, it doesn't matter that you won't either.
“When we migrate, we murder from our lives those we leave behind.” – Mohsin Hamid, Exit West.
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