It's time to go!

My bags are all packed, and I'm ready to go! Unfortunately, it has been raining nonstop in Houston all morning. I hope this doesn't mean our flight will be delayed. I didn't get much sleep last night in anticipation of my trip, but I'm always like that the night before any big trip, especially when I go to India.

Going to India on this trip has obvious personal significance for me because, well, I am Indian, and technically an ABCD (American Born Confused Desi), "desi" being a familiar term used among Indians to refer to other brown people. Although I was born in the U.S though, I grew up visiting my family in India every summer. I finally sat down and counted all my trips and realized that this will, in fact, be my 16th trip to India! I must admit that didn't exactly enjoy going to India every year when I was younger- I always thought it was so crowded, noisy, hot, and dirty. But now that I'm older I'm very grateful to my parents for having exposed much to India as a child. I can't imagine never having gone as many times as I did or spending so much time there. It's made me as "Indian" as I am today, and I'm very proud of that.

So as an ABCD, I have a uniquely different perspective from others' in the group about India. And my frequent travels to the motherland have taught me by experience what to expect and not to expect. So I'm well aware of the crowds, the noise, the heat, the power cuts, and the mosquitoes. But I'm not entirely sure that this places me at any significant advantage. Beacuse at the end of the day, I'm neither here nor there. In the U.S., I'm seen as Indian. But in India, I'm seen as American. And sure, I blend in more in India on the basis of my skin color alone, but there are other things which give me away. I've found from past experience that I don't even have to open my mouth in order for people to figure out that I'm not "entirely" Indian.

India is a diverse country. Diverse might be an understatement, especially when it comes to languages. In the north, Hindi is generally spoken by all people even in those states where it is not the predominant lanugage. But in the south, it's a completely different story. Every state has a different language. Hindi is one of the national languages of India, but in the south this really dosen't mean anything since most people don't speak it. I know how to read the Hindi script, but this won't help me any in Tamil Nadu.

Tamil Nadu is the state where Christian Medical College is located. It is located in Vellore, which is a suburb of Chennai. Chennai (formerly known as Madras, this is how I still refer to it) is the 4th largest city in India. It is where my parents grew up and where I visited growing up every summer. Tamil is the language spoken there. My family is from Kerala where Malayalam is spoken, and is the language we speak at home. Kerala is the neighboring state west of Tamil Nadu. I can understand Malayalam, but my spoken Malayalam is horrible.

My parents, having grew up in Chennai, can read, write, and speak fluently in Tamil but they can only speak our mother tongue (Malayalam). Tamil and Malayalam are completely different languages with different scripts, but they sound somewhat similar. And I've spent enough time in Chennai to where I can get the general gist of what someone is saying in Tamil (if I know the context). My parents taught me to read the Tamil script, so I can read road signs (albeit very slowly). But still not enough to feel confident to speak. So I'll still be the lost American trying to navigate my way through south India, and giving myself away with my "American" English. :-)

Anyway, enough rambling. Time to head to the airport...more from India!