Home will be home whether you are in India or abroad

“Hi there, I am from Jeypore.”
“Oh … Rajasthan, Jaipur ...right?”
“No Sir. It’s J-E-Y-P-O-R-E from Orissa (now Odisha) and not Jaipur from Rajasthan.”
You will hear me shouting it loud to all whose first impression is that I am a Rajasthani and they start asking me about the Pink City.
While Jaipur from Rajasthan is still one of my and many US citizens’ favorite place to visit (as I have never been there.), I am from a small town called Jeypore, Odisha.
One of my friends, who is born and brought up in the US, asked why is that he is seeing Indians everywhere? I never thought for a second and answered, when we represent every 1 person out of 6, you bound to see us everywhere!
When I told him this, I thought I made my point, and then I thought did I? Or did I tell him something which is the world thinking now? Or did I open the can of worms that we Indians are everywhere?
Well, if I start thinking like an economist, I did made my point as Indians do contribute immensely to the world financially, socially and many countries depend on India’s and Indians' wisdom to operate their day-to-day processes which otherwise will come to standstill if one fine day we Indians stop to analyze, think and use our brains.
Then again, if I think like a common man, who is still in India, and has been suffering from poverty and ignorance, it does not make any sense. What is there to celebrate when some of the chosen few have stepped out of their nest and have got a new place, which they call now as their new “home”?
I come to the point which I wanted to share, here in the US we get everything in food we could have asked for as an Indian, be it our favorite breakfast items from any region of India (Poori, Sabji, Idlis, Dosas, Sambaars, Pohe, etc..) , to our unlimited selection for lunch and, of course, for our big fat dinner. Here in fact we get those unique vegetables restricted to subcontinent only. So every Indians from any state he/she belongs to feels at home due to availability of food /products of their choice in US.
Numerous grocery stores ensures we get all the ingredients we need to prepare our daily dose of spicy Indian cuisines and restaurants are serving delicious food to make us forget that we are thousands of miles apart from our homeland.
When I meet someone like me in the US ( Asian looking and brown skin), I ask him or her which part of Asia he or she is and the next question I ask is about a restaurant they would like to recommend. To my expectation, 8 out of 10 times they suggest a restaurant close to their taste, a Telegu guy would suggest a Hyderabadi Biryani point, a Tamil would suggest Chennai Café, a Bengali would suggest a sweet shop and so on. Rest who suggest something different would end up suggesting either a Chinese restaurant which prepares spicy food like ours (Indo-Chinese) or a spicy Thai one.
While we feel like home with availability of quality food abroad and better compensations, the same cannot be said when we step out of our home town and work in nearby big cities. People who cross a state border to get better work and paycheck often feel close due to cultural mix between states but those who cross many states or travel across region, say an Oriya working in Maharashtra or vice versa, will feel little awkward living and earning in the state he or she works. This is because the effect of his state is faded when he/she moves farther from his state or territory. This makes me wonder and think this —
Although the different cultures in India do give us a great way to celebrate our unity in diversity, but is lack of cultural mix and adaptation inside India is giving everyone who works or travels outside their comfort zone a hard time?
Answer is — not really, we are evolving and adapting to change. And how?
At workplace, we no longer think that we are Punjabis, Oriyas, or Gujuratis. We think that we are Indians. There are thousands of couples who are from opposite cultures. We can see these examples in our everyday social life.
I think gone are the days when a Punjabi would prefer only a Punjabi food and would not skip a non-veg dish for any reason. Young Indians are doing their bit to promote this assimilation.
I think in next couple of years, a home will be home whether you are in India or abroad.
Jai Hind!