How I became an NRI

When I first landed here, it was a cold December night in London. And I had my first glimpse of London from the aircraft. The city all lit up. I was so very excited; we were newly married and travelling to start a new life together. All through the flight, I had met fellow passengers from different parts of the world and it seemed so much like being on our Indian Railways that carried us all over India.My still dark mehndi was so obvious that we received many congratulatory remarks, including lots of advices from a group of Gujrati ladies, all in their sarees, about life in a foreign land.
My first impression of the Heathrow airport was that it was a sea of ants; everybody was busy and following their chosen path. There was a huge queue at the immigration desks. I observed that Heathrow was no different from our own cosmopolitan metros where thousands come every day for a better living. For the first time this big city girl felt what it was to start afresh. After a long anxious wait, I finally received the most coveted stamp in my passport. I did not realise that this would become a routine for us in the next six years.
Outside we were greeted by my husband’s cousin. It was so cold that layers of wool did not seem enough and I was shivering. My brother-in-law insisted on the drive to his house to show me Central London at night. As we went past Buckingham Palace, London Eye and other monuments, it felt surreal. The city tour next day and the mandatory shopping at Oxford Street just exhausted me. The next day we travelled to Swansea in Wales, my husband’s work place. It took us some time to settle in the new house. It felt good to be able to do all things my way — from cooking to washing and cleaning to buying grocery. Updates and photos uploaded on the social media brought in more remarks from family and friends on how lucky I was to be able to settle abroad. Life seemed bliss.
And then came my first snow. As we had coffee watching the snow fall outside, my mother called. It was all over the news in India that it was snowing heavily in UK that year and predictions were for a white Christmas. She asked me how I felt and whether we were fine. My mother never stops worrying. For the very first time since arriving here I felt homesick, I wanted Ma to be here to see the snow fall with me. Memories of winter evenings spent in Kolkata came up –missed her chicken soup and her masala chai which kept us warm. I then realised there would be no shopping in New Market before Christmas, no cakes from Flurys or the compulsory family dinner at a restaurant in Park Street on New Year’s eve. I had left them miles away.
It was that evening that the true understanding of all that is non-resident dawned on me. An NRI is actually someone who misses home, misses family, festivals, gatherings, weddings, home-cooked food, street food, her local tailor (it costs a fortune to get anything stitched here), her cook, her maid (after all Santa Bai made such delicious fish curry and also kept my room clean). It made me appreciate and recognize, perhaps for the first time, the huge support system that we are so privileged and fortunate to have back home. And so that snowy wintry evening a resident became a non-resident not only for tax purposes, but also mentally.