Do you remember having your hair pulled in a movie theater? You would turn around and give the parents of the child a dirty look and resume watching the movie but the harassment wouldn’t stop and after having your hair pulled more than a few times you would turn around and tell in the parents in a low threatening tone- ‘Can’t you control your child?’ and the parents would pay lip service to your complain, ‘Munu, don’t pull that aunty’s/ uncle’s hair.’

Aunty ? Uncle ? the movie would be spoilt and you would come out of the hall glowering and your friends would be laughing at your plight back there.

Or, for that matter when the Press walli wouldn’t turn up and because of load shedding you wouldn’t be able to iron your work clothes and grumble all the way to work hoping no one notices your slightly crumpled clothes? Or for that matter being house bound as a rogue monkey could be terrorizing the neighborhood?

Makes you a little mad doesn’t it? Not me, all these little inconveniences and more that I suffered back home seem like amusing incidents that make India a unique country where something or the other is always happening.

I want to see cows on the road, I want to hear the blaring music that a guy would play for his girlfriend as he would be racing his car down her lane just to let her know that he was on his way back home.

 I want to be able to leave my kids with my neighbors for play dates even though their kid could be a babbling infants. I want to be able to have loud arguments in my own home without worrying whether the neighbors are getting disturbed.

There is something about being pulled by one’s roots. Initially when I left home I wondered why people went back home after every year or two. It was as if India was their Mecca Madina but now having been away for five years it’s a craving I cannot deny.

With the passing of every month I miss home more and more. And it just isn’t my friends and family but India as a whole. I know it sounds clichéd to some but don’t worry, I’m still sane enough not to break into the ‘mera bharat mahan mode’ or sing some patriotic song.

America has been good to me no doubt , she made me grow up from a spoilt brat whose idea of kitchen work was to bake an occasional dessert or make tea when the ‘help’ was having their siesta, to a mother and a wife who has learnt the art of cooking four dishes simultaneously, I have become  someone who believes on being at the go despite running a high fever and being near a breaking point uncountable times but finding some untapped strength to go on taking care of my home and hearth without any family and friends support.

Being a Consultant’s wife isn’t easy even when one is supremely happy in their marriage. It is heart wrenching to make stead fast friends and then leave them behind, hoping and praying that one would be able to make equally good friends the next time.

I have left good friends behind countless times and shed countless tears, moved more times than the years I have been married and I’ve seen the length and breath of America. But, now after five years of loving this step mom, I want to lay my head on my mother’s lap. I want to feel her vitality, her chaotic dynamism and interact with her teeming children.

Yes, I am homesick, so homesick that I started to cry over Sholay that I was seeing for the second time on the same day.

The life of an NRI isn’t easy and for those of you back home who think we enjoy a high life, let me tell you that some of us pay dearly for it.