Another world, another time Satya Jeet, New Jersey
W
hen I came to the US in 1970 to attend college, my American fellow students and certain faculty members would ask me polite questions about my home in India. They were surprised by my simple answers. I imagine, they saw me as a person from another world. We have emigrated from India to the US in sufficient numbers and
have become an integral part of the American mainstream. We are not strangers; I fit seamlessly into American life. There are very few questions about my background now. Patterns in living and lifestyle have changed in India at breakneck speed in the last decade. While visiting my once familiar India, people ask me polite questions about my home in the US. My simple answers would often astound them; I imagine they perceived me as a person from another time. For persons of my maturity, it is amusing to think back on the historic cycle we were born into and have lived through. Later this year, I will be traveling to Kolkata, India, to celebrate my father’s birth centenary. My mother was not much younger than my father. n
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