In transit - the life of an immigrant???

“I handed my passport to the immigration officer, and he looked at it and looked at me and said, "What are you?"”

- Gray Murray Hopper

While I was at the Hong-Kong airport, a week ago, in transit, I was approached by an Australian woman asking for my help to plug her laptop in the nearby electrical socket. Realising that she had an Indian travel adapter and given my natural inquisitiveness, I asked her if she was flying back from India. Surprise, surprise......she told me she had been visiting Pondicherry. In an airport that boasts of 47 million passenger throughput, I find the first person walking up to me, coming from my home town. Isn't that an unbelievable coincidence :)) What's more, she was born there (Auroville) and she spoke lovely Tamil, better than mine I can definitely say ( Sash, you would readily vouch for that if you had heard her :)).

However her next few lines threw me off my track completely.......she asked me if I thought Australia was safe. Here was a white female, an Australian confiding in me of her fears about returning to her city ( Melbourne) because she was married to an Indian guy and had a son whom my 7 year old would have classified as "brown" rather than "white". I had to admit that I had no idea of what was happening within the country as I had been away for the last few months and had buried myself in my private world of theses and defenses and certification exams. When occasionally quizzed by concerned friends and my over- paranoid parents regarding this issue, I had conveniently shrugged it away but guess evading reality is no longer an option.

My father-in-law used to work in Paris half a century ago. But he quit that job and returned back to India and while struggling to raise a big family in his home-town, he was always questioned about the choices he had made, especially returning back home instead of enjoying a profitable career abroad. His answer was that his life overseas away from his roots was like "water droplets on a lotus leaf" (the lotus effect). He felt that he never belonged there, never could fit-in. I believe this is something that most expatriates of any nationality go through. By migrating they seem to lose their identity - they no longer belong to the country that they left behind, nor do they perceive that the new country welcomes them as its children. I still remember being confronted by an immigration officer at Chennai airport who looked at me with something akin to disgust when he looked at my passport with the Australian Permanent Resident Visa label on it.......he spat out "Aaah Migrants". The incident though happened a decade ago, still rankles me and leaves me with an awful taste in my mouth every time I pass through immigration back home.

Anyway, despite all this, I believe I managed to settle down in the new country which I always thought had welcomed me with very open and friendly arms. Apart from the occasional incidents of "Paki" calls thrown at me and with the seat next to me usually filled in last while travelling in buses or trains ( which I used to consider a blessing mostly), I never had much to talk about in terms of discrimination. Both Anna and I are always highly regarded by our colleagues and treated cordially by Australian friends and the community at large. Madhu is also quite popular at school and Mugi had never had any trouble settling in with his Aussie mates. All these years, we had been comfortable living here in our own skins.

But today when I ventured out with the family to the nearby shopping centre, for the first time I was conscious of who I was. I was afraid to look into people's eyes worried how we would be perceived by them. I also remember shushing Mugil who was running around and chattering non-stop, leaving me a bit anxious that he might attract unwanted attention. I can see Indian friends making light of the happenings in Melbourne, but under that facade, I can detect the cracks appearing questioning their faiths in the country that they have adopted. A few years ago, watching the Cronulla riots on TV, I found it surrealistic, unable to believe it happening in Australia. And today, the same numbness takes over me, leaving me unable to digest what had happened to Indians in Melbourne.....shattering my beliefs in the goodness of the world around me.

For now, we are all waiting, hoping and keeping our fingers crossed that there wont be any escalation or copycats of these attacks......only time will tell. It is sad that people like me seem to live in transit in both their countries, belonging nowhere and yet desperately trying to fit in both the worlds..........which makes me wonder, have we made the right choices?