Autumn was creeping down the Valley of the Parbati in 1996. The air was cold and crisp with the recent passage of a snowstorm above the pastures of Thakur Kuan and up to the Parbati river's gravel flats at Mantalai. The foliage was already transforming into a beautiful, mellow pallette of ochres and reds and yellows.
Ajay Tambe, Karen Close and I were lounging on a grassy meadow peppered with wildflowers, soaking up the warmth of the sun. We were hiking back to Manikaran after a couple of weeks of climbing as part of the Indo-American expedition to Glacier IV at the head of the Parbati valley. Across the gorge of the river a rainbow came to effervescent life in the spray from a waterfall tumbling down from the snows above the black cliffs. After days of strenuous activity at high altitudes, our bodies revelled in the increased doses of oxygen in the air and our enriched red blood cells gave a turbo boost to our systems. Life was perfect.
I looked across at Karen and Ajay and said spontaneously,"You know, if there is one reason I would never like to leave India, it is this...." and I swept my hands in a grand gesture, taking in the incredible beauty of the landscape.
Two months later, back in the sweltering heat of Mumbai, Margaret and I filed our papers for immigration into Canada! Was I a hypocrite? What was driving me to leave my motherland for good and settle down on a foreign shore? Both of us had stable, long term jobs. India was not a country ravaged by war. We were not being persecuted. We were not seeking political asylum. We had neither family nor relatives in Canada. So why would I want to abandon the country of my birth, the country that had given me my education, the country that had given me a pretty decent livelihood? I tried to be analytical, but it did not help. I sought refuge in history.
My father had left his village in search of a job and a better life for himself and his children. That was understandable. The Aryans swept down from Asia Minor across the gigantic mountain ranges of the Karakorum and the Himalaya down into the Indo-Gangetic plains in search of a fertile land and they found India. Small bands of Indians went forth and made a new life for themselves in East Africa. Under the British Raj, illiterate villagers from the provinces of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh went off to distant islands like Fiji and Mauritius and never looked back.
In more recent times, the IT boom propelled thousands of brilliant, educated Indians to lust after the H1B visa in the United States and chase the Holy Grail of the fabled Green Card. Some of my own colleagues in the airline that I worked for had gone off to Canada and New Zealand and Australia.
Had these events set off an unconscious longing to sample a different lifestyle in a different continent? Perhaps.
To actually set anything in motion, you need something to trigger the process and then momentum takes over: this was precisely so in my case.
As soon as I returned from the Parbati expedition, Margaret (my wife) told me that one of our neighbours in the building in which we lived were departing for Canada and would I be kind enough to help them get to the airport? They were emigrating, so they had lots of baggage and the taxi to the airport would not be able to accomodate everything. So I stuffed as much as I could in my little Maruti Gypsy and away we went. After they had checked in and were heading for the departure gates, I had a brief chat with Rodney, the head of the family. We were neighbours and colleagues at work.
As I drove home from the airport on that early Sunday morning, a life-changing thought occurred to me: If Rodney can pack up his bag and his life, what is stopping me?
Perhaps I needed a change from the sticky climate, perhaps I needed less congested living conditions, perhaps I did not want to share my space with more than 10 million other Mumbaikars, perhaps I was sick of my job and the only way I could quit with a clear conscience was to make a complete break with the country...or perhaps it was just the lure of adventure, of a new life in a new place. There was nothing rational about my decision...it was an impulse. Whatever it was, now I began to nurse it consciously. I had spent the first 22 years of my life in eastern India and now I was completing another 22 years on the west coast in Mumbai. Time to move on...Go West, young man, as they used to say. I told myself I was still young at heart...
Like countless other times, once again I sought legitimacy in literature :
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| The upper Parbati valley, Kullu Himalaya, India. |
Ajay Tambe, Karen Close and I were lounging on a grassy meadow peppered with wildflowers, soaking up the warmth of the sun. We were hiking back to Manikaran after a couple of weeks of climbing as part of the Indo-American expedition to Glacier IV at the head of the Parbati valley. Across the gorge of the river a rainbow came to effervescent life in the spray from a waterfall tumbling down from the snows above the black cliffs. After days of strenuous activity at high altitudes, our bodies revelled in the increased doses of oxygen in the air and our enriched red blood cells gave a turbo boost to our systems. Life was perfect.
I looked across at Karen and Ajay and said spontaneously,"You know, if there is one reason I would never like to leave India, it is this...." and I swept my hands in a grand gesture, taking in the incredible beauty of the landscape.
Two months later, back in the sweltering heat of Mumbai, Margaret and I filed our papers for immigration into Canada! Was I a hypocrite? What was driving me to leave my motherland for good and settle down on a foreign shore? Both of us had stable, long term jobs. India was not a country ravaged by war. We were not being persecuted. We were not seeking political asylum. We had neither family nor relatives in Canada. So why would I want to abandon the country of my birth, the country that had given me my education, the country that had given me a pretty decent livelihood? I tried to be analytical, but it did not help. I sought refuge in history.
My father had left his village in search of a job and a better life for himself and his children. That was understandable. The Aryans swept down from Asia Minor across the gigantic mountain ranges of the Karakorum and the Himalaya down into the Indo-Gangetic plains in search of a fertile land and they found India. Small bands of Indians went forth and made a new life for themselves in East Africa. Under the British Raj, illiterate villagers from the provinces of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh went off to distant islands like Fiji and Mauritius and never looked back.
In more recent times, the IT boom propelled thousands of brilliant, educated Indians to lust after the H1B visa in the United States and chase the Holy Grail of the fabled Green Card. Some of my own colleagues in the airline that I worked for had gone off to Canada and New Zealand and Australia.
Had these events set off an unconscious longing to sample a different lifestyle in a different continent? Perhaps.
To actually set anything in motion, you need something to trigger the process and then momentum takes over: this was precisely so in my case.
As soon as I returned from the Parbati expedition, Margaret (my wife) told me that one of our neighbours in the building in which we lived were departing for Canada and would I be kind enough to help them get to the airport? They were emigrating, so they had lots of baggage and the taxi to the airport would not be able to accomodate everything. So I stuffed as much as I could in my little Maruti Gypsy and away we went. After they had checked in and were heading for the departure gates, I had a brief chat with Rodney, the head of the family. We were neighbours and colleagues at work.
As I drove home from the airport on that early Sunday morning, a life-changing thought occurred to me: If Rodney can pack up his bag and his life, what is stopping me?
Perhaps I needed a change from the sticky climate, perhaps I needed less congested living conditions, perhaps I did not want to share my space with more than 10 million other Mumbaikars, perhaps I was sick of my job and the only way I could quit with a clear conscience was to make a complete break with the country...or perhaps it was just the lure of adventure, of a new life in a new place. There was nothing rational about my decision...it was an impulse. Whatever it was, now I began to nurse it consciously. I had spent the first 22 years of my life in eastern India and now I was completing another 22 years on the west coast in Mumbai. Time to move on...Go West, young man, as they used to say. I told myself I was still young at heart...
Like countless other times, once again I sought legitimacy in literature :
"There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures."
( Brutus in Shakepeare's Julius Caesar, Act 4 Scene 3 )
Very well written, Alok!
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff, Aloke.
ReplyDeleteSuper stuff.
ReplyDelete