12-West for us

12. The West for us

A wk-end at the Beach, Panama City Florida, I wrote,” As I walk on the wet sand, the foot marks keep getting washed away, lost and gone, leaving me lost and gone. The tides hit me and I fall. I am up but am hit again and fall further away. I dig my feet in, to stay firm, here it comes, a big one, the sand slips and I fall. I jump, swim and try to stay afloat. The Sea comes, keeps coming and almost drowns me.”

My depression worsened.

Professionally I was doing well. I was also adding a different patient populace to our group, being a woman and with a bend towards psycho-therapy. I ran the inpatient group with the Pastoral counselor John Sims and other staff. The Medical chief would send all residents to me for a Psychiatric Orientation Program and any personal problem they needed to resolve. My Psychiatric partners began to call me ‘Gendi’, they meant Indira Gandhi.

I had become the President of the Indian Association of Birmingham. Each year the city hosted a festival where they saluted a chosen country. We educated school kids about India by doing fun projects. There was a cultural Bonanza for a Whole week inaugurated by none other than, the then Ambassador Dr. K R Narayanan. Performers included Mallika Sarabhai doing the Oddisi, Hari Prasad Chaurasia on the flute, Uday Shankar’s troup doing an dance act from the Maha Bharata. There was also of course, sumptuous food from North, South, East and Western parts of India.

Whilst earlier, at home there had been swimming parties with Booze and Barbequed Murga in the evenings, now I began to spend solitary hours floating in the pool in semi darkness.

Another crisis occurred which took Rakesh and me to India. Papaji, his father was in the hospital following a gastric bleed which was a result of serious Liver Cirrhosis. Following a Blood transfusion he developed further Jaundice and renal failure. He passed away at the early age of 58. All Hindus put Ganga jal in the mouth of the dying man. I don’t know if it could wash away the alcohol in his system now. Papaji had really loved me like a daughter as there was no girl in the family prior to me. This of course further saddened all of us.

I began to share ‘myself’ with friends in USA and family at home. There were frequent trips to India with and without the kids.
I needed to put things in order. What did I want and what could I save.
It was the beginning of my questions about the Marriage and stay in the West. What had been subtle and accepted began to be serious issues.

I had never felt that I wanted to settle abroad. I was always giving in to Rakesh because of his weak family ties. I had always ‘wished’ to return. As soon as we started making good money, Rakesh started mishandling it. Living there was comfortable physically but a vacuum in the West constantly haunted me. It was a place of plenty but never felt like ‘my home’.

I decided I wasn’t going to let Rakesh continue like this. He was going to help running the house now from his earnings. I had worked extremely hard all these years and I was going to save mine for going to India later. At least I needed to give it a try. I felt I had to save the children and myself.

Ironically, our American citizenship papers came through now. I did not feel American. I didn’t want to become American. I didn’t want to lose ‘my’ Indian identity but being unsure of the future, I accepted. I answered questions about American History at the interview although I felt no part of it. I could not let go of that to which I felt I belonged, centuries of my own ancestry and the soil of the Geography of my land.

The last year was very difficult. Divya chose to stay there as this was her final in High School and then she would go away from Birmingham to University. I worried about her, was frightened of leaving her, and yet could not go on there. I was trying handling Rakesh and the children and dealing with their feelings around this issue of Family split up and Country move to India, both at the same time.
Rakesh had finally accepted hoping it may be temporary.

There was a superficial calm. There was the question “Am I doing the right thing? I made a mistake when I married Rakesh. I rebelled against my family, my parents to whom I am so close now. Am I now rebelling against this present family?”

With opposition from all quarters, I decided to take the plunge. I felt frightened but stood my ground. While emotions and deep, deep pain devoured me inside, something else, a much stronger force continued to instill a sense of confidence at the same time.

I needed to prepare Divya who was to stay back. She was already ‘driving’ to School by now. At Christmas that year, she, Karan and I, drove 1500 miles to New York through Snowy roads, with her at the steering wheel. We were spending a week at my friend Kusum’s place with her family. We talked, they cried, they talked and we cried. Then we spent the 31st eve at Times Square where the Big Apple descended at midnight and the world went crazy with shouts of joy, heralding the New Year.

I needed to prepare myself too. I had been having problem ‘periods’ for some while. With the Gynecologist’s advice, I had a Hysterectomy.
I was in room 274 Brook wood hospital. Jim, Ed and Carol, my partners at work, all came to see me, also to say Good-bye. They were wonderful. We had good times working together.
I finished ‘Work’ at Princeton and bade remaining Good-byes. Emptying the office was sad. Tons of memories of my faithful patients, will always occupy the crevices of my brain.

Outside, it was dark. The Red lights in the Tower house and the Green of
‘the Vulcan, Steel God’ twinkled constantly, brightly, hopefully.
“All this will be behind me and I shall be starting a new life, new life, and new life”.

At home, the Shipping container arrived and 14 years of my life were packed and shipped to India.

As the plane took off with me and Karan, the Sun Set outside my window, it sort of Set on America for me.

Veena