Culture shock at “home”!

The idea of finding all sorts of people across the globe is ordinary; but the real eye-opener for me was when I was thunder bolted with culture shock at “home”, in the country I was born and bred.

After having lived overseas for over 2 decades and not many reasons to visit, I felt totally alienated to the entire culture on my last couple of visits.

We talk about racism in western countries, but I had a few encounters in my own home solely because of the blonde colour of my hair. I was called, “corona” whilst crossing a road, a passenger sitting next to me on a train decided to move only because of that reason -this was during the pandemic. Ironically, I come from a country which didn’t have a single case of Covid for over 2 years !

Let alone strangers, I had a few ordeals with my own family starting with denouncing a post on social media where I would say I have no regrets I have raised my daughter in a certain way and she doesn’t speak any Indian languages – the criticism lays in I am putting my own country down and a common issue with Indians living overseas? I was left discombobulated how this does or doesn't make me Indian. More so, why judge someone’s parenting? I keep thinking to myself when did I comment on someone’s parenting even if you live in a country where almost everyone speaks English, you send your children to private, English-speaking schools, you criticise people if they can’t speak or write proper English or make grammatical errors. Hypocrisy much?

Talk about judgement – you are judged for greenbacks, career, what sort of lifestyle you lead? And here I thought, this place is the birth mother of spirituality !

There may be some confusion between being spiritual and being religious – that’s a separate subject which I might cover off in my next blog.

The journey doesn’t matter, it’s the destination – literally. So, someone who is a professional earning 6 or 7 figures a year is obviously more “successful” than a single mother who worked 2 jobs while nursing her 3 day old baby and kept doing it for over a decade. Whatever happened to Bhagwad Gita’s -  everyone’s journey is different, it isn’t fair to judge anybody in the first place on any grounds.

The other great deal is if you condemn the government, you automatically become an outcast. Sarcasm lies in Rishi Sunak is still hailed for being an "Indian" Prime Minister of the United Kingdom where as he has no roots to India.

You are an outcast anyway if your views are different to the majority – be it spirituality, religion, sports, political or just any views in general - it doesn't even matter what you have done to stand up for your own community overseas. 

I am still trying to break path to acceptance and hopefully I can one day without being lambasting. Amen to that !




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