Chronicles of a Jongleur

What do you do when all the people you know – from the best buddy you shared a samosa with to that older cousin whom you confided your heart and soul to, to the pesky grandmother next door and even the milkman start pestering you about your job, salary, marriage, return plans etc.? It takes a lot of effort in dealing with different people in the loyalty hierarchy who are essentially bombarding you with deeply personal questions that you would rather not want to face, let alone answer. There are other equally impertinent questions that increase my discomfiture levels tenfold- Why are you working there and not here? What is your designation? When are you going to become “a manager?” Ad nauseum.

I have realized that the best way to tackle such eminently avoidable questions is to, well, avoid the questions and avoid the people who ask them. For no level of courteous dignity is capable of quenching the curiosity levels of these pesky folks. Sometimes I wonder if my attitude is a manifestation of expectations that come from (a few) years of living abroad – a subtle but undeniable expectation of individual privacy. But there are occasions when you have no choice but to provide an answer, which will inevitably be dissected and analyzed at length after you have boarded the plane out of Madras. A piece of counsel for my fellow bloggers- answer everything in as vague a manner as you can. A confused audience asks lesser questions.

And I realized that it’s no longer possible to distract the elder folk under the pretext of describing life in America. Almost everyone who is anyone has an offspring(s), an in-law, a neighbor, an aunt or a pet skunk etc. who is currently working in Silicon Valley (as a hypothetical example, take a look at the Matrimonial section in the Sunday edition of the Hindu). Or take a walk through the alleys of the crowded concert halls, now that it’s the peak of the December music season- you will be amazed how many intersecting discussions there are on topics ranging from the merits of the American Interstate and demerits of Medicare as well as about four hundred thousand different descriptions of Yellowstone National Park. Most lead dual lives- six months of playing with their toddler grandchildren in Palo Alto followed by 6 months of bitching about how rude the daughter-in-law was to them. Some of them have even state of the art hearing aids and designer Casio watches. Its not uncommon to walk the Parks of Luz Corner (for the men) and the slimy streets of Thanni Dorai Market (for the women) and hear extended discussions about how fair(sic) their grandchildren are because of the weather and how cute they sound with their devastating accents. And so on. Anyway, I digress.

Having bitched enough about myriad topics, its time to reflect and rationalize. It’s during such discussions that you suddenly start to feel the unbearable heat of our social structure, our responsibilities and commitments. All of a sudden you want to scurry back into that huge abyss that is America, away from the “heat, dust and grime” of “Indian society”, of nosy relatives and curious neighbors. And once there, you start the same process all over again – of dreaming about that next great trip to India, where you can hope to “spend some quality time” with friends and relatives alike.

It’s a sunrise cycle that never ends, for the laws of gravity always pull one side towards the other. Each side will continue to remain green “er”, and the pendulums in our souls shall never cease to oscillate. After all we are all one and the same – opportunists of trapped in different grades the human form. And driven by the wonderful euphemism of greed that we shamelessly masquerade as ambition.