My mom writes a blog, called Heartcrossings. For the sake of anonymity, let her be known as "H". Today, H and I are starting to write posts on the same topic. She wrote about nostalgia and India, so I will too. First off, you should probably know that I've never been to India. So India and I have no direct connection. Yes, it's true when people ask me if I'm Indian, I say my parents are, but I'm from Pittsburgh. To me, that question is like "judging a book by it's cover."
According to the on-line Merriam Webster Dictionary , nostalgia is defined as:
2
: a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition; also : something that evokes nostalgia"
I have a list of reasons why I can not be nostalgic:
1.) I'm still young! I don't have much of my life to reflect upon because, well, the number of years from a time that I can remember up until now is slim to none.
2.) I'm not busy but I don't ever reflect (or try to). Productive or not, I'm always doing something. and,
3.) I live at my home. To me there is no such thing as "homesickness." The longest I remember being away from home is a week, when I was on vacation, with my family. That's like bringing home farther from home.
There is no way that I can pretend to be nostalgic if my situation cancels out the definition itself. In my mind, the same is true for my direct connection to India (there is none!). By name, culture, religion, and the way I look, I am Indian. I have no accent, I know very little about Indian language, music, movies, and sports. I am learning speak to speak Spanish, I love almost any song I hear on the radio, my favorite movie is The Blind Side, and I was a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers - until they lost the Super bowl.
If I were to visually represent myself India and nostalgia for childhood would be virtually invisible.
No comments:
Post a Comment