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Back to the Future
2020 was supposed to propel my husband and I into a new future; I had to travel through my past to get there!
2020. That was the year we had planned to leave India and move to Europe. I had written it down in my journal a decade earlier under the heading: ULTIMATE DEADLINE.
“If we don’t set a goal, we’ll never leave before we’re 50, and it’s a lot harder to find jobs in Europe once you hit The Big 5–0,” I had told my Indian husband, who was living in Mumbai when we met.
Although I had never been to Mumbai before I got married, I was familiar with Delhi, as my Indian father would take me, my brother, sister and my Dutch mom there in our school’s winter breaks to stay with relatives.
I remember wondering — as we soaked up spicy curries with charcoaled naan bread, sat by the open fires, and watched beautiful musical dance performances at weddings — if I could ever live there and feel comfortable.
FISH OUT OF WATER
My childhood nostalgia evaporated when I moved to Mumbai, some 30 years later. The collective movie dialogues, sing along popular tunes and vernacular jokes were lost on me. I was an alien amongst my own people.
I remember running out the door of my Hindi tutor’s home in tears — frustrated that I could not grasp how to use the past tense. I think I…
