Happy 61st Independence Day India...just jotting down something that tugged my heart. We had Priyanka and Kumar over for dinner on 15th ( along with the Gautams and Mona). The evening was lively with Kumar's stories from the US, his experiences and the ups and down of the 4 years of life gone by. On asking Kumar as to how far he is from citizenship, considering that his Green Card came in early, and effortlessly ( in comparison to manyyyyy) he said " Citizenship could take as long as 12 years. Even if i reach uptil that point, i am not sure if i would be able to read the oath. I have tried reading the oath by myself, and each time i choke. It's like asking someone to leave one mother, and take upon another, without ever going back to the first. I am not convinced in my heart that i have the guts or the willingness to do that".
How i see it is that even if eventually Kumar does take that oath, with all the excitement and success that his time in US brought him, he knew that he didnt really want to leave his motherland, and that it choked him time and time again to prepare to accept another country as his own. It does echo the sentiments of some of the people of my generation. We are compelled by our ambitions to look beyond our boundaries, to relocate, to give up, and move on. Yet, deep down, we would not trade it to turn our backs on the country that created our character.
How i see it is that even if eventually Kumar does take that oath, with all the excitement and success that his time in US brought him, he knew that he didnt really want to leave his motherland, and that it choked him time and time again to prepare to accept another country as his own. It does echo the sentiments of some of the people of my generation. We are compelled by our ambitions to look beyond our boundaries, to relocate, to give up, and move on. Yet, deep down, we would not trade it to turn our backs on the country that created our character.
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