i just reread interpreter of maladies by jhumpa lahiri. it’s one of the most beautiful collections of
short stories i’ve ever read. it tells
the stories of people’s lives from the sub-continent. i relate to every one of them for some reason
or another. and then i look up,
startled, to realise (yet again) that i’m a pale caucasian who was not a true
immigrant in america. but that is how i
felt. it was lonely and painstaking and
complicated. i felt so lost and
confused. i looked and sounded like i
should understand the american life, but i dreaded waking up most days to be
confronted with more ‘new’.
i couldn’t grapple with the dichotomy of
calling my boss by his first name while still treating him as my superior. i struggled greatly with driving and the long
list of rules that went with it. vending
machines scared me and getting through a grocery store and all its overwhelming
excess took me hours. i came from a
place of such community and eventually moved to chicago where i was just one of
millions trying to survive. i had
nowhere to go every summer unless i found employment with housing. i prepared with gusto for every visit from my
parents and then felt disillusioned when we found ourselves in a small space
face-to-face with strangers instead of family.
i didn’t know about roaming charges on my first cell phone nor how to
manage a checkbook. i cried alone in a
mouldy bathroom in a subpar indian restaurant because the smells made me
violently homesick.
in all of lahiri’s stories, any new arrival
eventually adjusts and makes sense of their new surroundings. my story is no different. i may have been an invisible immigrant, but
the journey was just as confusing though i, too, eventually adjusted. i had incredible help from MANY amazing people. i had aunts who surrounded me in love and
answered my many questions. i had a
family who let me live with them and taught me to drive (at the near expense of
their lives). i had parents who called
long distance to check in on me. i had
roommates in chicago who taught me how to shop and not be afraid of
traffic.
even with all of that, it was still hard. because that’s what changing countries can
be. everything is ripped away and a new
system is slapped down and you need to adjust to make it. i remember being in that family’s
house—filled with heat and good food and my own comfortable room. i had just gotten home to an empty house
having narrowly avoided an accident on the way there, and felt completely
alone. i knew i had so much, but i was still
so lonely. there was no one who
understood and i sat alone in the stairwell and wept.
but that was years ago. i remember the feelings of scraping
loneliness and metallic confusion so i can help those in the same situation
today. it no longer describes me,
however, for which i am grateful. i
still feel country-less and do not possess patriotism, but i am no longer
drifting in an endless ocean with no floor.
in fact, i am going back today to the same country that gave me my adult
start. and i am excited to see it
again. i will still be in awe of the
endless rows of food in the grocery story and the sparkling efficiency of
traffic. i will still marvel at the
rightness of the customer and the never-ending search for consumer convenience
by businesses. but i will no longer be
afraid of the country as a whole. i no
longer will fear the newness and feel angry at the separation from the
familiar. instead i will embrace my
aunts, laugh with friends, enjoy being in the same country as my family and drive
down orderly roads. and appreciate
visiting the once strange land of america that now welcomes me.
