Being a NRNINA

NRNINA - Non Resident Neither Indian Nor American

"I don't know what's with all this confusion among us NRIs about whether we want to settle in the US or go back to India. I know exactly what I want to do - I want to go back to dear motherland some day" - that was me, until about a year or so back.

One three-week wedding ceremony in India later, I still know exactly what I want to do - I don't want to go back.

I remember this lunch I was having at a Pakistani-Indian restaurant with D and other friends, where I lifted up my fisted right arm and proclaimed that I would have my India vacation and my wedding go exactly my way. It didn't at all seem like a daunting challenge, given how over-doting S is and how super open-minded my parents are. D warned, "In most Indian weddings, that is a near-impossible claim... but I wish you all luck with all my heart".

My "I dont want to go back" declaration should have given you the gist of how it turned out :). Should have listened to D and kept my expectations in a bottomless abyss. But no biggie, I have resolved the my-kind-of-wedding issue with yet another proclamation :D - for all non-practical purposes, I will consider myself to be in an un-wedded live-in relationship until I have a MY-way-wedding. How 'bout that, huh! :p. [Yep, that was the only pathetic come-back I could come up with].

Thankfully for me, S feels the same way about moving back, but if circumstances force us to seek shelter in motherland, this wonderfully entertaining biographical-blog about a Newly-Returned-Indian is my inspiration to take it all with a pinch of salt and a whole deal of humor - http://neoindian.org/about/