WHO WANTS TO COME BACK

I have done too much of travel in the last one month. Been out 3 weeks out of 4 and am flight fatigued. It is after many years that I embarked on a multi-country Europe trip, types of which I used to undertake as young business developer. But things are much simpler now, than then. Hotels can be booked via internet, you don’t have to depend on clients and agents. With the exception of the UK and Switzerland, you carry and use one currency – Euro, you monitor one Visa - Schengen. In the mid 90s, a 5-country trip meant as many visas and equal number of currencies. 

I was also traveling to eastern Europe after many years. When ever I am in eastern Europe, I feel more comfortable than I am when I am in Europe. The people look more relaxed. The architecture is syncretist - old communist with an abundance of red on the exterior with a fleeting presence of the Venetian as style journeys to the modern European, and the buildings are not yet monstrously sky scraping, people are smiling, the landscape verdant, mildness in mien - the body language is polite, and more than anything, there is hope in contrast to anxiety and anticipation that is writ large on the visage of the west European.

Well this was Slovenia, where I was for a day for a business meeting. And the architecture was a pleasant contrast to the heavy business architecture of Shanghai, where I was just 2 weeks ago. It seems the short Chinese want to make the tallest buildings. But that is China.

Dinner was at an Indian restaurant. An Indian couple travelled to Slovenia, and set up a restaurant there. The man came back after 4 years of living there, the woman stayed back, and re-married a Slovenian. The daughter / girl who runs the restaurant was born in Slovenia, and speak fluent Slovenia.

This story is not uncommon in immigrant familities, I can tell you. The man wanting to return to India and the woman wanting to stay back. I think we as a society give our women respect, but deny them on many counts their freedom. And this denial could manifest in multiple ways depending on which section of society she belongs to. For example, in the lower sections, you may force her to work in the field, but admonish her working in a public place. In the middle class, the man may work extra hard to provide for her, but disapprove her assigning priority to professional aspirations.

Besides, the very eco-system in India makes them lean on men for daily needs. The traffic snarls are so appalling, you need a lion’s heart to venture out to drive. For most women, reversing and parking being their Achilles heel, the over zealous parking attendant persisting to squeeze into the crevice of a parking space 2 cars where there is space for barely one is truly a nightmare.

And of course, the maze of relations and extended family and concomitant obligations are all very well to honor once a year, when you return to your country for a vacation, than to live in the whole year long.