86. The overseas send-off

Hindu mythology says that there are only three major events in a person's lifetime. One birth, two marriage and three death. And it also says that since you are fully conscious only during one of these three events, you better celebrate it with all possible grandeur and make it memorable.

But in the life of an Indian 'ex-teen but yet-to-be-called-uncle' youth, there's one other event that's as eventful and memorable as the other three, and this one occurs when that person is fully conscious too. Wondering what I'm talking about ? Yes, its the first trip abroad/overseas for 'higher' studies. That is when you get overwhelmed by the 'Oh I'm gonna be an NRI...I'm going to the developed world....the land of many more opportunities...where the money is good and the chicks are better...where there's plenty to explore and enjoy...where the beer flows like water' feeling .

Once the Visa and the I20 are in hand, pandemonium sets in. Resigning from the work-place, throwing farewell parties, getting sentimental about leaving all your co-workers, shopping a million times for a zillion things, learning to cook, packing all the stuff, buying some more stuff, then re-packing all the stuff, meanwhile getting in touch with all friends (new and old) and letting them know of your departure date(hoping they come send you off at the airport).

You start counting the days to the departure date with a mixture of excitement, enthusiasm, confusion and a fear of what the unknown new world has in store ahead. It's pretty much like waiting for the wedding day, where you have the bride getting all elated and decorated in the last few days while the groom develops cold feet due to fear of commitment. You splurge everywhere on everything – on the necessary, the unnecessary, the unnecessary-now-but-maybe-necessary-later, the necessary-now-unnecessary-later, and the dad-thinks-its-necessary-because-Raju-uncle’s-son-took-it-along stuff. Your savings get wiped out in a jiffy, and then you begin to sport the t-shirt with the logo ‘My dad is my ATM’ and live true to the logo.

Your mom makes you go helter-skelter all over the kitchen trying to teach you to cook basic stuff. Your friends make fun of the remnants of the dried lentils and pulses that they find on your hair when you go to meet them after the disastrous cooking sessions. Your uncles and aunts ask you to go visit some specific temples to get visas, and some others to get call letters from particular universities. Dad keeps giving you career advice every time he catches you taking a break after weighing the bags and finding out that they’re all packed just right.

And then there is the climax at the airport. There’s a colossal wastage of time and resources at the airport. Twenty plus people driving in 4 to 5 cars come to send off this one guy/gal whom they have seen all this while in life ( 20 odd years). They come all the way to the airport, spending on the fuel and the food and singing all the way in cars or hired cabs. But the irony is that they don’t pay that little extra amount on the entry ticket to get into the airport. They all huddle outside, at the entry point, and keep waving like there’s no tomorrow.

It can’t get more dramatic than this. People waving, grandmas crying, moms wiping the sweat off their brows, dads sipping on coffee and scratching their heads thinking as to whether their children have taken the right decision or not. Then comes the final stretch, from the entrance to the sliding doors, the stretch that you have to take alone, the stretch where you keep looking back each second at all that you will be missing henceforth. Alas,  and at last, you disappear amidst the chaos within the airport and the send-off is then deemed complete.

It’s quite an amazing, intriguing and tiring event, I must say.

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