The term 'transit loungers' (borrowed from Pico Iyer) refers to the class of people who are entangled between multicultural identities .(My roomies refer to a friend of us as "Cultural Shock " hehe ). Iyer suggested this to denote the set of people who end up spending a lot of time catching international flights , waiting at the transit lounges . They don't have any affinity towards any particular nationality , but feel quite comfortable eating Pizzas and burgers ( or even trying out Chinese dishes with chopsticks ), listening to Bryan Adams , watching Hollywood movies and thinking of English as an international passport. Well , I still believe that I don't belong to one of them.But what made me think about this is the recent conversation that I had with my cousin who is in Indian Airforce .I was talking to him after a long while and he asked a simple question "Are you still a desi ? Or have you embraced the new culture ? ". I replied assertively saying that I am , and will always be a Mallu (hehe , the identity which I love to cherish ).
But afterwards this made me think a bit deep . " Do I have any right to be one ? ".....Like any pravasi Malayalee ( the denizens of Kerala ), I too wear the traditional dress on Onam and Vishu , and still vehemently talk , rather argue about CPI (M) , Malayalam lyrics and the desi mindset and all that . But that doesn't entitle me to be a proper Desi or Mallu .
Dreams and ambitions took me a long way out of the place where I was born and now I think the attachment for my hometown is only because my parents are still there . For me , home is where my mom is .. well thats true . Once when I was in Bangalore , she was hospitalized in Cochin and I rushed to the hospital and stayed with her there for the entire 3 days when she was there . Not because my house was quite far from the hospital , but I felt that is where my home is !!! So if at all my parents come down to this alien country to stay with me , will I lose the touch with God's Own country ? Something that experience should tell me .
My friends over here have now developed this habit of listening to Malayalam poetry online .Thanks to www.nishaunni.com and Vishnu , who introduced us to this website . When I listen to the lyrics of Vyloppilli and Vayalar , I feel that I have lost a lot of things when I embraced Information Technology . Well , technology has its benefits . It has taken us close to the long lost lyrics through these poems now .While I was in Kerala , I never used to listen fully to these lines , but now they sound far far better . May be I am not a transit lounger yet .... I am still at the domestic lounge :-)
PS : The cousin who talked to me , Manoj chettan , is heading to Kashmir now , his next posting . He told me that 'Dahl Lake' would be awesome . He told me that his posting is 11,000 feet above the sea level , and mountains look wonderful from there. He told me that life could be really adventurous there . He told me not to be a transit lounger and come back ....
