"The Spirit of Husband Repelling"

Photo by David Rodrigo on Unsplash

I'm currently awaiting my Burger King order to be home delivered, and reading Americanah. I'd delayed reading the book, not wanting to delve into something heavy. I was also under the impression (because I'm a moron) that the word "Americanah" referred to a stylized version of Americana - the telling of American folk stories. Americanah is, instead, the Nigerian word for "American" - it's used in the book to mockingly refer to Nigerians who become Americanized. 

There's a lot to relate to in this book - most astonishing, perhaps, is how men manage to be the same around the world - always failing to come up to mark. Always immature. Always playing games. But in terms of what I relate to the most, it is perhaps the life of someone who has lived across borders, across cultures, who struggles with their identity. 

Nine years ago was the beginning of the end. Almost a decade of my life not spent in a place I called home. Almost a decade of being - what? An immigrant? It has felt like that. But this has also felt like home. There have been times where I've felt like an emigrant returned home. As one might imagine, it's all very confusing. 

It's as if home is a fractured home, scattered across the world. Home was when I grew up in a city somewhere in the middle of the world. A city that is at times tacky in its need to conform, to be cool. A wannabe city, but also one that proved itself to the cool cliques in International Nations. A city guilty of slave labour and human rights violations, of regressive laws pertaining to premarital sex, marital rape, abortions. A city that on the surface lets women be, but which can eviscerate you in a trice if you were to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

Home was also whatever part of England was inhabited by the Secret Seven, the girls of Malory Towers, and America, even though I've never been anywhere west of Egypt. My English is English, my slang is American, my accent isn't really Indian, but also is. Broken Indian languages litter the surface of my tongue - Hindi, Tamil, a few words of Kannada. I read Arabic, but haven't the slightest idea what I'm reading. 

Home is also Malayali, irrevocably Malayali. I ignore it, make faces when I hear people speaking in Malayalam around me. I occasionally surprise people when I tell them where I'm from because I don't really fit the image, don't even try. 

I have a rule, I say: I don't date Mallu boys. And my friends make endless fun of me because practically my entire resume is Mallu boys, Mallu Christian boys, Mallu Catholic Christian boys. I tell them it's a question of access - these were the people I kept meeting, but that doesn't explain what happened in college. 

(Nothing can explain what happened in college.)

When I first left the city I grew up in, I hated everything about India. I hated being forced to come here. I hated the uncleanliness, the conservativeness, the undeniable visual proof of poverty. I was even unused to old age - these were not things my city had. Coming to Bangalore made it easier in a lot of ways - I loved the malls that mimicked the ones I grew up next to, and they had multiplexes here, even though the prices are insane and the food is crap. Chasing alcohol and sex was new - a distraction. I was able to explore my own personality, unrestrained by who I used to be. 

Gradually I came to the conclusion that I liked India, liked living and working here. That it just wouldn't work out anywhere else. Sexism was a problem everywhere, and there would be the added headache of racism and stronger currencies. The middle East would police my body, my sexuality, even more than India did. The West would treat me like a second or third class citizen, and there would be immigration worries, the problems of getting a visa... 

I recently started my second job, full of hope and determination, only to find that they too have a rule against women working in the night shift. And it feels worse this time because the night shift incentive here is far greater than it ever was in the previous company. 

"I've lost faith in the Indian work force," I said in a text to my friend. "It makes me feel unwelcome, looks askance at my presence." 

I'm always searching for better options, and now we come full circle. I look outwards again, imagining a city, a country somewhere where I'm not unwelcome. Somewhere I'm not in danger. Somewhere I can work and study and live alone with my cats and dogs and not be constantly trespassed upon.