THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE

It’s that time of year- when the annual India trip is made.
I’ve been going every year for a marriage in my family, and this time is the first I’m going, well, without a purpose, really.
So I started shopping last week, with a recce` that ended in no shopped goods, but just a sigh and a “I never know what to buy anymore”.  Needless to say, I shopped again in a couple of days, and everything seemed to fit in, and I got back home with a carload of things, none of which will be used by anyone in India, I’m sure.
These days, American things are no big deal in India. In fact, I’m certain that chocolates from my previous visits are still lying around the refrigerator in Chennai (nee Madras). The ice bucket I got for my dad has been transformed into a much lesser being and is being used for tasks the creator never meant for it, and the German bell was in danger of being left behind by my sister when she was moving (“probably something the owner of the flat left here to ward off the evil eye”).
I’m guilty of the same thing, I must admit. When my brother was studying in America, I’m sure he had the same problems in deciding what to buy, and ended up getting all sorts of cosmetics and creams for us, thinking he would transform us into women of some sophistication. I’m sad to say that they are still in the Godrej Bureau, tucked away nicely behind the silk saris!
Old habits indeed die hard. My first introduction to make up and creams was when my Cousins from “North India” would visit the grandparents.
We, living closer, made it to our grandparents’ house every major holiday, and loved it there. Lots of cousins, thatched roofs, and other heroes to admire (after too many rebukes, you do tend to hate to admire your older brother); it was all great.
Till The Cousins arrived. They actually made trips to places other than Madras, and had been on planes and stuff. Now they weren’t in Madras for every one of their holidays, and it seemed they brought out the worst in my grandparents.
They pampered them, relegating us to the “host” position, which is always the one of “sacrificer”, which no one ever enjoys. The loving grandparents turned into mini monsters, making dishes these new kids liked. Giving them prime “fan area” to sleep.  
The Cousins, to boot, spoke in Hindi to each other, like it was some secret code. We were one up though. We were learning Hindi in school too, and could understand them whenever they spoke slowly and loudly and used simple words like Kisaan, Fal, Fool, Anaar and Imli (which, of course, they never did).
In any case, they also sometimes spoke in English to us; with patti (grandma) and thatha (grandpa) exclaiming how good their English was (how much of a colonial hangover my grandfather must have had). We countered with our nursery rhymes, but it never was as impressive as the spoken word, I must say.
Well, we were childish enough to talk in whispered tones, and also in Tamil, which we suspected they weren’t too good at. North India- pschaw!!
Sorry, Poornima, but we were mean, I guess!
To return to my original point- and they had make up. We were products of the powder generation moms- who thought that the one stop beauty and skin care shop was in the rusted orange and white Cuticura Talcum Powder container. The only other optional make up items were the nail polish and the lipstick, in that order of importance.
The Cousins seemed to have other things with them- some creams and some nicely shaped bottles with perfume, and several colors of the aforementioned nail polish and lipstick.
The Mother dressed them up, in stark contrast to us, who were soaped and washed, and left running with towels on us till someone found time and clothed us. Sometimes The Mother clothed us, in which case, we could look forward to some of that talcum powder that inexplicably came out of a bottle that wasn’t orange in color. We concluded it must be fake talcum powder, but it smelt good, and so we didn’t care.
We would be clothed in our bargained-to-death hand-me-downs from Ranganathan Street (where, in all probability, the shop keeper would have given my grandma the dress for free, just to get her out of there). And They would be in jeans pants.
Jeans pant- the two words that would make my heart jump. I could never summon up the courage to ask for jeans pants from my parents- so birthday after birthday, diwali after diwali, I just stared at the jeans pants on the windows of shops, hoping Appa or Amma would notice the longing in my eyes and actually buy me one of those- prices and tradition be damned!
(Boy, am I distracted today!)
As the day of their departure drew close, we would throw evil glances at my grandparents: you-know- who’s-gonna-be-here-the-next-holiday kind of look. And we tried to smile at The Cousins like our parents asked us to, and tried to include them in our games as instructed to.
When I say “tried” I really mean that in the loosest sense of the word. If during I-spy (which I thought was “ice boys” for the longest period of my life), they didn’t realize the game was over and decided to stay there for the rest of the day, that doesn’t count as not trying, does it?
The day of departure.
We went to the station, perhaps to ensure that they really left, but pretending to miss them, of course. After they left, the house was in a kind of quiet that was eerie. Strangely enough, we missed Them. They had given us a purpose to the holiday, and now we were back to our boring old routines, seemed like. Like the college devoid of its spirit after the freshers’ party that signifies the end of ragging, the household just ambled along, going about its business.
These thoughts all came flooding back as I was at my cousin’s house in Framingham a couple of days back.
Last year, she was in India with her child, when I was there too. And I happened to watch her child trying to get friendly with her Indian cousins (just to distinguish the two, doesn’t mean that anyone’s less Indian than the other). I happened to watch her grandparents ask her to recite the ABC, as she did so with a flourish and an accent, finishing up with a Thank you as well, after the clapping.
I, meanwhile, was rooting for the local kid who was under pressure of following a class act. She managed to finish it in spite of a couple of stumbles, and I was cheering her all the way through.
She went and stood by her competitor, so to speak, and went and shook hands with her. I was impressed and ashamed at the same time, wondering at the resilience of kids these days, and cringing at my own pettiness even when I was twice these kids’ age.
All these thoughts only lasted till the shriek from my cousin’s kid, who saw that her hands were black from some gooey substance, as she kept pointing at the local kid and crying.
Ah! The cycle starts again.