I grew up learning “Home is where your parents are.” So to
me, irrespective of how many years we’ve been in the US or how long we plan to
be in Singapore, yeah we moved to Singapore, home is always where mom is - in India. That’s true for Ady too.
For my kids however, everything but the US is transient.
DD knows for a fact that she’s here in Singapore only until
high school. She’ll move back at the first available opportunity.
I know I’ve lost this girl to America, it is her home, her
childhood.
I assumed much to my foolishness that DS wouldn’t be that
way. He’d be a mamma’s boy, and I would be his whole world.
He especially hates it, when we go to crowded places. We’d virtually
be tormenting him to his soul if we took him to visit Little India.
“Book a flight now, I want to go to Seattle now. We can’t
stay here. This is not a nice place at all. There are too many bugs biting me.”
That part is true. Bugs somehow do seem to bite his skinny
legs. Bugs that would never bother you.
“We’ll go after a few years, sweetheart.”
“Noooo…I’ll go with Dika.”
“What? No, I won’t be able to take care of you. And I’ll have
my own classes, and school. What about your school? Where will we stay? I may not
go back to Seattle.” DD thought through her entire future.
“Fine, you don’t have to come for shopping.” I’d offer to
assuage DS.
“And to eat. I don’t want to come to any restaurant.”
“Why not? You like idli and dosa?”
“Yes, but I don’t like everybody else.”
“What?” I asked confused.
“All the Indian grown ups keep telling me to finish my food
in the restaurants. They tell me to eat my vegetables.”
He was referring to a time when a waiter was trying to help us
by ‘encouraging’ him to wipe his plate clean.
DS hates disappointing people. So he hates it even more when
he can avoid disappointing someone who he doesn’t even know.
“You don’t have to listen to them, babe.”
“Then it’ll hurt their feelings.”
“But listening to them, is hurting yours.”
“No, let’s book a flight and go back to Seattle. That way no
one will tell me what and how much I should eat.”
“We can’t go now, babe.”
“Ok, can we go at lunch time, when I am hungry?”
