Flying back home made me realize how much I wanted to come back to BU

It wasn’t instantly gratifying, that’s for sure

College had changed me.

I had expected it would be tough to become fully self-reliant in college, but it wasn’t difficult.

I was never a person who made others do my chores, but in India, upper-middle class kids rarely do their own laundry, or wash the dishes, or even work at cafes and stores for pocket money. I had people to do those things for me, and while sometimes circumstances did make me do my own chores, most of the times my family proactively stopped me from doing any household work.

All that changed when I came to college. I am an independent and organized person by nature, and I managed to live all alone in a foreign country and alien culture – and thrived.

What leaving felt like

It wasn’t that I was not ecstatic to go back home in New Delhi, India – quite the contrary, in fact. But for some reason, my college room had truly become my room and I was going to miss it. It was here I had drafted challenging papers, brainstormed new ideas, rehearsed my lines for my play and binged every evening on Haagen Daz and Ben N’ Jerry’s.

I soon forgot about that, though, as I concentrated on flying internationally all alone for the first time ever. While I wasn’t too worried, the suspicion that something might go wrong was still was at the front of my mind. But as soon as I reached the airport, I realized that there was a confidence in my steps. I have travelled a lot and I know airport procedures by heart, but that is not enough to make you confident enough to tackle airport security and immigration. But I sailed through it all and enjoyed the feeling of independence and self-reliance.

A mile high in the sky

The flight back home was tiring but fun. I was flying Virgin Atlantic, so I got to indulge the anglophile in me. I also had my first Bloody Mary on board, and wandered around the streets of London during my eleven-hour-long transit.

After sixteen hours of flying, eleven hours of waiting, a lot of good food and drink, and a dozen cups of espresso (with brandy shots, thank you very much) I landed in New Delhi. My first reaction was to start coughing – badly. The air was smoggy and dusty and the temperature way too hot for December.

I have a shabby immunity system. I catch six colds in a year and I was dreading what torment Boston would subject me to. But for some blessed reason, I had not caught a single cold even though my roommate was down with pretty nasty bouts at least twice during the semester.

I realized that it was the air that made the difference. The air in US was clear and clean. The air in New Delhi was all but a noxious gas and I kissed my good health good bye. I was missing Boston already, damn it.

RBF mode: on

I had picked up some other things too besides self-reliance. I guess I’d started looking a bit more approachable, since in America it is the done thing to greet someone with a smile and exchange a bit of small talk. That is not the norm in India. It is also not common to open doors for someone or say thank-you for the smallest gesture back home.

I made my way over to immigration. Fortunately for me I am actually a citizen of India, which made this one of the rare times when immigration was quick and not a hassle. I looked at the smiled and thanking the officer manning the counter as he handed my passport back, purely on instinct.

He looked highly taken aback. A thank-you was pretty friendly as it is, but a smile? And a smile from a girl? That could be interpreted the wrong way. I quickly made my way out to the luggage carousel. Time to get the RBF mode back on.

Home sweet home

After a couple of panic attacks about my luggage getting lost, I made my way out of the airport. My mom was there to pick me up and I just gave her a tired hug and asked her where the car was so that I can dump my luggage in there. Instead, she pulled it away from me and handed it to the driver and shrugged me off my carry-on bag and escorted me to the car. I just stood on the spot dazedly, not realizing that I didn’t have to cart my own stuff for the next month.

In the car my mom massaged my arms. It felt nice to be cared for. When we arrived, I made a move to pick up my bag, again out of instinct, but she whisked it away before I could touch it. Honestly, it felt weird not carting my own stuff. Nice, yes, but still weird.

It felt nice to hug my family again. But seeing my home again felt strange. Absolutely nothing had changed. Everything seemed as if it was frozen in time. I had experienced so much change in these past four months, but when I came back, everything was just the same. It was disorienting.

And it was when I stepped into my room again that I started crying. This room didn’t feel like my room anymore. It had not felt the full effect of my frustrations, anxiety, happiness, comfort, boredom, anger like my college room had. It was still untouched, still so distant.

 

My family understood why I was crying but were naturally surprised at the nature and intensity of my feelings. It wasn’t that I was missing Boston; it was simply that I was just overwhelmed with transitioning so quickly between two highly different worlds.

After that initial bout of drama, I settled in pretty quickly. It was amazing to have my own bathroom again, but I missed the speedy wifi and the constant supply of electricity and water. I ate some truly delicious food again and the love and attention from the family and friends reminded me what I had been missing out all those months.

 

I hadn’t really pined for anybody, but now all the moments where I wanted to share some tidbit or have a rant but couldn’t came back to me. And so it was with considerably less zeal that I left home for my spring semester.

What can I say? Life as an international student can be pretty interesting.

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