Diwali Episode 2: Filtered Out

Cliche : Alone in a Crowd

Culture education continued... people say I'm really not very Indian, and maybe that hurts and maybe it rubs me the wrong way, but maybe its also true.

Maybe I'm not very Indian, because I didn't go home for Diwali like all the other Northerners I know, whose homes were not so far away. I thought I could cover my work backlog (more on that later :P).

I never thought it would get so deserted in hostel. I don't mind eating alone in a crowd of strangers. There's a strange sense of anonymity and insignificance that brings me calm. But in an empty dining hall, with just a group of people huddled on one table, a group of people I happen to know - Southerners who couldn't get home and back and still stay home long enough for it to be worthwhile - it became natural to gravitate toward them with my meal.

And I don't think I've ever eaten a lonelier meal in my life. Alone in a crowd of friends and acquaintances who chatted and laughed and ate and ignored my presence altogether. Not because I was unknown or not liked by them, but because I couldn't understand their language.

Maybe I'm not very Indian; but if these are Indians, then maybe that's not such a bad thing.