The beginning of a new year is normally marked by ambitious and often misguided resolutions but as the trend in this particular blog-space would suggest, 2007 for me has been heralded by new year revelations. Forty-eight hours awash with déjà vu later, my brain has been through a wringer. I not only had to face the choices I made in the past but as it turns out I have to now confront more immediate revelations. In a recent conversation with a friend I was chided for not having been around much. I found this surprising because I thought I had made a concerted effort in the past few months to not burrow myself and go into hibernation. While I found it justifiable for some friends to argue my lack of social contact, this wasn't one of those cases. The observation though fit well with a gnawing thought - that even if I hadn't gone into social hibernation, the more I found myself among international friends the more deafening my silence became. I had fancied myself as the observer, the purveyor of conversations, of whims and fancies, of idiosyncracies that made these people that made America. They would be Inscrutable Americans no more. As an international student from a big city with a practised ability to understand the accent and fed on a diet of American sitcoms I assured myself I would fare better than the fictional small-town hick from the heartland. Several months of denial later, I face up to the realization that culture shocks come in a variety of shapes and sizes. They are not only reflected in the first hesitant steps on and off a fast moving escalator, the first laundry experience or in the dazzling choices that we have, but they also creep up on the seemingly well-adjusted. It is when the novelty has worn off, when the politics of caste and the sociology of arranged marriages have been clarified, and when conversations over potluck dinner and shared wine begin that the gap begins to show. My friend tells me I'm "otherizing myself". First I correct her and say it is actually "otherising" and that I'm not. So even if I have been physically present at all social gatherings - cozy, intimate or otherwise, I have found my conversation to lag behind Popular references and the lengths of my silence increase. So 2007 brings a new revelation - I haven't been "around" much this past year; I have been seen but not heard. The reams of mental notes I had made that would someday dispel the myth of inscrutability remains but in my mind. They are not inscrutable as long as I learn the language, watch twenty years of American television, enjoy college football and eat at every such franchise that had made for a memorable road trip for each one of my friends. Amongst a group of friends with opinions, I suffer from a lack of one. I have thoughts about the land and its people but on declaring a preference for Quiznos over Whatsisname's Famous Chicken Nuggets, I regretfully step aside.
Resolution for 2007 - search for a solution.
