My visit to India: Then and now

Travel to India post 9/11 no longer remains an easy business, says Shalini Narang.

In about 10 days, I am coming to India. The anticipation of seeing my mom, dad and other family members is growing by the day and excitement is at its hilt. I am a regular visitor to my homeland, and in the last 11 years, I have made eight trips back home.

While flipping through my American passport and the Indian Visa, I smile slightly. Never did I think that I would travel to India on a visa as a citizen of another nation. I am looking forward to dual citizenship from the Indian Government. That will reflect my identity and my true feelings. While I love my adopted land and cherish all the opportunities that it has provided me to grow as a person and a professional, I also deeply love my motherland and cannot elucidate in words alone all the feelings and experiences that I am grateful for.

The travel papers also make me think: So much has changed in these eight trips.

Traveling from US to any destination within the country or outside was a breeze in terms of time and trouble. In case of domestic flights, I remember boarding a flight even on reaching the airport a few minutes before the departure. Similarly, for international flights, an hour for check in and security was all that it took to commence the journey to other lands. 9/11 has changed all of that and recent happenings are making travel harder. Physically in terms of time and contents, and emotionally, international air travel is a hardship of sorts.

With the excitement and enthusiasm of meeting family and friends come the unsettling feelings of fear and fright. Well meaning colleagues and friends advise on reaching the airport in time and only packing the bare essentials in handbags.

I am not looking forward to the difficult discussion and negotiation on the travel companions with my daughter. She had planned to take all four of her bratz dolls on this trip. They needed formal introduction to her circle of loved ones and new Indian outfits. Now, two might need to be dropped going by the stringent handbag size regulations. Similarly, I cannot fit all her favourite books or the snacks and savories for layovers. While long flights like the one to India are challenging for all travellers, for people with children, the challenge is tripled. The flight hours are a test of patience, persistence and perseverance. Activities for diversion and distraction are not an option. Books, games and toys are not luxuries but necessities to keep off the perpetual question that pops every 15 minutes: "Are we there yet".

Another difficulty that I am facing in my forthcoming trip is selecting gifts and presents. Made in India labels are ubiquitous in the malls. My mother sagely advises: "Travel light, you'll find everything here. Malls are aplenty in Delhi and are stocked with best brand names."

On the positive note, I am no longer required to take albums of photographs of all our annual sojourns for family's viewing pleasure. Thanks to my tech savvy husband, his myriad digital cameras and easy photo sharing facilities on the Internet, all our relatives, friends and anyone else in his email list, regularly get slide shows of our trips. Like my hubby, other tech savvy parents with the zeal of paparazzi can be seen clicking away pictures of their wards at every possible pretext and place. Events at my daughter's school are a display of the latest electronic gadgets and gizmos. The enthusiasm of the parents to capture the memoirs of their young can give any press person a run for their money.

In the good old non-tech centric days, I remember relatives coming to our home and prodding their children to recite poems and songs that they might have learnt from kindergarten upwards. After having been through umpteenth such experiences, I remember telling my brother that I will also teach my child all possible rhymes and then take her/him to the homes of these relatives and subject them to similar experience.

Well, while fate has brought me far, technology has given me means to take my sweet revenge via regular mails of my daughter's pictures and occasional penning.