What and why?

Recently (Feb 2007), a friend's blog raised the question of identity - does an Indian residing abroad feel like an alien in that land, does he/ she feel completely 'at home' only in India? While the specific question pertains to Indians, surely it points to a general phenomenon of anyone living in a different milieu than one was born and raised in. After all, my friend had titled the post as 'Englishman in New York,' referring to a song by Sting.

It is in the above- mentioned sense that the blog title includes 'desi in London' since I am an Indian native presently living in London.

But there is another side of the issue. Especially when one has been away from the home town or country for a substantial period of time, one's accumulated experiences and indeed, world- view, may differ substantially from experiences of those continuing to reside in the home town. Sometimes, the gulf in experiences and resulting viewpoints can almost make one feel like a foreigner in one's homeland. Hence, 'videshi in Lucknow': the somewhat less intense feeling of being a foreigner in the city where I was born and spent the first 12 years of my life.

And the 'desi - videshi' or 'native- foreigner' phenomenon is not purely a matter of internal feelings but also of external perceptions, which makes it more interesting and rise above mundane narcissism. More on this later...