Contributed By Haarika Vissapragada
My sister and I grew up in Dubai, but we had the best of both worlds. We did not miss the taste of the Indian culture. As NRIs we studied in a CBSE school in Dubai- probably worse than schools in India. Our parents made sure that we traveled to India for summer vacations every single year. We came to Hyderabad to visit our grandparents and would travel to Rajahmundry (my dad’s native place.) After spending time in East Godavari, we would go on a “pilgrimage” (sorry wrong word) to either Shiridi or Tirupathi or both. Along with these religious trips, we would escape the Telugu states and travel up north or further south. My sister and I always identified ourselves as both Telugu and Indian, because we speak Telugu and Hindi fluently. Never were we distanced from our family in India. We watched Tollywood movies every week. I always thought that we had it all and missed nothing! But as I grew older-I realized- there are some experiences any NRI kid would have missed if he or she did not grow up in India.
1. Whenever we were In Hyderabad, we made sure that our thatha took us for a round on his scooter after he came back from work. Even today, when our cousins drive their two-wheelers to college or work, my sister and I would fight to be the passenger. We do that because that was one of the experiences we missed! My mom always tells us about her college days when she used to drive a Kinetic Luna and go to college in Hyderabad. It is still my dream to drive to a scooty alongside the beach road in Vizag or in the crazy busy roads of Hyderabad.
2. Taking a train was an adventure for us. I was always in awe of how the engine switched from the front to the back at Vijayawada junction. My dad, sister and I used to get down at every station and get back on the train for fun. I remember we used to ask our parents to buy us a Tinkle Digest before we got into train but we never read it. Also we used to pester them to buy anything a hawker on the train was selling.
3. This is my biggest regret of all. In the CBSE School in Dubai, we learnt how to read and write Hindi but we never learnt reading and writing in Telugu. We were from an Indian school and not a Telugu school. People kept saying that speaking Telugu was good enough but regret takes over my thoughts now. For instance, during a movie, some details are written in Telugu and we have to bother the person next to us to know what we are missing out. Honestly, it doesn’t work, when you read the script yourself, the joke is even funnier. For example, in Baahubali 2 (interval scene) there was something written in Telugu and I missed it. I had to ask my friend sitting next to me and she said it was ‘Mahishmati oopiri peelchuko’. I generally miss out on little, but big things like this.
4. We always tried our level best to attend as many family functions as we could but as we were abroad it was not as easy to just book tickets and sit on a plane. Planning a trip to India during times other than summer holidays required meticulous planning, like office leaves for our parents, permission from our schools and several other factors. We attended some weddings of our cousins but we always missed smaller functions like housewarming ceremonies or wedding anniversaries which were celebrated in a grand manner. We always missed out on cousins meeting up regularly but mostly missed references in conversations where they always said “Remember aa roju, that happened and this happened?” and our reply was “memu appudu raledu” or something like that.
5. The major food item we missed the most was Baginpally Mangoes. Back in Dubai we only have Alphonso mangoes which were by the way, very delicious. But, Baginpally mangoes had an unique flavor that we craved for. We used to come to India when it was summer in Dubai i.e. in July and August and mango season would be coming to an end by that time. My ammamma used to buy the last few at the Raithu Bazar during the season end for double the price and freeze it for us to enjoy at least some when we land.
Another thing we missed were certain items that were only available in India, an example for this was the availability of Dairy Milk Silk. The chocolate was never available in Dubai and it still is not. My grandparents used to send a couple of chocolate bars with anyone who came to Dubai or they used to bring it for us when they visited us.
Lastly, we never had easy access to a wide range of pickles. We used to pack only some as there were restrictions about the baggage at airports. Whatever we used to carry at the end of the summer was what we enjoyed for the rest of the year.
