The American Dream

So I'm reading this book called The Mango Season by Amulya Malladi. On a very typical clichéd topic of a 27 year old Indian girl living in America coming home on holiday and being pestered about marriage. Nothing new. But the way the book is written is very grasping. Some of the issues I can relate to. Some I can't. Considering I’m not a Telugu Brahmin and don’t live in San Francisco.

But the statement “I liked having an apartment from where I could look at San Francisco and know that I was here, in the U.S., in the land of opportunities” does make me wonder about the whole romanticized idea of the American dream. I mean do I want to go live there now, no. Hell, I didn’t even put a U.S. university as my first choice for student exchange, but where do I see myself in ten years? I would have to say the States. For some divine reason, it just seems like the place to be. To me at least. Maybe it’s the mindset we’re brought up with – you are successful if you live in America. Not taught explicitly, not ever mentioned in those precise words, but it seems to be the sum total of all wisdom that we ever learn.

I mean sure Singapore is a nice place and all, but no offense or anything, it is too small a place for me to actually envision much of a future in. It feels claustrophobic. There are just so many places you can go to, so many things you can do to chill out, so many times you can curse the system and government. At the end of the day, you want something new, something different, something more. Yeah I do sound like a leech and will probably get sued if a politician reads this, which I doubt is ever going to happen, but that is the way I see it.

I don’t really see myself going back to live in India either. I just can't. What will the future hold for me, I don’t know. I might go back to my homeland one day and actually be happy about it, but at this moment in time, I don’t see it happening in the near future.

I like winters. Maybe only for a short while at a time, but maybe that is something I will get used to. It surprises even me at times that I am actually willing to come to terms with a not so perfect life in a country I have never been to, just based on some subconscious gut feeling.

An apartment, somewhere in America. I can't help but yearn for that. A place to call home.