Week eleven-twelve (amerika)

It seems only proper to continue this little self-examining venture while on my short hiatus back in the United States, since while every day in India is a barrage of new cultural and sensational blasts – coming in staccato in an ether of dust and rosewater – this time away contributed to refocusing my impressions of my two concurrent 'home' cities, Philadelphia and New York, along with the greater Amerikan psyche and stasis. Already, the first moment back on domestic soil I had my first Sartre-esque pang of misanthropic nausea, as nasalized Amerikan voices rang out in pointless complaint in line in the immigration hall. In the USA there is a pervading fear of silence, that a couple moments without words shared between friends or family somehow serve to reveal a fragility and lacking within the relationship, discrediting its very existence. A second without banter irreconcilably results in knots in stomachs and a a fear-ridden wave of boredom strikes itself upon the faces of all those involved. A pallor develops, along with an incessant need to jabber about something, anything, if only to restore the color in one's jowls.

However it seems that in India these moments are accepted and perfectly allowed, the silence able to permeate the air and hang thickly for several minutes, broken by little more than a cough or the patient chewing of (perhaps) a lukewarm dosa or clump of dal-soaked rice. It is not that Amerikans are somehow magically blessed with an innate knack for witty conversation; rather lulls in conversation are filled with frivolous complaint and often audaciously self-interested and subconsciously prideful pronouncements. There is no passivity, no acceptance, no realization of the minuscule nature of our self-engineered universes of thought and action. While I thought the drone of familiar Amerikan accents might be a welcome sound, instead I stood there largely disappointed in the situation, in 'my people', wistfully wishing myself into the complicated but generally - on a macrocosmic level – more humble and passive culture I had momentarily left behind in India.

'I am on vacation for two weeks in the United States' - A phrase I have pronounced jokingly many times but slowly am realizing the queasy truth to it. I frankly feel like a tourist - not in that I've really been out of country for a hugely long time, but rather that I feel completely untied from this place. I have no obligations, no relationships in flux or requiring of transformation, modulation, moderation. It's rather akin to the same depressing melancholy I experienced when I first got to Kolkata. But now these two places, cultures, spheres are reversed in my mind and my relationship to them. This is novel, of course, but simultaneously oddly exhilarating and alarming. I suddenly feel as if the tourist in the place I've grown up in for so many years (and I repeat this sentiment not so much due to weak or redundant writing, but rather to suggest the ridiculous frequency with which this thought and creeping fear skitters about my mind).

I come back to this city, to New York, yet I feel as if I am floating above, under, and through the crowds, separate and distinct - albeit a feeling inhabiting my own mind and probably not felt or observed by others, who most probably see me as just another face in the crowd rather than an aberrant 'stranger'. (Unlike the case as the rare whitey in Kolkata) I go back to old haunts and new - my brownstone of 2 years, gay bars and clubs, diners and subway cars - each cultural condition now obviously so Amerikan, so unique to this place, blindly stumbling along assuming of their own right of existence and validity without realizing their cultural exceptionalness, the amazing circumstances that have allowed for their formation and continued existence. A mixture of stomach churning brash audaciousness... things so worthy of celebration, parades, sociological texts!

Twinky 20-somethings gyrating on the dance floor to remixed Beyonce, skin sticky with weak vodka tonics, sweat, and probably the saliva of at least a couple of their compatriots, blissfully unaware of the very different circumstances this lifestyle might confront throughout the rest of the world over. And yet, this blissful unawareness, eyelids half closed from the bright lights scooping arcs over the crowd, is in fact a championing of our modern/western social liberalism, an achievement. One can dance with abandon without worry of violating a constitutional amendment (as in India) and ironclad expectations of family and society. My feelings are scrambled and confused, momentarily I want to condemn these people and their narrow perspectives, yet at the same time I want to cheer this brazenness, this thrilling unawareness and the leaps and bounds our society had to have made to allow for this display of ironically basic and instinctual expression, left unencumbered by concern and the potential of real, loaded condemnation.

(NB: To explain the now rather standardized use of the word 'Amerikan' in my posts, seeing as American in truth does not in fact only imply the United States, yet United States-y seems a bit cumbersome to use as an adjective or for citizenry, I've substituted in Amerika/Amerikan, also making a bit of a conscious reference to the ideologies and discussions of the YIPpies back in the day. Though I suppose it's a bit hypocritical of me to make this kind of allusion, considering this whole jaunt is being funded by the good ol' Amerikan gubberment... ha?)