Ch-ch-changes

“He has lived in America for ten years. But he hasn’t changed at all.” I heard these words about somebody who was in India to bag himself a nice, desi bride. The no-change persona was used as a good qualification in a groom. What is so wonderful about not changing? Isn’t change a forward momentum in life? Regardless of whether we live in the country of our birth or not, when did change become a bad thing? And why is this lack of change touted as a wonderful?

To me, someone who refuses to change, who digs in his or her heels mulishly, is someone…well, rather mule-like. This doesn’t mean that all change has to be embraced but rather that your mind remains open to change, that you examine and analyze new things and decide whether or not to incorporate that into your own life, your own way of looking at life.

Is it fear that the young man or woman you knew and loved who went to live in another place would change into someone unrecognizable? Perhaps there will no longer be any points of congruence between you? What will happen then? How will you love this stranger? How will they love you? Will you understand each other? Change becomes a threat.

What gets lost in these conflicting emotions is that everyone changes regardless of whether they continue living at home, move to another city in their country of birth or move to another country.

Change, is after all, the only true constant in life. The way we look changes, from our waistlines to our skin to our thinning hair. Our priorities in life change as we grow older, the way we look at things, and even our political and social leanings can alter. In fact, each time I visit India, my friends and relatives talk about how much India has changed and most often the changes are seen as positive. The changes are something to be proud of.

But then these same people often lament how much someone has changed by going to the UK or how great it is that someone else has not changed despite living in the US. So, is change only good when it happens in our subcontinent but no one stepping outside the boundaries of the saat samundar should change?

How smart is it to make the investment—financial and emotional—to live, at least for some time, in another country but still remain exactly the same? Is that not stopping the flow of life, by becoming stagnant, stuck in time? Travel, and actually living in another country for an extended period of time, is one the great adventures of life. How can you live life fully without changing? Without incorporating new ideas and thoughts, without looking at the world through different lenses, without truly widening your horizons?

What is ironic, however, is that often those who are considered unchanged have in fact changed. Most of them follow two paths, however. One group lies. They go back home, pretend to not have changed, touching the feet of elders and wearing traditional clothes, saying all the right things, not questioning anything. They use the outward manifestations of sameness even if they have changed inside. That’s not really wrong but being dishonest with the people you love and who claim to love you is not really my cup of tea. Some would call it respect. I call it dishonesty, not to mention there is a certain condescension in that behavior, that your family and friends will not be able to grasp your changed self. As if it’s beyond their intellectual capabilities.

The second group holds on tight to their image of a country frozen in time. Hence, the first-generation folks we run into whose children have been brought up in a strange facsimile of an Indian town in the 1960’s or 1970’s depending on the decade in which they arrived. But that also is change, isn’t it? Making a conscious decision not to change is a change in itself. If they had never moved would they have become so obsessed with not changing? Wouldn’t they have moved along with the rest of the country, making consciously deciding on which changes to incorporate and which to resist?

For us—those of the Diasporic and those who are not—to grow together, to gain a renewed understanding about our ever-changing lives, there needs to be mutual respect and honesty. We can then, grow and change together instead of changing apart in secrecy. Change is good.