I’ve started so I’ll finish… or not

Well I don’t often bare my personal thoughts publicly, but there has been something I’ve been meaning to get off my chest for a while so here goes…

A year ago I started something that meant a great deal to me, that as yet I’ve been unable to finish. I wanted to make a film. It started out as a simple film about musicians from India and the UK touring each other’s countries. As someone who has moved away from everything I know and love in the uk – my family, career as a sound engineer, being part of a community of techies, musicians, artists and crazy circus performers, all working doing what they love, often not for money but for a belief that through their art they can change the world for the better.

Also I moved away from a broken heart, the loss of my job at Boomtown and friendships I thought were solid until I decided to keep my baby and be a single parent. While I made peace with many of those that hurt me, I knew the UK, the small island that it is, had lost its calling and I had reached the limits of what I could do there professionally. India, the country that contained a music, arts and festival scene that was exploding, exciting and loaded with new challenges and opportunities to create – a new culture to immerse myself and my daughter in and a fresh start and fresh career- it was calling me.

Through my film I felt I could bring the best parts of these two worlds together. When I went back to shoot at Glastonbury festival, I was reminded of the beautiful energy of the people working there to make a positive change in the world. The film became so much more – not only about two groups of musicians experiencing each other’s culture, but about the potential for positive social change such exchanges opened up and the hurdles that existed to such a venture, both financially and in regards to freedom of movement across borders. Amongst many others, I met some people from South America running a grassroots festival there who also felt the same as me – that the power of music and art at music festivals and other such events has a huge transformative potential. The film became about facilitating this foreign exchange, advocating it – for better or worse, about this more than objectively filming that very thing in a documentary.

If I am to be very honest with myself it was also about the maybe selfish motive of keeping that connection with the scene I loved and the people I loved in the UK and the new world I was part of in India. I returned to India with grand plans of creating a non-profit entity to aid non commercial/independent musicians and artists to be able to participate in performance changes to each other’s countries – doing my bit to make the world a better place and helping out some amazing artists and friends on the way. The organisation would springboard off the film and it would begin by bringing a UK musician to India that winter. I would also finish my other (first) film project on the musicians, performers and travellers working to help the Syrian refugees.

Not long after I returned to India, I was unexpectedly hospitalised and suffered a traumatic experience involving my ovaries, a corrupt insurance company and crooked, nasty doctor and a narcissistic abusive relationship. I suffered PTSD and depression and anxiety as a result, but kept on going – I had to for my daughter- and I got my head down and tried my best in my new full time job for an Indian events company. The job is fantastic but demanding and between keeping my head afloat at work, trying to organise a tour, a second shoot at Boomtown festival (remotely from India) and trying to be a good mum, I struggled and failed at pretty much all of the above.

In India I lacked the network and support of kindred spirits willing to make the tour and film happen. I couldn’t apply for Arts funding in the UK as I am not resident there and I couldn’t apply for funding in India as Im not a citizen here. I tried to seek help from the British council and received a very firm good luck but fuck off. The numerous huge forms and impossible deadlines for funding piled up with no help, guidance or time to fill and I watched everything slipping away. People who initially promised help lost interest or let me down. I didn’t have the resources solo and I just had to admit it. It felt immensely lonely and all I could do was put my project on the back burner and try to prioritise keeping my job and being there for my daughter and partner.

It was soul crushing when I had to admit that I couldn’t organise the tour and had spent the last bit of my credit card on the Boomtown shoot. I had all this footage and minimal experience in editing a film – my blind belief that sheer bloody mindedness and conviction in what I felt was a worthy cause would enable it to happen. simply wasn’t enough. It was overwhelming. It ate away at me night and day. I felt I had let so many people down – the bands, my work who had supported me above and beyond enabling me to do the first uk shoot, all my friends and colleagues in the UK, my family and myself. I couldn’t bear to look at the footage, to try to raise more funds – I felt sorry for myself that more people hadn’t helped me and hadn’t felt as passionately about the subject matter. I felt that I was wrong to have even tried and that as family finances were not great I had made a bad decision putting money I didn’t have into a failed project. I felt I owed the world who was laughing at me now surely, a huge apology and more isolated than ever from the UK.

My day to day life had become about making slogans for corporate company’s employee r&r events, pushing through the harsh crowds on the Mumbai local train and fighting guilt, insomnia and nightmares.  I believed I had become a horrible person to be around. The only joy in my life was the time spent with my daughter. The only thing I felt proud of about myself was that I could still read to her every night and pay her school fees and give her fun and love.

My thirty-sixth birthday approached and with still no fulfilling relationship, no sure immigration status or residency and the general feelings of insecurity this produced, along with crazy stuff going on with my hormones producing yet more insecurities, coupled with the occasional urge to cut my hair and dye it a crazy colour – I had finally arrived at mid-life crisis.

A few faithful and beloved friends persistently kept in touch despite the distance and time difference and a few more over here persistently invited me out despite me rarely accepting and generally not being any fun at all when we did meet. I was absolutely adamant that I didn’t want to have a birthday.

Then the day came. I went to see a doctor about my hormones – whatever it may be it should be treatable and there is hope I can feel normal again in that dreaded week of my cycle. I refused several lovely offers of lovely company and sat down at my computer to face my demons. The first thing I was faced with was broken files, lost work and missing data.

The next morning I started afresh with a new edit project for what I have shot of my film so far. I know it will not be easy and maybe it will never be the film I had originally planned, but if I can make something meaningful and call it my best shot I can maybe live with myself. Who knows, maybe if I can make something that gets my belief across, that if we don’t give up in life when it feels like the world is against us, and keep on being creative, putting our art out there, regardless of what it earns us or costs us, or what anyone else thinks, maybe, just maybe we can make the world a better place.. and maybe, just maybe someone else will feel the same, maybe, just maybe one day with the help of others, I will be able to make something more than what I can do on my own.

I think of the people I have shot and interviewed in my film so far and the ones I still want to shoot – they are the ones who have achieved this and are living this – the ones who inspired me. I owe it to them to finish what I’ve started. Better late than never..

Edit…

I never finished my film, but years later I came to terms with accepting failure, learning from mistakes forgiving others and yourself and letting go of the past.

I also discovered a load of lost footage and have been editing short interviews and uploading on my YouTube channel.

I thought about deleting this post, but didn’t in case it can make someone else feel better about an unfinished passion project/ mental health moment and just to remind myself that even when the world feels like it is all falling apart it might just be ok in the end… (and that I am rubbish at film making and not to try it again!)

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Mumbai Public Transport (yes again!), being on the radio & why trains are a metaphor for the world.

 

local-train-_-from-burrp-com_.jpgAny of you who have followed my blog for a while will know I like talking about public transport – maybe because I spend so much of my time on it – maybe I’m just weird.

Yes I know, I hear you, why not take OLA share? However, trains get you places faster, are considerably cheaper for the daily commute, plus I get car sick, hate AC set to Arctic and am socially awkward (not to mention the time OLA share took two hours for a twenty minute journey). So happily each day I plug my headphones in, bury my head in a book if there’s space, another person’s armpit if not, and chalo on the train.

See how I refrained from calling not one single OLA driver a moron in that paragraph? The other day however, I did not have the same self restraint when it came to the Mumbai local. After yet another irritating experience on the train I let rant on social media, requesting some good retorts I can give back in perfect Hindi to the aunty train mafia. The response was overwhelming. Many people gave their sympathy, offered support, were shocked, angry, etc. I even had a friend who works in radio ask if I would come and do an interview on the subject!

I was taken aback as really the experience, whilst annoying, hadn’t left me especially deeply traumatised. Then a thought struck me -others, less thick skinned than myself might have been.

What if you were a young girl going to college for the first time and you found yourself having to do daily death defying leaps onto the approaching train (necessary  if you want any chance of not being trodden on, elbowed and having your slippers kicked off as you try to enter)? What if you were just starting in a job and taking your first train and dared to take a seat ‘reserved’ for another lady by her friends in ‘their’ carriage?

 

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Image pilfered from Pallavi Jain – check out her brilliant art and give her some paise here

What if you were so very, very ill you couldn’t fight your way onto the train to get a seat that day, so asked, very politely mind, to take the ‘fourth seat’ and got brazenly ignored, then shouted at, for trying not to fall off the zero cm of space that no one had bothered to shift even a tiny bit to give you? And then got gossiped about in front of your face by the ladies you have to see every day on your morning commute, while they all pass cake around thinking it is all very funny like the time they trod on you while you were on your hands and knees in the train doorway trying to retrieve your shoe from the edge of the platform (again). Hilarious.

Ok well that last bit was me. I’m over it now. So far all sounds a bit like a school bus with a bully problem? Over lunch at work I heard much worse stories – a friend who had her glasses broken, yet more shoe losses, purse thefts, cat fights, people not being allowed by others to board trains or get off trains, people being pushed off moving trains, people screaming for tmumbai-local-759.jpgheir lives as they hang out of moving carriages whilst others refuse to go inside further, old ladies being dragged along the platform by their dupattas and one lady of 55 died in Borivali jumping off a moving train, being dragged underneath it. The very worst story by far was of a lady who sadly passed away. She was beaten up by a (female) train gang after refusing to give up her seat – she had given birth only a few days previous. No one was caught.

So every rush hour traveler knows as a rule, the ladies carriage is worse than the mens, never to take the Virar train (unless you are going to Virar) and where to stand if you want to have any chance in hell of getting off at your stop. Most commuters, including myself generally know how to fight through the whole experience. But what ****SHOCK**** if we stopped fighting for a minute and decided to help each other through this daily assault course? Fighting to get on a train happens even when there is plenty of space and plenty of time before a train leaves. Why? Is it really the highlight of these people’s days that they got a morning seat on the local train, risking their own and other’s lives to do so? Why do civilised ladies suddenly become animals, all over 30 square cm of plastic seat?

It struck me that the local train is like a microcosm for the world. People claim their territory and try to keep it from newcomers by forming gangs. In 2008 the state of Maharastra saw violent attacks on migrants from North India. We all know about the ongoing clashes in Kashmir. I look at my country of origin and see the anti-migrant aftermath of the Brexit vote- and lets not even start on what is happening in America! There is a lot of talk internationally about ‘the greaI5fqZaH.jpgt evil’ of economic migrants and how we need armies and walls to keep them out (along with the refugees). This talk makes me both angry and befuddled. If you travel a great distance and suffer a great hardship to be able to work, then you are likely to do just that when you get there. More hard working people in the community + more money in the local economy = better infrastructure and welfare, all with the added bonus of cultural diversity, which can lead to the better understanding of each other so we can all live in blissful harmony. In theory. Of course it depends on the honesty and competence of who is in charge and the influence of the media on popular opinion. I think though it is safe to say that in most cases, if these migrants get wherever they are headed and find nothing, they are more than likely to go somewhere else – because they want to work! Anyone who argues they are here to take your job – I second the guy above (replace English with whatever applicable language). Conclusion, territorial behaviour and isolationism = bad, migration and diversity = good. Anyone in charge who tells you otherwise is more than likely blaming migrants for their own shortcomings in governance and/or trying to control using fear.

I digress. So back to the radio. Initially I dismissed the request as rather funny and no thanks, not a chance, no way in hell basically. Whilst a lot of people would jump at the chance to be live on the airwaves, I work behind the scenes in production for a reason – I’m actually pretty shy. Then I learnt about the motives for asking me on the show – noble ones of generally getting people to be nicer to each other and making the train a safer place for all, so I agreed. Especially after I had read the inspirational article of this lady who stood up to train bullies and recalled once being brave enough to go on BBC Radio 2 to speak up in defence of squatters.

However, the night before I got cold feet when I heard it was to do with a film release Atithi in London (Guest iin London). There is a saying in India ‘atithi devo bhava‘ which translates as ‘guest is god.’ It rings well as Indian culture is renowned for its wonderful hospitality (and tendency to feed guests as many biscuits and cups of chai as possible). I didn’t want to give the impression that I felt that as a foreigner, I was a guest and should be treated as such, as god – after all I live here, work here, have family here, pay tax here and consider Mumbai my home (as much as any other migrant). The producer assured me this would not be the case and I took the plunge.

The interview was with the very sweet and down-to earth RJ Archana, someone who is genuinely trying to make a difference in the world. In amongst sharing train stories we talked about how we are all equal on the train- and not in a ‘some are more equal than others’ kind of way! Everyone should look out for each other and bullying should not be tolerated – especially in the case of grown men and women who should know better! We should extend the ‘guest is god’ mentality outside of our homes and to all the strangers we meet every day, on every train, from every state, from every country. Being nice to each other on the local train maybe a far cry from achieving universal equality and world peace, but it’s a good start.

You can watch a video which includes some of  the edited interview here.

You can see RJ Archana preparing for her very own trip on a Mumbai local train here.

And you can listen to her show Mon-Sat 7am-11am on Radio City.

http://www.newscrunch.in/2017/03/mumbai-man-bullied-local-train-fights-back-facebook-video.html

http://afternoondc.in/city-news/women-bullies-on-radar/article_189512

http://www.arre.co.in/people/the-seat-mafia-of-mumbai-locals/

http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-rough-times-for-train-bullies-1055727

http://www.asianage.com/mumbai/rpf-brings-train-bullies-right-track-357

http://www.mid-day.com/articles/cops-must-come-down-hard-on-train-bullies/15532186

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/mumbai/news/Virar-train-gang-beats-up-short-distance-passenger/article14512188.ece

http://mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com/mumbai/other/woman-falls-from-crowded-local-train-dies/articleshow/56011122.cms

http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/deaths-due-to-fall-from-overcrowded-mumbai-local-trains-go-up-reveals-rti/

https://www.nyoooz.com/news/mumbai/563233/govt-to-explore-options-for-maratha-reservation/

 

Brexit, Visas and Immigration Ranting!

hand-holding-brexit-sign-eu-referendumThis post has been brewing for a while ,then today I read about my friend’s experience with ignorant racism getting on a bus today in London and I could take no more! RANT WARNING…..

So my beautiful, intelligent and talented young friend of Indian origin and her equally beautiful and talented mother were getting on a bus. My friend’s mother got on but before her daughter could get on the driver slammed the door shut in her face:

“When I knocked on the door, she opened the door and abused me calling me a c*nt and an immigrant who doesn’t know London bus rules and said if I get on the bus she won’t start the bus. Then I said I won’t leave the bus and she can call the police, she then came up violently to me and started hurling abuses again and asked every passenger to leave. Then she went up to the next bus and asked the driver to not take me and my mum on board. Then she left with her bus too.”

This is totally shocking! People like that bus driver should not be allowed to represent our beloved multicultural London and work on our public services. My friend and her mum are the sweetest people! The mother, a classical singer, travels to the UK often to perform her beautiful music and my friend, her daughter, after studying in the UK is already a successful (taxpaying) businesswoman and about to open a classy restaurant (not to mention an awesome cook!). She is a Londoner as much as me!

As a recent ex-Londoner and now an immigrant myself in Mumbai (well in a week or so when my visa arrives fingers crossed!) I love that city and feel it is home as much as I feel London, a city I lived in but didn’t grow up in is also my home. Home is where you work, love and live; where you are part of society and contribute to society- for a great many people on this planet home is not where you were born and our planet and its global society is a more diverse, rich, educated and evolved place for the greater movement and mixing of people and their respective cultures!

She asked the question if Brexit could be to blame for such a public display of racism. Sadly I feel she is correct to a degree. Brexit has caused a huge rise in racism (and xenophobia) which was always there brewing under the surface. Now the media coverage and right wing campaigning surrounding Brexit has given confidence to idiots- like that bus driver. We must not stand for it!

While I voted ‘IN’ I acknowledge that there are numerous left wing arguments for the UK to have voted ‘OUT’. One of the reasons I voted ‘IN’ was because I foresaw this whole fiasco – immigration being used as a scapegoat for the economic and social problems of the UK. It can’t even be called a conspiracy as it is plain for most to see. These issues outweighed the arguments to vote ‘OUT’. Unity amongst nations beyond Europe is more important to me than trade, money etc and extends beyond Europe to a global sentiment. We are all human beings and that above all else beyond race, money, religion, gender, age etc.

Thankfully the racists are actually a minority – they come to our attention more because of their bizarre actions, like religious terrorists. You don’t see people running up the road shouting “welcome to London! We love Polish supermarkets and Indian restaurants and bagel shops and reggae music and all of the wonderful culture we can call ‘British’ but has come to our shores from overseas. I see multiculturalism as an important part of ‘Britishness’ and part of our identity as Brits – something to be proud of!

Screw the media and all that it pushes and represents – screw the selfish interests of the few, the privileged and the ignorant. Screw the way only negative news is pushed and anything positive is ignored unless it involves sport or puppies or celebrities!

Institutional racism and xenophobia exists within the British government. How can we hope for a peaceful future when this is the case? Yet we must hope and educate our children as they are our future.

Immigration heartache pt 3 – Dead children

I had been avoiding seeing THE PICTURE of the dead toddler washed up on the beach but then it came on the news last week. My heart broke along with the rest of the world and I burst into floods of angry tears.

That week it was unavoidable as it seemed to be plastered across every form of social media to the outrage of many people. Personally if my daughter and I died fleeing a war torn country I would hope from the grave that everyone in the world would see the horror of what we had gone through and would sit up and notice and do something about it. I would want the world to reel at the image of our reality and mourn at the loss of life and the loss of humanity that caused it. While I can’t bear to look at it, I don’t object it being shared for everyone to see and I hope it keeps politicians up all night.

That night I hugged my daughter tight and prayed for this nightmare to end for these people.  This SERIOUSLY PUTS STUFF INTO PERSPECTIVE. My experience of racism within bureaucracy is most certainly at the soft end of the spectrum compared to what these refugees are now experiencing. World attitudes need to change and everyone can play their part and make a difference.

It’s great that some countries are making an effort and even our own useless government here in the UK has been forced to react to the massive call for action. Clearly more needs to be done and not just to solve the immediate crisis but also the root of the problem – war and hate fuelled by greed, profit and masquerading as religion.

Towards the end of the week I found myself chatting to a nurse while waiting for a hospital appointment and overhearing some conversations in the waiting room. I was shocked and saddened to hear that there are people who don’t want to help the refugees and feel threatened by them taking homes and benefits here in the UK. I explained that these people who have had the resilience to cross miles to start a new life are looking to rebuild their lives. The will be more than willing to work, they will seek education and they will want to be accepted into and become a part of whatever alien society they find themselves settled in. In the long run this enthusiastic and optimistic workforce can only contribute to society and the economy – a fact that Germany has been quick to recognise. There is all this to consider let alone the fact that should the shoe be on the other foot how would you feel if you were fleeing for your life with your children and people who were better off than you refused to help? To help is the decent and human reaction.

The media has a lot to answer for and will be pivotal in how we can combat the long term challenges now. We need to combat racism, xenophobia and fear. We need to ensure that the recent refugee crisis doesn’t impact on already draconian immigration rules, worsening the situation for families like mine. We need to disprove attitudes that we don’t have enough space when there are so many empty properties including whole villages (see link below).

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/23/europe-11m-empty-properties-enough-house-homeless-continent-twice

Social media can make a real difference when mainstream media fails.

I will leave you with a more positive picture of some LIVE refugee children and their message of peace and hope for the world.

Below are some links to some things that you can do to make a difference as well as resources for refugees and I will be posting more as I come across them on my FB page – please feel free to add to the list:

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Refugees Welcome Here – National Day Of Action

https://www.facebook.com/helpinghandsofrhodes?hc_location=ufi

https://www.facebook.com/groups/calaismigrantssolidarity/

https://www.facebook.com/RefugeehelpfromWales

http://www.ecre.org

http://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk

http://www.star-network.org.uk

https://womensrefugeecommission.org

http://www.refugeewomen.co.uk

http://www.refugee-action.org.uk

http://migrantforum.org.uk

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Refugee-support-Calais-and-Kobane-In-association-with-Red-London/1021781441199852?fref=ts

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1487942441500475/

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Syria-Refugees/311540539041862?fref=ts

Reverse Culture Shock

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After a tearful goodbye at Mumbai’s flashy new airport I hobbled white faced onto the plane, doing my best to repress agonising stomach cramps whilst dragging my screaming toddler behind me. I could see the looks of “please god don’t let my seat be anywhere near that woman and her brat!” on the other passengers faces as I passed by. What a great start to my repatriation experience!

I had little or no desire to be back in England, however 40,000 feet in the air and sick as a dog with airline staff discussing whether they should land the plane and take me to hospital, I couldn’t get there fast enough! Luckily I had been prescribed some morphine and there no short supply of hot water bottles and hot drinks from empathetic air hostesses, so with plane still firmly in air and massive melodrama averted, our journey from hell commenced onwards.

After twelve hours, the highlights of which being a minor head injury acquired by my ferral-stampeding-up-and-down-the-aisle-toddler (the blood always makes it look worse than it is) and a drunk passenger emptying the best part of a bottle of wine into my hand luggage (goodbye clean nappies!) the whole ordeal was over. I didn’t even glance at the duty free (I must have been in bad shape!) and made a beeline with my leaning tower of suitcases into my parents arms and the chilly air of Heathrow’s arrivals lounge.

The first thing that struck me about England was it’s grey blandness. The sky was grey, the roads were grey, even the light was a murky grey. In contrast to the techi-colour vibrancy of India it was like I was viewing the world through the veil of a grubby net-curtain. I didn’t like it one bit.

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Still it was good to be back in the parental bosom where I could convulse in comfort with invaluable childcare assistance. My long-term health problem that had caused such commotion on the aeroplane was finally getting see to thanks to the wonderful NHS. Calls, offers of help and moral support were flooding in from friends. Maybe England wasn’t so bad a place to be… Before long I found myself in London with a new job, flat and even a cat.

I had heard of reverse culture shock as a phenomena before, but nothing could have ever prepared me for it. At first it was the little things. I missed my bum washer! You would never think that you could miss Indian toilets but when presented with good old English loo roll as opposed to a refreshing jet of cleansing water, my whole bathroom experience just felt unhygienic!

Then there was money – English bank notes just didn’t seem real and seemed to have this magical quality of disappearing faster than seemed possible. I checked and there was no mysterious hole in my purse – stuff really was that expensive. I felt like crying every time I converted the price of things back to rupees in my head! The rent on my new flat was more than six times what I had been paying in Mumbai, yet my earnings were not even twice what I had been getting back there – it just didn’t seem to add up!

At home I continued to cook Indian food for myself and my daughter. I sorely missed all my comfort street food snacks – vada pav, behl puri, pani puri. I just couldn’t go back to a British diet of bland followed by stodge with a side helping of dull. Still it was good to be able to get cheap tins of baked beans.

At work I found myself thinking in Hindi when I wanted to direct crew to move flight cases or fly PA. At the childminders and at friend’s and family’s houses I had to explain that if my daughter asked for pani it meant she was thirsty and dudu meant she wanted milk- not that she needed the loo (doodoo is slang for poo in England!). It was surreal being able to understand what everyone was saying all the time!

Crossing the road in the UK is a completely different technique, as is driving and travelling by public transport (more about that later). I found I had picked up other Indian habits as well that I just couldn’t shake – wobbling my head (my current Indian boyfriend hates this but I just can’t help it!), abruptness and directness in conversation and answering the phone (there is a great article by an ex-pat I met in Mumbai on this: http://idiva.com/opinion-iparenting/are-we-bringing-up-a-generation-of-rude-kids/25757) and neither me nor my daughter, could get used to the amount of layers of clothes you need to wear to combat our British climate!

Everyone noticed my difficulties adjusting – strangers as well as people close to me. The smell of curry at work had been commented on more than once. There had been a few road rage incidents. I found myself talking incessantly about India to anyone who cared to listen (as well as a few who didn’t!) I began to question myself – was I just making a big deal out of nothing? After all, I had lived in England for a large part of my life. Was I clinging on to my Indian habits, even obsessing over them, not to mention adding unnecessary quantities of masala into my food, as a way of conserving some kind of connection with the country I had fallen in love with? Was all this symptomatic of the fact that I had not wanted to leave? I felt like a different person to the one who had lived in England before – was this my way of maintaining and advertising my position to the world around me as an ex-pat even though I could hardly call myself one? Enough of the self psychoanalysis – one thing was clear – I missed India and my life there terribly and had big doubts if I was ever going to, or wanted to, adapt back to life in England. So what was I going to do about it?

Here are a few links that ex-pats returning home may find useful:

http://www.internations.org/magazine/14-repatriation

http://www.transition-dynamics.com/reentry.html

http://internationalhrforum.com/2009/08/17/reverse-culture-shock-or-why-do-i-hate-being-back-home/

http://www.newcomersnetwork.com/information/repatriation_the_difficulties_of_returning_home_and_reverse_culture_shock_on_re-entry_from_expatriate_life.php

http://www.internations.org/magazine/repatriate-issues-and-company-support-15343

http://www.internations.org/magazine/reverse-culture-shock-15346

http://www.internations.org/magazine/going-back-home-easier-said-than-done-15338

http://www.indiamike.com/india/india-for-beginners-f122/you-may-be-missing-india-when-you-t2404/