Reverse Culture Shock

So I promised this a month ago. Now it's here. My final blog post about India. Well. Maybe.

A phrase that you hear a lot at Sangam when it comes close to your time to leave is "Reverse Culture Shock". Everyone knows about culture shock, about the feeling you experience when you go somewhere new, unfamiliar. Its that feeling that means you hate travelling round roundabouts the wrong way, that means sometimes you just crave a steak, and familiar features of the land you grew up in. When travelling to India, it's the smell, it's the traffic, it's the noise, it's a lot of things. There's a lot to be shocked by when you've grown up in a sheltered Western world. But this culture shock, it only lasts a couple of days, a week at the most, and then India is home, and those things that were shocking, they don't matter any more. You can quite happily stick your head out of a rickshaw to shout to the people behind you. You can walk out in front of motorbikes. You barely notice the constant honking, and the smell of India.

But what about the end of the trip? What about when you have to leave behind all of that? What about when what was the unfamiliar is now the familiar, and the familiar suddenly isn't so familiar any more?

Last time I travelled home from India, I experienced it in the form of returning to running tap water, constant electricity, and even semi detached houses. This time, surely, I knew what to expect, I knew about reverse culture shock, it wouldn't get me this time, surely?

I arrived home one weekend in December, landed in the cold world that is Heathrow, and was very quickly hit by this feeling, this reverse culture shock. For the first time in 3.5 months, I was confronted by Indians. Not so shocking you would think, after 3.5 months in India. But the difference was, these Indians all had British accents. They were my culture, they were my people, they were what joined two entirely different parts of my life together, and it was strange. I grew up, and in fact still live in, possibly the most ethnically diverse city in the UK, where ethnic minorities are the majority. I grew up in schools with kids from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, before you even begin to mention the other countries in Asia, or Africa, or the Middle East, or even the rest of Europe. And yet, the sound of Indians with a British accent shocked me. Thoughts raced through my mind. Here stepping off a flight from Mumbai, I was surrounded by Indians who actually might not understand me if I walked up to them and started to use my limited broken Hindi. Maybe these Indians only know English. I wasn't expecting that.

After a lovely night at my brother's house, with an open fire and sausage and mash, I woke up the next morning to my next hit. My brother and his wife had already left, and my mum and I were going to join them. My brother was running 5km cross country, and we were off to watch - the first time I've been able to! We got ready, and I set out to pack the car with all our stuff. I opened the door and I stopped. Outside, I was greeted by cold, white flakes falling from the sky. Not only was it 25 degrees lower than I was used to in India, it was snowing, and for some reason, for 30 seconds, I didn't understand what snow was. I just couldn't comprehend why white flakes would be coming down, and so fast and heavy. After what felt like an age, my mum snapped me from my daze, and pointed out to me that if I wasn't going to go outside, I could at least close the door and keep the heat in. I shook myself, came back to my British life, and headed out into the white.

My reverse culture shock didn't last much longer. (Although I still occasionally find myself wondering why mum isn't just driving around the traffic queue - i.e. driving down the opposite side of the road - because I'm sure that would be much quicker.) I don't think I'll ever forget those two surreal experiences though, and I think next time I see snow, I will appreciate it so much more for having forgotten what it was.

Oh, and it's been a month now that I've been home, a month and a bit. I don't miss India, not yet, I may do eventually, but I could never live permanently in such a noisy place, where there is no peace. I do miss my friends. I miss Sangam. I miss the crazy, made-up world that we all created there. I miss the work I did, and the fun I had. But I'm ready for the next challenge now.