Editor’s Note: Settling in a different country needs a lot of adjustments. And we tend to keep thinking about our lives back in our homeland. But if ever the time comes to return back, should we? Or does the new nation become the new homeland for us? Some very interesting musings that our member naazneen has shared with us. Do share your thoughts with us here.

I am new to Indus Ladies and wanted to introduce myself. Born and brought up in India I have now (7 yrs ago) moved to the US as a result of marriage. I have many interests, cooking, reading, just watching TV- a lot of TV, gardening(when I know what to do). 

Anyways I have been surfing the IL web pages for a month now and all this time I’ve been wondering which would be the appropriate place to put down my thoughts. My thoughts are more so questions posed to you’ll because this is a community (also)of Indian women settled abroad coming from different ethnicity and age spans. Okay so here goes.

As I mentioned I have been in the US since 7 yrs due to marriage. These 7 yrs have not been easy. I was brought up with alot of family/friends in India. Here I have always felt lonely. At first people said give it a few years- marriage will help you make couple friends, studying will help, working will help and the latest was having a child will help you make “good” friends. This has not been true in my case. Don’t get me wrong, I have made a lot of acquaintances. We have a big group of couple friends we meet up with every other weekend. I am no longer working(because of my child and the “great green card” process) so I am not as much in touch with work friends. The thing is with all these people its just superficial talk, not real intimacy and genuine friendship where you go shopping together or plan outings just to be with each other, like it used to be when we were younger in school or college (bachelors in india). For e.g . I recently went with my husband and daughter(15 months really cute) for a vacation to Europe. When I got back, there was no one other than my parents and FIL to call (in india) and discuss how our vacation was. 

I seem to find myself thinking that this(lack of genuine friends) is so because I am trying to settle in a foreign country to me. I don’t have that familiarity with the culture, the news, the sports, cuisine,or even simple things as entertaining my “american friends”. I can’t tell you how tense i get at the thought of entertaining any of my husbands “american” work colleagues. You know we bought our first formal dining set(wine glasses etc) when we had to invite his friends over. Every milestone of our marriage has been so difficult to assimilate- getting into college, job, buying a house here(we had no clue) having a baby here. Sometimes its the small stuff not even the big stuff- like getting to know neighbours, finding playdates for my baby, trying to make Indian khana just like in India. Let me tell you I live in a small town in NY, my husband isn’t into organised religion and unfortunately relations with the only family members here haven’t been a source of comradrie (that’s a whole other story) My parents don’t like visiting the US. So other usual sources of making good friends through religion or family aren’t really open for me. You know I sometimes think god forbid if something horrible were to happen to all 3 of us(my husband,daughter and I) then no one would know for a week or 10 days, that to only because we would miss our weekend calls to India.