Culture Shock

This happened many many years ago, when we were just out of college. While me and Manoj were planning, contemplating, struggling, enjoying and altogether being adventurous in our marriage with a meagre income, in Kochi, our friends and batch mates were either landing up in cushy jobs or migrating to USA for higher education. So far so good. Now, when I met one of my friends for her wedding (she opted to get married, migrate and then study in promised land, wasnt that clever of her?)Well, after the priliminaries, we got into deeper gossips and then she spoke of a classmate who went to US of A for further studies, had come back to India and couldnt stand the life out here. She had a culture shock!! Oh my gosh!!! This was Deja Vu for me. My father had told me this one years back. His cousin brother, a very young man then, had been sent to Dubai by his uncles (includes my grandpa) following his father's death and as he had to take care of his mother and two sisters who were still studying in school. The boy was intelligent and hardworking and soon was working with a good firm and after few years, his mother found him a bride and the couple settled in Dubai. Now is the best part, he comes back to visit his mother and sisters but refuses to stay in the house he was born in!! The reason, the place is too hot and dusty. So every time he visits his mother, he stays in a hotel and moves about in air conditioned taxicab in good old Bangalore. Wow! Some culture shock!