I
had gone to Rome for during my summer holidays as part of my project.
I was to work as an intern there. I had left my country with great
enthusiasm thinking of all the wonderful experiences that I would
gain on my foreign sojourn.
Soon
after I arrived I found myself surrounded by complete strange, I was
in a foreign land. The language was different and the culture was
new. I felt lost and homesick. Here people kept to themselves and
what ever little conversation happened it was in Italian. I was
finding it difficult to adjust to the local food. I was mostly
surviving on my moms home made cookies, samosas and other savory
snack along with home made pickle that I had carried from India.
I
did not know how I was going to manage my two weeks stay. On the
fourth day things suddenly changed as I was walking on the street. A
group of young girls stopped by my side and looked at me with
curiosity and interest. They pointed to the bindi (red vermilon mark)
on my forehead and asked me in Italian as to what it was?
Although
I did not know their language but I could get a gist of what they
were trying to ask. I took out a packet of the multicoloured bindi's
from my purse and handed it to them to see.
I
signaled to them to try them out. This made them greatly excited and
they laughed with pleasure as I helped them to apply the bindi to
their forehead.
My
Indian bindi had become a means of bridging the cultural divide
between us. Now I was not alone and it was no longer a strange
country for me as I had found friends who helped me in exploring the
city to the fullest.
I
even learnt a few words of Italian and taught them a few words of
Hindi. At the end of the stay I had plenty of happy memories and a
few good friends. As I headed back home I felt really proud of the
fact that my Indianness had become a boom for me.
Where ever
we Indians go we take a part of India with us. People around the
world see us for our Indianness and associate with are culture. We
are #MoreIndianThanYouThink bit.ly/2oQTj8q
