Back to the roots

I leave tomorrow for a week's sojourn to the land of my birth - actually the very place of my birth. All those many years ago, families of a certain middle-class (some may say bourgeois) sensibility in small-town India would rarely have their children born in a hospital or nursing home. The event would usually occur at home attended by a mid-wife and the female relatives of the pregnant woman.

When my mother was carrying me, it was just such a scenario that caused me to be born in a special birthing room in my grandfather's house deep in South India. This room has seen the birth of many of my cousins and some of their own children as well, and is now used as a spare room. My uncle's family lives in the house now and many of the things I remember from childhood visits to this house in the late 50s and 60s have remained.

This weekend, I travel to India to attend my mother's birthday - she turns 80 next week and what more fitting tribute can I pay than to be present to record her crossing that momentous milestone?

I approach this trip with some trepidation. Trips to India are (at least for me) fraught with tension. You cannot possibly visit all the relatives in the time you have. How do you make the choice of which ones to see? How do you appease the ones you don't see? What gifts are approriate for people you haven't seen in 30 years?

You have no idea of their interests, or likes or dislikes. Or even of their physical size. What are age and gender-appropriate gifts half a world and whole planet away? Does this toy look cheap? Is this top too immodest for a high school girl?

How do you maintain some semblance of a healthy diet when everyone insists on forcing rich sweets and desserts down your throat? How does someone who drinks neither coffee not tea politely refuse the profferred drinks at each visit, without throwing your hosts in to a welter of confusion?

When I return in a week, I may be none the wiser on these and other imponderables, but I will at least have the trip behind me.