The Other Side of the World

by Gigi

When this blog post goes live, I'll be in a different hemisphere than usual.

If all goes as planned, I'll be in Thiruvananthapuram (aka Trivandrum), or perhaps a hew hours drive south in Kanyakumari (Cape Comorin) at the southern-most tip of India where my father was born.

I've been to India before -- the last time was over 10 years ago, when that photo at left was taken) -- but not this close to the equator.

My dad left India for the United States when he was 30 years old. He left behind everything he'd ever known and carved out a new life for himself from scratch on the other side of the world.

When I turned 30 a few years ago, I remember thinking that the world was wide open. My father had done it, so why couldn't I? I could go anywhere on earth and completely reinvent myself and my life.

But in reality the idea seemed impossible. I had a life, a love, a language. I didn't want to give any of it up. The closest I ever came to reinventing myself was in my mid-twenties when I left Seattle for Berkeley without a job or a plan of any kind. But that's hardly the same thing as Tamil Nadu to Texas.

Even though I made my choice, I think I'd do just fine if the unthinkable happened and I got uprooted by an apocalypse of some kind. Yes, I passed the the zombie apocalypse quiz with flying colors. But more than that, I've seen that it's possible to change one's life completely. We don't have to live our lives the way we've always done -- but hopefully that change won't be forced upon us because of zombies.

I'll post more about this trip when I'm back home. Wish me luck with the monsoons!