r2i forum

Right now when I visit India, I have my parent's house to stay in. I have many cousins that I can visit and do fun things with. But they are all slowly moving out of India for the usual reasons, and I wonder.... When one's immediate family members are all settled outside India, would they still visit India? There may not be an elderly parent to "see", no marriages to attend, there might not even be a home to stay in.

Are there any members here who still visit India without any close family there? What do you do?
Or does it happen that, trips to India slowly decrease, and eventually die out. How then would you get your "India fix"?

Curious to know about this too. I have started noticing this on my recent trips. Lot of my cousins have moved out and are moving out. The extended family has broken into subfamilies - kids i hardly know are all grown up going to college and i don't know them anymore. The astute reader will quickly point out that this is what happened in the movie 'The Godfather' - the original family broke up and the individual capos started their own families.

Feels like our extended family's golden age is past now. I feel depressed thinking of it.

I am not in this situation yet, still have plenty to visit India. But I did a thought experiment followed by a power nap. Here's the outcome of that:

They won't be long trips but still worth a 1-2 week trip

Cover any places of interest, food for nostalgia sake

I still have lot of school buddies in India, they are fun to hangout with

May be a nice vacation while there

I still have relatives and friends in India and I still try to meet as many as possible. But for me even if I do not have many people to meet when I visit India I still keep visiting India as long as I could. Because I will enjoy India all by myself and with my wife and I do not want any body else.

YIndia;626226Right now when I visit India, I have my parent's house to stay in. I have many cousins that I can visit and do fun things with. But they are all slowly moving out of India for the usual reasons, and I wonder.... When one's immediate family members are all settled outside India, would they still visit India? There may not be an elderly parent to "see", no marriages to attend, there might not even be a home to stay in.

Are there any members here who still visit India without any close family there? What do you do?
Or does it happen that, trips to India slowly decrease, and eventually die out. How then would you get your "India fix"?

I go for weddings and funerals. These are occasions when the scattered branches of the family in countries they had migrated to, may meet up and get updates. Although there are emails, fb-pages and occasional telephone chats, the real meetings are special.

Yes; the visits will become infrequent. For the generation that had grown up outside India, it is a weird and strange place to go for a reunion. As marriages and funerals happen in other countries, we'll probably go there instead of India.

I asked one retired uncle in US, do you still visit in India?

He said most of the people of his time are dead now, there is no one in India to visit.
And their age and health does not permit to visit India just for fun.

Basically we will slowly lose all contact with India if we LIA and retire in USA.

It depends if you grew up in a nuclear family or joint family. Joint family folks will have at least one cousin/sibling to visit during their lifetime. But I have observed that USC kids tend to avoid India visits even with their parents once they go past high schools.

As the "India cousin" I have no interest in the once in few years returning, non returning Indian. They have tight schedules, crib endlessly about traffic, or how expensive India is. As we age even that "added"us accent gets very boring. So when nri s come I ask them to come home for dinner, I don't make any effort to go out and bored shitless about the same r2i dilemma nonsense.

rajradio;626266As the "India cousin" I have no interest in the once in few years returning, non returning Indian. They have tight schedules, crib endlessly about traffic, or how expensive India is. ........

This is quite the impression that the LII cousins might be left with.
What is the telugu equivalent for "a full tank doesn't slosh" ?

rajradio;626266As the "India cousin" I have no interest in the once in few years returning, non returning Indian. They have tight schedules, crib endlessly about traffic, or how expensive India is. As we age even that "added"us accent gets very boring. So when nri s come I ask them to come home for dinner, I don't make any effort to go out and bored shitless about the same r2i dilemma nonsense.

I'll add to this. See, long long time ago say 20-25 years ago, when some people went to US, and they return, may be with some gifts as well, we look at them with Ah!, like a celebrity like I would look a actress or cricketer. Now it is all gone. Very high chances are my accomplishments are higher than many, I am neither poor to get impressed by their gifts. They are different and I am different, almost like caste system is back. I will look down upon their accomplishments (say their son got admission to Princeton, no way he will even answer 10% of JEE questions), their work (I'll think I am doing big work in programming compared to them), neither their complaining (like I can tolerate something here, they cant and I need to appreciate that??).

If I were in US, I dont see anyone happy to see me or would even care to invite me for a plain tea (no masala required) thru every year passing by.