Over 40 years ago, this American decided he never wanted to live anywhere else but India. And so, he became an Indian. 🇺🇸▶︎ 🇮🇳
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00:00I have been in India, well, the day after tomorrow, it will be 39 years.
00:22I came to continue studying Indian classical dancing, Southern Indian classical dancing,
00:49which I had started studying already in Berkeley, California.
00:58I landed in Madras, which is now known as Chennai, and I spent a year there.
01:04I loved it, but it didn't love me.
01:07The weather, I had never experienced such weather, the food, I had never experienced
01:12such spicy food.
01:13I didn't know what had hit me, basically, but one level I was on a high because I loved
01:17everything about the people, the language, the whole way people lived, and of course
01:22the dance.
01:23On the other end, I spent most of my time lying on my back staring at the ceiling fan
01:28because I was too ill to move.
01:42like you said, it was just a fan.
01:44I was just a fan.
01:45The government directed me to a court and there I came upon a clerk sitting behind a
01:49little cubby hole who shoved some old yellow parchment type papers at me, that turned out
01:54to be for people who were fleeing during partition and you had to name all of the properties
01:59and all that you were leaving back in Pakistan.
02:01So, that obviously wasn't the right place.
02:04And then I heard the officers working in the office, whispering to each other, you think
02:10he's from Kashmir?
02:11That too, in Afghanistan?
02:33And the translation of Go To Comfort Food doesn't exist in Hindi.
02:38But that comfort food is Khichdi.
02:40Whenever I feel down or when I'm in a bad mood, I eat Khichdi.
02:47Then everything is fine.
03:11And then one of the fellows said,
03:13this is a foreign diplomat, let him come forward.