‘India Calling’: Anand Giridharadas’ Book Deepened My Reflections On the Homeland I Left in the 1990s

As the holidays approach, I gravitate to libraries and bookstores to read. Reading “India Calling” by Anand Giridharadas deepened my reflections on the India I hold in my heart as an immigrant who came to America in the early 1990s — an India I sometimes recreate through fleeting conversations with strangers on each visit. 

Each time I go back, I find myself listening to people’s stories, joys, and worries, feeling a connection with these strangers who feel more like family, than family itself. I share a part of myself with them — the parts that were formed by growing up in India. I tell them about my school days, about teachers who encouraged me, the warmth of playing with friends, learning music and art, and exploring the hidden corners of a vast, mesmerizing country. 

I talk about reading poetry with my father, painting and embroidering with my mother, eating homemade pinnis, savoring fermented kanji, seeing whose tongue could turn most purple from jamuns, climbing and falling off mango trees, making long daisy chains, preparing for every festival, studying for final exams, creeping out to play “luka-chhupi” in blazing afternoons. Falling asleep under the stars with my great-grandmother. Each memory, carefully polished by my heart, feels like a rare pearl in a rosary, something to hold onto in a world that constantly changes.

I cherish these connections, these conversations that let me share the India of my past, knowing I am fortunate to have the luxury to return to that world, even if only in fragments. While I’ve tried to recreate this haven for my children and grandson on family vacations, I know it’s impossible to truly go back. 

The home I once had — the one gifted to me by my mother with so much love — the home filled with her gentle perfume, my father’s baritone voice, and his ebullient laughter is now only a nostalgic memory. I can’t run into the door, and into the arms of my parents as others in the family never truly wanted me there. My place at my mother’s dining table, by her side, was there only while she was present to put another spoonful of kheer in my katori.

This yearning to return isn’t just about going back to a country; it’s a journey through personal history, the landscapes of memory and belonging, and the mixed emotions of reconciling what was and what is. As Anand Giridharadas describes, India today stands on the cusp of two worlds — one tethered to tradition, the other pulled forward by the ambitions of a new generation. His observations capture a truth that resonates with my own life: India is evolving rapidly, and the place I left has changed, though I feel I’ve remained the same at my core. I’ve remained true to the person my parents shaped me to be… almost.

My memories of India are not simply of a location; they are the essence of my parents’ home — a cocoon of warmth, love, and understanding, a place where I was accepted fully, seen, heard, and welcomed. This pining isn’t just nostalgia; it’s a desire to recreate that wholeness, that feeling of being rooted. But when I think about India today, I wonder if the familiar spaces, the neighborhoods, and the landscapes can still offer that feeling of home. Some of them do, if only briefly. 

When I return, I try to hold onto fleeting moments that connect me to my past: a sweeper with a long broom cleaning a tree-lined avenue, children waiting for the school bus, a watch repair wallah, a rickshaw driver, a sugarcane juice stand, a cobbler, a bookseller on the street, people riding in BEST buses, going to temple in the morning, children playing together irrespective of caste, color, religion, or creed.

And then, there are my family relationships, complicated and sometimes strained. My sibling, once a close companion, has grown distant and transactional. My son, despite his calm and grounding presence, is sleep-deprived, constantly juggling work and family. My grandson is blossoming into a handsome young man, but I wish I could shape him more closely — his worldliness, his empathy, his friendships. My daughter, a delightful soul, is absorbed in her career, trying to carve out a life for herself in the United States.

These real and complex relationships make me wonder about the meaning of “home” now. Giridharadas, in his return to India, stands as a visitor in his ancestral land, but for me, going back would mean fully immersing myself in a place that has moved on. This modern India is alive with contradictions, as he observes—a blend of old values and new pragmatism, and the warm simplicity I yearn for might be hard to recreate.

I think about what I want in the years ahead. I want to find purpose —to garden, cook, travel, write, and perhaps nurture a family for my daughter someday. I am doing these things, but I still feel a lack of completeness. I crave a future where I can sit with my son, share a quiet cup of tea, and let him simply breathe without the weight of his obligations. Yet I know that in today’s India, like here in America, life moves fast, and these moments are rare.

The challenge Giridharadas describes — of honoring tradition while adapting to change — feels deeply familiar. It mirrors my own yearning for connection, a sense of being rooted in relationships that are, by nature, always evolving. Like so many who left long ago, I find myself weighing the beauty of my memories against the inevitable bittersweetness of change. Going back is no longer about returning to what once was but finding a way to build a bridge between past attachments and present reality, deciding where I truly belong. Any choice I make will be filled with contradictions, moments of beauty, and, inevitably, moments of regret. But the India of my childhood will always be a part of me. A place to be revisited and cherished forevermore.

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With one foot in Huntsville, Alabama, the other in her birth home India, and a heart steeped in humanity, writing is a contemplative practice for Monita Soni. She has published hundreds of poems, movie reviews, book critiques, and essays and contributed to combined literary works. Her two books are My Light Reflections and Flow through My Heart. You can hear her commentaries on Sundial Writers Corner WLRH 89.3FM.