Its final now ... I'm going to be away from my beloved country in an entirely new environment for more than 16 months starting July 2007. I had few other options but in the end I believe that an MBA degree from AIM shall prove to be the best foot forward towards achieving my career goal.
Now Philippines.... though it is in Asia only, more than 400 years of Spanish and American colonial rule has resulted in its culture being closer to US, than any other country in Asia.
While I was in Manila, in the month of February 2007, I'd befriended an old filipino guy and on his invitation visited his house. This guy, Ricardo had four daughters who were all divorcees and to my horror all four were planning to get married again. They also introduced me to an American staying with them, who was a friend of Ricardo's second daughter and was in Manila on a short visit. This American and Ricardo's second daughter were planning to get married sometime in the month of November 2007.
The same scene might happen in number of families around globe, but one can not imagine anything remotely like this to happen with any Indian family. This and many other things like this are uniqueness of our Indian culture. I'm sure going to miss India and its beautiful culture, its diversity ... everything.
Only yesterday night, I was watching a hindi film, "Namastey London", which has India and uniqueness of indian culture as the theme. I really really loved a song of this movie :
"Main jahan rahoon,
main kahin bhi hoon, teri yaad saath hai….
kisi se kahoon, ke nahin kahoon... ye jo dil ki baat hai.
Kehne ko sang apne, ek duniya chalti hai,
par chupke is dil me, tanhayi rehti hai....
teri yaad saath hai."
