My Dad’s gone today to India for 4 weeks. He grew up in India and came to this country when he was 17. Apart from going back once in his 20s he only then went back again to visit in his mid-fifties (he’s now 60)! I suppose you get caught up in every day life in Britain, especially if your closest family is also here… you can find one year drift into another, into another decade or two!
To catch up on his lost time he’s now been going once or twice a year for the past five years, and is now eyeing up possibilities of buying a place there, which is timely as he’s just retired and he’s unsurprisingly sick of British weather! It’s seems to have been a particularly long and cold winter this year (but don’t we always say that!).
My Indian side of the family seem to generally come from the Anglo-Indian Christian tradition/ culture. They have English names and have always spoke English at home. I get the impression from my Grandma that they were from an educated middle-class in South India, with aspirations to be big things. My Grandad comes from a train-driving family, and he came here to do that for British Rail in the 1960s.
Anyway, good luck Dad, and as I’ve just found this phrase for Bon Voyage on a random linguistic website, I will trust it’s correct:
Iniya Paya Num Thodaratum!!
