It's because I like you, I don't want to be with you. It's a complicated emotion.

Last Morning when i got up from bed, it was with an overwhelming sense of pride accompanied by a vague sense of fear. It is only on rare occasions that i wake up tasting fear.

It was 26th January and the worlds largest democracy celebrated one more year of its Republic. I have always been extremely proud of India and personally, i feel that i have every reason to be so.

I have worked at a lot of places in India, met a lot of people and seen a lot of things and a lot of other things going wrong, which, incidentally included being in Ahmadabad during the aftermath of the Godhra Massacre.

Agreed that people were barbaric, and the whole thing was most probably, politically manged and people sometimes just don't think for themselves, but for all this, there are always incidents that makes the spirit of democracy, of compassion just shine. Where my friends and I lived in Ahmadabad was a predominantly muslim area and everyone was scared for their lives – people didnt lose their sense of fraternity. Three of my friends risking their lives moved a muslim friend to the airport and then to Bombay in a special flight – driving right through the most insecure of areas, and then coming back in one piece. If nothing else, it stands as something of a lesson in paradoxes existing in the most extreme of situations.

And then there is this sense of belonging. Being born here to extremely patriotic parents, having lived here and having interacted with so many people from different lands and after hearing so many thins about my very diverse mother lands, the love and the passion for this soil can only increase. I have met French people who told me that this place was something like to which they have never been. I have had Americans who have never been out of the US in their entire lives come here and fall instantly in love with this place.

Agreed that there might be places like these elsewhere in the world too, but for me, this is the one place with which i have fallen in love, and one place which i will cherish, love and look to be in for the rest of my life, for good or for the worse. This is My India, and I love it, for all it faults, for all its shortcomings. For me India is 'we the people'.

Thinking all this leaves me with a sense of pride and belonging, but looking at the future, there is this sense of fear and apprehension that shrouds a veil of mist over a potentially bright tomorrow. I have been in enough places, hostile and friendly to be sure that i can thrive anywhere, but coming to a cross-roads in life where leaving the country seems the only option that i can take, i cannot but be afraid.

Leaving the soil, to someplace new, someplace unknown and to someplace unchartered, has always been a source of immense anticipation and overflowing enthusiasm for the traveler in me. But the feet lifting off the home soil, for an unknown period of time, to eke out a living in a place far away from the familiar faces, from familiar places, from the sights and sounds of India seems a daunting prospect.

Many have done it before with no extreme side effects, barring money , for me, it remains a challenge, of which i am unsure of, and a challenge which i am not able to take one with full vigor, even with the complete understanding that it is somewhere in cowboy land where my future lies....

PS: The Title is taken from the movie Finding Nemo