After a month, I drop out of Mumbai University. There is no particular reason, more of an aimless slide. Having told my parents that I’d try India before deciding about going abroad, I now accept an offer from Claremont McKenna–an American College comprised of words I mispronounce, the ‘Mck’ coming out as the ‘muck’ of muck and slime, rather than the ‘mec’ of McDonalds. The fee transfer is a family event. The four of us walk to the bank, each clutching assigned documents. Fifty thousand dollars–a sum so new, so gigantic, that the clerk who processes the transaction and I both roll our eyes. Once it’s paid, Claremont begins sending me emails: housing form, dining form, health form, orientation package. I reply vaguely, and then go about preparations in a daze, as if buying clothes and packing suitcases for someone else.
Then there is the matter of goodbyes. I am expected to throw a farewell party, and I do. The formality done, I provide my friends with a false (early) departure date so as to have a few weeks to myself. Not that anyone is harassing me. Lying and laying low just seem like the thing to do. The situation with my family is more difficult (though of course I myself don’t realize this just yet.) My older sister Shirya is giving up on me. I didn’t write to her from boarding school. It’s unlikely that I will from the States. My mother, who blindly loves me, finds this period especially hard. We spend a lot of time together: at the passport office, at the American consulate, in line outside the American consulate, at shopping malls, at foreign exchange bureaus and, of course, in the car–but our interaction is dead. She might as well be a chauffeur. My father claims to “know what was going on in [my] head,” because he is my father. Whether he really does, (I hope he doesn’t) or is given to psychoanalyzing, or has just taken it upon himself to keep things together, I don’t know. But he, more than the others, excuses my crankiness and lets me be.
As the date of departure approaches, I go further adrift, smoking openly in the building lobby, skipping meals without explanation, and even walking out on my grandparents when they arrive for a farewell visit. I listen to music until my head aches.