I have read that
watching foreign language movies is one of the ways to relieve stress. To
strictly practise what I read, it was my German movie Saturday afternoon,
though the language is no more foreign to me. The themes of German movies range
from history to various social issues. The theme of the movie that I watched
was ‘Migration’. It was about a Turkish family which moves to Germany in search
of better jobs and better lifestyle. The family integrates quite well in the
German culture and eventually receive German passport, officially gaining
citizenship of the country. However, even after several years, the family finds
its deep roots and warmth in their Turkish village of provenance. The movie was
an engaging entertainer portraying the challenges the immigrants face in a
foreign country, especially the cultural differences.
Before watching the
movie, I had read one German write-up which explained how Germany became a land
of immigrants. In 1950s when Germany was at her summit of economic prosperity,
she needed more workforces to work in her industries and improve the
infrastructure. Gradually the Gastarbeiter
or ‘guest workers’ as the Germans liked to call them, started coming from
countries like Italy, Greece, Spain and later in 1961 from Turkey, Morocco,
Portugal, Tunisia and Yugoslavia. In 1964, the millionth guest worker, Armando
Rodrigues from Portugal was welcomed by the minister and was gifted a moped.
The article also threw light on how the rules for immigration changed over the
years. Soon the workers brought their families to Germany and settled there. As
a step towards better integration, mandatory German language courses were
facilitated to the immigrants. Till date, the Turks constitute to be the
largest number of immigrants in Germany.
The article and the
movie took me back to a definition, which was still lying at the back of my
mind: Globalization is the free movement of goods, services and people across
the world in a seamless integrated manner. My mind was focused on the word
‘seamless’. Like goods and services, can movement of people from one country to
another be really called seamless? We are human beings who grow up in a
particular environment, culture, traditions and values. Globalization also
means movement of all these intangible factors, though their movement may not
necessarily be ‘seamless’. Over the years, surely we integrate with the foreign
culture and become one with them. Isn’t why there is a term called as cultural
exchange? I believe that adapting to cultures is the biggest challenge in
globalization. Of course, languages play significant roles in bridging this
gap. As Indians, most of us are fascinated by and exposed to a bigger, modern
world. In India, the basics of globalization can be learned from localization,
thanks to our 29 distinct states, their unique cultures and vast number of
languages. We are drawn towards the foreign lands like we are attracted to the
foreign brands. We start getting a better view of the world and have a
checklist ready of what we lack in our nation. We all have our own scales of
measurement, don’t we? These individual scales lead to brain drain, in search
of better opportunities. But how is life exactly when people land in their
‘lands of opportunities’? It is definitely not a smooth ride in the initial
days. It is similar to a newlywed bride adjusting in her new family. Thanks to
the adaptive ability of humans, the foundation of globalization is not shaken
easily. Foreign and globally accepted etiquettes and manners become the way of
life. We move from being intercultural to international. There is betterment of
thought processes most of the times, depending on how well the new culture
treats you. We build relationships with people of different nationalities. We
become one with the world and realize that there are so many varied facets to
it. Slowly the affinity towards something, which is once upon a time, ‘new and
foreign’, grows and soon it becomes own. Adaption turns into adoption. A
foreign land, a foreign culture as though transforms us in some or the other
way.
When I thought of this theme,
I remembered an article written by Swaminathan Anklesaria Iyer in which he
wrote how his children had gone to various countries to study or to work and
blended with the countries and married people of different nationalities . He
said in that article how his children, i.e. the next generation of his family
had gone international, whereas his own generation had gone inter-caste or
rather intercultural. He beautifully states in the article that he therefore is
a citizen of the globe now and feels one with the world. He feels at home and
has a sense of belongingness in any part of the world. He still reminisces his
days in his village in Tamil Nadu, where he enjoys eating food from a banana
leaf with his hands.
The recent cases of
Indians being shot dead or racially abused in some parts of the world, I view
this as the ugly face of globalization. The ‘seamless’ process is hence
distorted by such incidents. Globalization should not result into cultural
conflicts or developing hatred for people having a particular skin colour. People
move in quest of livelihood, so that the families back home can reap benefits
and get a better taste of life. When one actually deals with the practicality
of living in a foreign land, one can use the same scale of comparison and check
if perceptions are better than reality or vice versa. Integration not just
remains a word, but is a whole painstaking process which involves
acclimatization as a major factor.
I learned two unique or rather two profound
German words during my studies: ‘fernweh’
and ‘heimweh’. Fernweh is a feeling,
an excitement to travel to distant countries to have new experiences. Heimweh,
on the other hand, is the feeling of homesickness. Globalization, according to
me, is a process of feeling ‘fernweh’ to ‘heimweh’ at some point of life. It
also means a phase when the faraway land becomes home and home becomes a
faraway land. To look at the brighter side of globalization, your original home
also visits your new home one day and that is when you are glad to see Indian
restaurants in any part of the world that you go. Yes, we Indians are large in
number and we do carry our cultures, traditions and most importantly our food
and cooking methods wherever we go. And looking at this new scenario, where
your birth motherland meets your adoptive motherland, one hums the melody by
the singer Sia, ‘I found my way….found my
way home…’
