I came from a traditional family, and it was an exciting but

Host: The airport lights glowed pale and lonely through the fog — a kind of electric dawn suspended above the city. A thousand voices spoke at once — in laughter, in languages, in the uncertain rhythm of new beginnings. The smell of coffee, metal, and rain hung heavy in the air.

Outside, the traffic hummed like a tired orchestra — taxis, buses, neon. The world pulsed.

In a corner café beyond the arrival gates, Jack sat with a notebook open before him, a steaming mug untouched at his elbow. Across from him, Jeeny stirred her tea slowly, eyes wandering toward the glass wall where travelers disappeared into America — first steps, first breaths in a strange country.

On the table between them lay a folded clipping from a magazine. At the top of the page was a line that seemed to hum with memory:
“I came from a traditional family, and it was an exciting but challenging transition to move to America and live on my own. The world around me was suddenly so different.” — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Jeeny: (softly) “It’s always the same word in every immigrant story — different. Not bad, not good. Just different. That word holds everything.”

Host: Her voice carried warmth and understanding, like a thread woven from empathy and experience.

Jack: (nodding) “Different is polite for disorienting.”

Jeeny: “Yes. You think you’re just changing geography, but what really shifts is your sense of self.”

Jack: “Chitra must’ve felt that — being caught between two worlds, trying to belong to both without betraying either.”

Jeeny: “That’s the exile’s paradox. You become a bridge, but you stop being a home.”

Host: Outside, a young woman in a bright sari hugged her family goodbye. Her laughter broke midway into tears. A man in a suit patted her back, already turning toward his phone.

Jeeny watched her go, something tender flickering across her face.

Jeeny: “I remember my first apartment here. One window, no heat. I used to cook lentils just for the smell — so it would feel like someone’s kitchen back home.”

Jack: “And did it?”

Jeeny: “For a while. Until the smell mixed with loneliness.”

Host: Her eyes met his — steady, glimmering, honest.

Jack: “You know, it’s funny. Everyone talks about the American Dream like it’s just about ambition. But it’s really about endurance.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Nobody tells you that freedom has a flavor — and sometimes it tastes like loss.”

Jack: “Loss of what?”

Jeeny: “Familiarity. Ritual. The music of your own language in your ears. Back home, even silence had a shape I recognized.”

Host: The terminal announcements echoed through the café — “Flight 101 to Kolkata boarding now.” The sound felt like a portal opening and closing all at once.

Jack: “You think that’s what Divakaruni means when she says the world was suddenly so different? That difference isn’t just new — it’s alienating?”

Jeeny: “Yes. You start off thinking difference is adventure. But slowly, it becomes translation — you’re always rewriting yourself in someone else’s tongue.”

Jack: “And still trying to sound fluent.”

Jeeny: “Always.”

Host: The rain outside turned heavier, streaking the window with blurred trails of light — headlights, raindrops, movement. The visual echo of longing.

Jeeny: “When I first came here, I thought independence would feel like flying. But it felt more like freefall.”

Jack: “And yet you stayed.”

Jeeny: “Of course. Because what’s freedom worth if it’s not earned through fear?”

Host: She said it quietly, but her tone carried pride — the kind born not from victory, but survival.

Jack: “You know, I’ve always admired people who cross worlds. It takes courage to let go of everything you understand just to see who you are without it.”

Jeeny: “It’s also arrogance. You think you can reinvent yourself — until you realize the past travels with you, stamped inside your blood.”

Jack: “So you never really leave home.”

Jeeny: “No. You carry it like a second skin. Sometimes it comforts you. Sometimes it burns.”

Host: The woman from earlier reappeared on the sidewalk below, stepping into a taxi, her face pressed against the window as it drove into the wet, glowing dark.

Jack: “You know what I love about Divakaruni’s words? She doesn’t romanticize the transition. She calls it exciting and challenging. Both truths at once.”

Jeeny: “Because that’s what migration is — contradiction made human. You’re grateful and grieving in the same breath.”

Jack: “And you keep breathing anyway.”

Jeeny: “You have to. The air of new places may be strange, but it’s still air. You learn to breathe differently, that’s all.”

Host: The café light caught the edge of her face — soft gold against her dark hair, her expression quiet, almost reverent.

Jeeny: “I think of her — Chitra — sitting in a small American apartment, writing stories about Calcutta in English. That’s what art does. It builds a home inside language when geography takes it away.”

Jack: “So words become her second country.”

Jeeny: “Yes. And every immigrant who reads them feels seen.”

Host: A pause. The kind of silence that’s not empty, but full of understanding.

Jack: “You know, sometimes I envy that kind of transformation. You go through something that breaks you open — and somehow, what spills out becomes art.”

Jeeny: “Or survival.”

Jack: “Same thing, sometimes.”

Host: The rain began to ease, turning the windowpane into a blurred watercolor — light melting into shadow, city into sky.

Jeeny: “You think home can be more than one place?”

Jack: “Maybe. Or maybe home isn’t a place anymore — maybe it’s the people who remember you in both worlds.”

Jeeny: “That’s beautiful.”

Jack: “That’s true.”

Host: She smiled then — the kind of smile that holds both distance and peace.

Jeeny: “You know, I think that’s what she was really saying — that when the world changes around you, you don’t lose yourself. You just meet the parts of you that were waiting to be tested.”

Jack: “And in that test, you grow.”

Jeeny: “Yes. The difference stops being fear. It becomes expansion.”

Host: The final boarding call echoed faintly, fading into silence.

Jack closed his notebook, took a slow sip of his coffee, and looked out at the city — the streets gleaming like veins of light.

Jeeny: “You know what I miss most about home?”

Jack: “What?”

Jeeny: “How the night smelled of cardamom and stories. Here, it smells like rain and electricity.”

Jack: (smiling) “Maybe one day, they’ll smell the same.”

Jeeny: “Maybe they already do — if you stay long enough to notice.”

Host: The rain stopped. The lights dimmed. And in that hush before midnight, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s words glowed in their hearts like an eternal lantern:

that home is not a place but a translation;
that freedom and loneliness are twins;
that difference is not division, but discovery;
and that sometimes the only way to find yourself
is to step into a world
so different
it forces you to see
who you’ve always been.

Outside, a plane lifted into the sky,
its lights blinking like tiny affirmations —
each one whispering to the clouds,
“I am between worlds,
and I am still whole.”