?You get methi saak and karala there? Fresh? Amazing!?

?No domestic help! How do you manage??

?So ? you must have settled in by this time?? The above are just a few questions I face when I come for a visit to Calcutta. As I live in a country about which people here don?t know much, except that it has a cricket team, is famous for rugby and is somehow connected with the ?Maoris?, the curiosity is a little more than usual. As for me, after three years in Wellington, New Zealand, I can confidently handle queries about bitter gourds, but I must say the question about having ?settled in? stumps me.

How much time must elapse before an immigrant can be said to have ?settled? in a country that is not his own? What is the process by which one gets reconciled to a reality that is strange and remote? In the early days, almost everyone tries to look for connections, however tenuous. I was elated to find a Calcutta Street in Wellington. The beautiful red blossoms of a Pohutukawa tree reminded me of Krishnachura. I visited the Indian shops even if I didn?t have anything to buy. The smell of familiar spices, the Hindi FM channel, everything helped create a virtual India for me.

Homesickness catches you in weird ways. A friend, a devout hater of Hindi potboilers, found a Hindi video-rental shop and doggedly sat through one of the latest movies. Many of us have tried to create a Bengali kitchen in our homes here. We?ve discovered that mullet tastes almost like ilish and you can make a great salmon-bhape with spicy English mustard and yogurt.

For some immigrants, however, preserving the connection with the homeland is less important than adapting to the new environment. Sometimes, though, it can be quite a challenge. In his eagerness to be ?a true Kiwi?, a young man I know had started to imitate every mannerism in speech he heard. After addressing everyone as ?How?ya doing, Mike?? for months, he discovered that the word was ?mate?.

Despite such minor hurdles, adapting to Kiwi life is not too difficult. Wellington, particularly, is cosmopolitan and lets you live your life at your own pace. Kiwis are cheerful and fun-loving by nature. I?d always thought speaking loudly was taboo in a restaurant. I know better now. Another thing I love about Kiwis is their ?it?s-never-too-late? attitude. My eighty-year-old neighbour bakes peanut cookies, researches on genealogy and tramps all over New Zealand. When I was waxing eloquent on her resilience, she announced that there was a ninety-five year old lady in her walking group.

Many of my Kiwi friends have asked me with genuine bewilderment why I left my own country. I?ve given the usual explanations ? better quality of life, less pollution, less compromise?What I haven?t been able to explain to them is it is because of the sense of freedom Wellington has given me, a thing they take for granted. The sense of peace and anonymity when I, a young woman, sit alone on the beach enjoying the sun. The fact that I don?t have to be conscious of my clothes when I step out of the house. After a lifetime in Calcutta, all this seems miraculous.

I like living in Wellington. I have become used to drinking water from the tap, smooth road surfaces, quick service at the shops. So much so that on my visits to Calcutta, I react in ways that I would have never reacted before. I cry out involuntarily when someone crosses the road nonchalantly in front of a speeding car; I can no longer board a running bus; I get angry when people jump queues. Does this mean that I?m a stranger in my own country now? Or that I?ve ?settled in? abroad? But what about those sudden attacks of homesickness? I still miss the family and friends I?ve left behind and the unique support system they provided. I miss Calcutta?s Chinese food and the Book Fair. I can?t get the city out of my system because it is here that I have grown up, fallen in love. Perhaps, in the ultimate analysis, all those who emigrate as adults have a double life ? one that?s left physically behind but one that is carried within, and the other that?s created in one?s adopted country. Perhaps ?settling in? is another name for getting used to this double life, a process that goes on for a lifetime.