The Homecoming

Amar Singh, 29, has been crisscrossing Punjab for over six months now, with several projects up his sleeve. A photographer whose works have found a place at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, a well-known graphic designer from Chicago and an amateur chef, the chunky young man is painstakingly documenting the vanishing folk culture of Punjab. 8216;8216;My biggest fear is that once this generation passes away, we will lose a big part of our history,8217;8217; he says. His concern for 8216;our8217; history is touching, considering that even his parents were raised in Myanmar before migrating to the US. And he first set eyes on India just six years ago.

Singh and Da Costa are members of an army of second-generation NRIs who come to the mother country to do more than just get in touch with their roots. They come to nurture. In fact, they have positively heart-warming designs on India.

8216;8216;It8217;s just a way of giving back to the motherland,8217;8217; says the hazel-eyed Da Costa. That, despite the fact that she was born and raised in Toronto. Karamjit Kaur, a financial analyst in her early 30s, who chucked a senior position at the US non-profit organisation March of Dimes to discover Punjab, calls it a two-way process. 8216;8216;We come here so that we can make some positive changes, which in turn changes us for the better.8217;8217;

Kaur was part of an 11-member group of youngsters that spent a year in Punjab in 1998. Many of them couldn8217;t even stomach a few months, but those who did, returned to set up Fellowship of Activists to Embrace Humanity FATEH, which has since sponsored young people to work on projects in India.

Although money is not an issue for these youngsters, they choose to rough it out. So, they leg it. Or take the bus. Which explains Kaur8217;s colourful repertoire of bus tales. 8216;8216;Be it the common man and his issues, or the nitty-gritty of politics, a bus journey is your best primer,8217;8217; she declares. Last week, she was treated to the pulse of the days before Partition, when two passengers decided to slug it out over 8216;India, then and now8217;.

But bus journeys have not been enough for Puneet Cheema, 25, a law student from George Washington University Law School, to ferret out the whys of female foeticide. It was the skewed sex ratio of Punjabis in the West that first drew her to the state. 8216;8216;I thought it would be good to visit Punjab and get to the root of the problem.8217;8217; Now, after nearly four months of meeting villagers, she8217;s finally hit upon a plan of action. 8216;8216;We8217;ll study the villages, which have dramatically improved their sex ratio and then try to replicate their model in villages with a poor sex ratio.8217;8217;

The 8216;we8217; here includes Kaur, who is also keenly interested in gender issues and is one of the brains behind Kaurs, the first-ever bimonthly magazine for Punjabi women, which was launched last December. 8220;It8217;s a forum for women in the Punjabi diaspora,8217;8217; says this financial whiz who was inspired by Ebony, the magazine for African-American women. An example of multinational cooperation, the magazine is conceived and designed in Canada, financed in the US and printed in Chandigarh.

But the sub-continent is a tough nut to crack. 8216;8216;The Wagah border was such a disappointment,8217;8217; gripes Cheema, who was appalled to learn of the red tape she would have to cut through to step across. Da Costa was horrified when a worker at an NGO she visited described the mentally challenged children as 8220;god8217;s rejects8217;8217;. But these quirks, they are quick to stress, only add to India8217;s charm.

Kaur says she didn8217;t know the depth of people8217;s fortitude until she met an old farmer in Sangrur whose two sons had committed suicide after a crop failure. 8216;8216;He was grieving, but his spirit still shone through,8217;8217; she recounts. 8216;8216;You knew he would never give up on life. He kept saying, 8216;Why did they have to kill themselves? We would have found a way out8217;.8217;8217;

Funnily enough, these ironies are what attract NRI youngsters to the India experience. 8216;8216;And it8217;s done wonders for our careers as well,8217;8217; gushes Kaur. That8217;s incredible India for you.