The past few weeks, since I came back home to my family after nine months away at college, have been a struggle. This would be hard to comprehend for a lot of people, because mine is an average stable middle class family, and I should be glad to meet them after all that time, should I not? Well, part of the reason why I have been struggling is because I am not glad at all.

I suppose i have really been struggling with a lot of things for quite some time. Last summer was a probably the most painful time I have ever had to face and there were certainly times when not only did I think I was bipolar (because I could really not figure out why my moods would vary so much) but I was suicidal as well. I'd think up strategies to run away, to use an awkward euphemism; I'd try to consume an entire leaf (twenty or so tablets) of an antibiotic medicine I am allergic to, trying to spark a serious reaction, only to throw it up after a while and just have mild fever and puffiness that I could not explain to my parents. Talking of things i cannot explain to my parents, there is just too much that I cannot. My mother, and to a lesser extent my father, can sense that I am hiding things. Which is why she tries to pry -- she tries to read my email, my text messages, Facebook messages, IM conversations, whatever she can come across. It's frightening.

Well, how do I explain this more clearly? Right now, all I am saying is that I have been struggling but I haven't been able to articulate what I am struggling with. I'd say my sexuality is possibly one of the things I am struggling with, but that is only the most obvious one. Sure, I don't know what to make of the idea that for an Indian kid, marriage is not just a possibility, but an eventuality. And no, not the sort of marriages that have been recently legalized in California and Norway, but marriage between a man and a woman, marriage as a social contract, a familial obligation, all those things. It's hard for me to make sense of it right now, but there's one thing that is perfectly clear to me -- "coming out" is certainly not an option. Not when my family is not just my parents, but grandparents, aunts, uncles, parents' aunts and uncles and cousins, and a whole extended network of endless relatives that I don't know but that think it is their prerogative to know everything about everyone's lives. See, mine is not one of those liberal Indian families that some of my friends seem to have. It is a regular conservative Indian family that is proud of their "family values" (which, f'ing unfortunately for me, I don't share). So, if I were straight, it would not be acceptable for me to marry a man that was not North Indian. Oh no! The only option for marriage would be a North Indian man, preferably one with whom my match was arranged by my parents. So, heaven forbid, that I would want to spend my life with a woman. Oh no! I guess the core issue here, though, is not my sexuality. The core issue is the conflict between my "Western" outlook and my family's "traditional" outlook.

Now, this is something I find very difficult to express. But it is as if every time I try talking to my parents, we are never on the same page. Even when it comes to simple feminist stances that I might take (for instance, that the husband should play an equal role in looking after the kids; or that women need to be financially independent) my parents get angry. They are unable to understand where I am coming from, and what prompts me to think in these "strange" ways, when the reality I have always seen at home has done nothing to "put such ideas into my head." My mother doesn't work. Financially, she is entirely dependent on my father and I have seen nasty fights flare up between them over sums as small as a thousand rupees (about $25). Every time my parents talk, it's so firmly grounded in their understanding of traditional gender roles, and should I ever try to say anyhting differently, I get screamed at. Yeah, so it's best for me to keep my "feminist inclinations" out of my own household. Kind of contrary to my belief of charity beginning at home (not that this is charity. The way I see it, it's simply reason), but, whatever.

Then there is the issue about my decision to study in the US. I desperatley needed that. My parents did not really want that. They already felt I "getting out of hand" and they were convinced they would lose me completely if I went away to study. Besides, they never hesitate to remind me, though not in those exact terms, how I have failed them. Whom do I blame for this? I cannot help but blame anyone but myself. I should have had the guts to tell my parents from the very beginning that I did not want to study in India, that I wanted the independence, the academic freedom, everything that came with living away from home and studying in a much superior academic system (yeah, shoot me, you stupid overly patriotic folks. But whatever you say, the education at US colleges (at least the good ones) is far superior to that at most Indian ones). I should not have tried to pretend, for their sake, that I wanted to go to IIT. That was one part my foolishness, one part my naivety, and several parts wanting to please my parents. I should have known it was just not going to work. I should have focused on my US applications sooner so that that Princeton waitlist decision had been an acceptance letter, or so that one of these rich schools would have accepted me and given a heap of financial aid. But, f'ed up as things usually are with me, I had the most disastrous admissions results. I don't even know how many nights I spent crying over it, how defeated I felt, how worthless, frustrated, torn up. It was the outside legitimization of my parents' belief that I was just not good enough. I ended up getting into just Georgetown, Carnegie Mellon and Tufts. Good schools, all, but good enough for my parents? I think not. To be honest, good enough for my skewed perceptions? I'm really not sure. So, I decided to go to Georgetown (another decision that made my parents unhappy, because, really, nobody has heard of Georgetown in India, and "what is this international relations thing you want to do?") but Georgetown did not grant me financial aid. Which obviously meant more fights at home.

You know, I absolutely love being at Georgetown, and when I was there I could mostly forget how discontented I was with my life in India. How I had been this close to suicide several times. Georgetown is far more of a home to me than this place ever was, or could be. For a change, I felt like I belonged, even if I am miles away from the stereotype of a Georgetown student. I am "home" for the summer, and the only thing I can think about is going back to Georgetown.

But my parents can't stand me. They can't stand how distant I have become. Every night is fighting and tears and arguments and more tears. I just don't know what to do. Sometimes, I wish my parents would just disown me so i wouldn't have to worry about hurting them so much. Because I know I am hurting them every bit as much as they are hurting me. Though it seems they cannot see how much they are hurting me. I don't think my mother realizes how her comments about how she thinks I don't have any friends tears me apart. She doesn't see how when she says that they must have failed as parents because I didn't get any sanskar (cultural values) and I make friends with the "gays and lesbians". Oh god. It's so f'ing difficult sometimes, and I just don't know what to do.

I try, on my part, to be the perfect daughter. Honors GPA, no alcohol, no drugs, no smoking, so sex, no boyfriends (or rather, girlfriends). I try. I fucking try. But it doesn't work.

Because something in this picture is just fundamentally wrong, and I don't know what it is, and I cannot fix it.