Over dinner, Divya tells me that many of her Indian-American friends are getting ready to head home. They are coming up on two or three years in India, and they are feeling the pull back to the States.

Divya herself has an interesting background — Oman by childhood, India by passport, America by college, “South India” by ethnic roots, and global by Facebook. Her salsa lessons are in Delhi, her family is in Oman and the U.S., and her friends are everywhere.

But as I mull over the general trajectory of her U.S.-born friends, I can feel my own homeward tug. Except that for me, it has been only six months. And there are still four more months to go.

Perhaps the constant shifts of my India travels have contributed to this. One month in Mussoorie, one month on the road, a few months in Delhi. Perhaps it has been the professional shifts as well.

But at the end of the day, I think I’m experiencing “explorer’s fatigue.” Gone are the days when I would ask the autorickshaw driver to tell me about his village “back home.” Now, I just pull out my Ipod and swim in my english-language songs. Except for that morning at the Taj Mahal, when the Indian officer told me, “Sorry, no Ipods.”

These days, when I walk through Delhi’s streets, I feel like a bit of an alien. The hardworking laborers who are of poorer socioeconomic strata than me seem to inhabit a social world apart from mine. But then, so do the wealthy girls with their fashionable attire. As they drift in and out of Green Park Market’s cafes, they seem quite comfortable perched atop the money hierarchy.

I used to perceive this vast nation as a place I would visit every once in a while to renew contacts with relatives and get a little more acquainted with my roots. But now, I find myself daydreaming about American Thanksgiving — a time when my Indian-American relatives on my mom’s side gather. We pick a location somewhere in the States to resume our Annual Hazing of One or More Cousins. Sometimes the Canadian branches show up too.

I miss the North American cohorts of my family. I miss my friends in New York, near Seattle, in Los Angeles, around San Francisco. I want to do one massive multi-stop airplane tour across all the American cities that hold a little piece of home for me.

But I have four months to go. And 10 weeks of intensive Hindi studies. And 6 weeks in Delhi. And a weekend back in the Himalayan foothills. And rent to pay. And a shower to take.

If the intensive Hindi studies began tomorrow, I’d be excited. It’s a mini-mission I’ve been looking forward to for some time. But instead, I have to wait until June 16th. That’s a good chunk of time to kill. And I don’t have the energy to figure out how to do it.