Arthshastra

In my previous post, I wrote about the various ways in which DESIs try to come to terms with an alien culture and in trying to reconcile ourselves with the cultural and social values that we bring in with us, we are often at loss to explain our identity. This confusion is exacerbated by our own inability to be flexible, to recognize that even though we come from a rich cultural heritage, our newly adopted country has something exciting and important to offer as well. We try to use the compass that was calibrated in India to find directions in the US without making an attempt to recalibrate it. As most of us are highly educated and hard working, we usually manage to be at least modestly well off and we take that as a sign that all is well – that we have been successful in creating a perfect amalgamation of the two cultures.

There is a jolt of reality however, when kids are born to DESIs in the US and the struggle to save our kids from getting Americanized begins. I got the first taste of the collateral damage of this obsession when I watched Spellbound – the namesake documentary on the competition. I was shocked to realize that in pursuit of the desire for academic excellence of their children – these parents had ruined two to three years of the lives of their kids in forcing them to mug reams and reams of dictionary.

I got some first hand experience sometime later when I met a first generation Indian family at a wedding where their ten year old son was the star of the evening, belting out one classic Hindi number after other. The glow on the face of the parents was however not matched by the smile on the kid’s face. With his mother sitting right behind him all through the evening, he looked under a lot of pressure. I later discovered that the parents had an obsession with making sure that their children do not “forget” Indian culture. Since they lived in the middle of nowhere in a small town, they drove their son about 200 miles every weekend each way, to have him learn Indian singing from a teacher. The kid did not even know to read some of the more difficult words used in Hindi songs so his mother had written lyrics of all the songs using the English alphabet. “Bend It Like Beckham” (I don’t deny that being a movie it had its necessary melodrama) was again woven around essentially the same idea – that of the first generation Indian Immigrants who, even after many years in the new country, are not able to come to terms with the cultural paradigm shift that has happened around them.

But is this inability to come to terms with an alien culture, the only reason for this attempt by DESIS trying their best to ensure that their kids trod the same linear path in career and culture that they themselves have followed? I feel that it also involves a guilt factor that emanates from the realization that perhaps we left our culture, our traditions and our country for mere material comforts. During the earlier years, when the race is on to buy a two garage family house, to take vacations in the most exotic locations – this feeling is shut out in some corner. But when children come, when we are getting a little ahead in the years, when we realize that probably our children will be our most enduring legacy we get into panic mode. What if they marry a non-Indian? What if they get into some weird American career? What if they don’t relate to their religion? As Jhumpa Lahiri writes in her Newsweek article this week and I quote:

According to my parents I was not American, nor would I ever be no matter how hard I tried. I felt doomed by their pronouncement, misunderstood and gradually defiant. In spite of the first lessons of arithmetic, one plus one did not equal two but zero, my conflicting selves always canceling each other out.

The sense of alienation and confusion that she felt as growing up because of the alienation and confusion of her parents is tragic because it was not her fault that her parents still felt that Calcutta was still their home. That she later turned out to more than alright and now deeply cherishes her Indian roots is irrelevant to this discussion because there are many others who grow up with this sense of lack of roots and it becomes a part of them just because their parents could not come to terms with a decision they themselves made many years ago.

It does not need to be that way – there is a lot that this country can teach to even someone from a 5000 year old culture only if we are willing to, there are a lot more respectable careers beyond being an engineer, a doctor or an MBA and your kid getting married to a non-Indian is not the end of this world.

Oh! and a helpful tip - keep those clothes closets tightly shut specially while cooking; everyone does not need to know what you ate last night :)

One day we arrive - at O’Hare, at Newark, in Detroit, in Atlanta, in San Diego and in San Fransisco; holding our I-20s, H1/H4 papers or other visa documents, either fresh out of the college, recruited by a “consultant” or plucked by another desi and transplanted into this new culture through marriage – arranged or otherwise; either heading to dorms, a family home or to bachelor apartments with 8 people stacked in a single unit; aware of the success stories of the South Asian immigrants before us; carrying our emotional baggage with us along with all the masalas and utensils from home.

The physical confusion of having to deal with a different environment and a different work culture is overcome pretty fast and easily. It is the psychological confusion of having to deal with a different social culture and identifying our place in the bigger scheme of things that makes us a

DESI –Desis Everywhere Searching for Identity.

Of course, we like to think that we have the ability to straddle both cultures and environments successfully – the culture of our birth and the culture of our adopted homeland but at every opportunity, life throws surprises and litmus tests that constantly prove that assumption false. We try to preserve our culture and our way of thinking and force them on our kids, in turn making them confused and clipping their wings.

Our regional prejudices come with us through thousands of miles, two oceans and X-ray scanners and we are never able to let go of them; if anything, we add racial and national prejudices to the explosive mix. We are always confused when another DESI asks us (which is much too often in the initial years) whether we are planning to stay here or go back and we answer with a non-committal “it depends”. At the check-out counters and in elevators, in cafeterias and trains, we speak to each other in our native language confusing the hell out of people who are within earshot and don’t understand what we are talking about.

Except for a select few (and that includes most of the Desicritics), for years we work day in and day out never bothering to understand the history and culture of our surroundings, never knowing about politics of our adopted country and never getting involved in social and voluntary organizations that make the US what it is even though we unfailingly make our annual Haj trips to pay our homage to national landmarks – the Niagra, the Yellowstone and the Smokies and dutifully send the pictures back home for relatives to enjoy.

When the time comes for mandatory donations that our employers make on our behalf at the year end and let us select charities we are confused between whether to select Asha or a local organization that helps kids of under-privileged families. Do we support Democrats (they will help our jobs here, won’t they?) or Republicans (they will help globalization that helps people back home, doesn’t it?), are we in favor of outsourcing or not, do we yell at the Dell support person in India who does not know what the hell he’s talking about or should we be patient with a college kid who is working at 2 AM in the morning? Do we invite the Americans across the cul-de-sac at our house warming party? Will they fit in or get bored?

We are confused about our contribution to the US tech industry (we always overestimate) and while buying a car we are confused between honoring the traditional Indian values of reliability and (the ephemeral) resale value or the horse power, style and bulkiness that the Americans seem to favor (c’mon, how many Desis have you seen in a Ford F-150?)

The confusion grows by leaps and bounds and knows no end but the biggest confusion is yet to come and that confusion comes in the form of cute little packages – yes our children. But then that should be the subject of a different post altogether.

Cross posted on desicritics.

More than two hundred years ago – the Americans overthrew the rule of their imperial masters with a shot that was heard around the world. Racially and ethnically – they came from the same stock just a couple of generation ago but within those generations they had grown intellectually apart from their European brethren, a divide that exists until today and a divide that many people still find it difficult to comprehend, hence they lump everything west of Turkey to be the “Western World” (case in point – read this article by Vir Sanghvi over the Arcelor controversy).

This stark difference in ideology has been put into sharp focus by the controversy over a Dubai based company taking over the operations of six key ports in the US and President Bush’s stance over it and a similar controversy that was raging in Europe a few days ago over Lakshmi Mittal’s attempt to takeover Arcelor and the response of the Europeans. French President Chirac and his government responded to that takeover attempt with vitriol and xenophobic comments against the Indians. Mr. Bush on the other hand stood firm on the port deal that essentially hands over the day-to-day operations of six key American ports to a company owned by the Emirates government. He went out of his way to emphasize that there should be no difference in rules whether a port is run by a British company (which was the case until now) or a Middle-Eastern company. In fact, on a day when it would have been politically expedient for him to strike down this deal since there was bi-partisan support on the Capitol Hill for it, Mr. Bush used this opportunity to make a point about lack of bigotry towards the Middle-East in his administration.

Of course, people who have already made up their minds without considering the facts will continue to revile the US and the Americans while turning a blind eye to the true bigots – the mainland Europeans who have given this world three crusades, two world wars, imperialism, colonialism and holocaust and continue in their xenophobic ways right until this day.

This post was also published on desicritics and blogcritics.

AN INDIAN sailor was allegedly beaten to death by his colleagues on board a Norwegian oil tanker in the first week of February in the international waters off the coast of Fujairah in the UAE following an argument over the cartoon row. The ship had an all-Indian crew. Sudhir was a fitter on the vessel.

It is said that sailors on the same ship form a great relationship, a bond, because in treacherous seas, survival of the collective depends upon competence of the individual. Of course, there might be bar brawls and rowdy nights – but when all is said and done they are loyal to each other. What happened then on that ship that a group of them turned against one of their own during what must have been a heated discussion over the cartoons of Prophet Mohammed? That will of course be determined after the investigation is complete but this incident begs to enunciate what has long been left unstated or has only been muttered under the breath. Moreover, I also want to find out if I am making a mountain of molehill, if I am a particularly intolerant and communal person or if there are other people out there who’ve had arguments with their long time Muslim friends with consequences, although not as drastic as the incident above, but ones in which they had to check themselves to avoid things from taking a dangerous and ugly turn.

It has happened to me at least twice personally during perfectly logical arguments with my Muslim friends. Once, I distinctly felt the threat of physical violence, the other time I had insult heaped upon my religion. Keep in mind that these were highly educated people, and the discussion that we were having, a perfectly logical one, but at some point, the other guy just lost it. Then recently, another friend of mine met up with one of our common friends (who is a Muslim) from school after an interval of twelve years in London and within 10 minutes of conversation, while they were still reminiscing about old times, the other guy, out of the blues got aggressive and started singing paeans of Bin Laden.

Of course, it is not advisable to generalize from a few stray experiences so here is my question. Do you feel on the defensive when arguing about controversial topics with your Muslim friends? Do you avoid any such discussion? Feelings that you typically do not have while discussing abortion, stem cell research, evangelism and evolution with your typical conservative Christian friend? Or discussing caste oppression or evils of dowry with your Hindu friend? Of course, things can get heated in any case but are you always on your guard while criticizing the fatwa against Rushdie when in Muslim company?

I am not interested in hearsay but your personal experiences. If I am an exception out there then maybe I should make an effort at getting rid of my prejudices but if I am not then please, will the “moderate Muslim” please stand up or will that term forever remain an oxymoron!

Many years ago, when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was on the verge of becoming the Prime Minister of India, I read somewhere that he developed cold feet. He felt that being a Prime Minster was a burden too heavy for his shoulders and he relished being in the opposition and taking government to task day in and day out with his masterful oratory. If I remember correctly, these were his words - “Kaun Desh-Wesh sambhalega? Is se acha hai kee Parliament mein ek speech thoko aur ghar par aakar TV dekho” (Roughly translated - I am not interested in taking care of the country. I’d rather give a speech in the Parliament and come back home to relax and watch television).

Of course that is not how it eventually turned out but somehow I remembered this incident during and after watching “Rang De Basanti”. The movie appealed to me at a very visceral level. Sitting thousands of miles away from India, in the comfort of a multiplex seat in Chicago – all of a sudden the problems of the country of my birth got too close for comfort. During the movie – I whisper to my wife, “Let’s go back to India and find out if we can contribute something”. It has been six years since I left the country. Of course, I’ve made frequent trips back home but those short trips are high on emotion and nostalgia and low on reality so effectively I’ve been cut off from the ground reality of the country for six long years. At the end of the movie, my friend sitting next to me (who is as cut off from the reality of the country as I am) asks me if things are still as bad as that in the country, that aren’t things improving, that don’t we hear about the Indian economy growing by leaps and bounds every year and I don’t have any answer, maybe they are, maybe they aren’t!

As we are getting out my friend points out that even if we decide to go back, we won’t really achieve anything without a plan. Plans that will never get made, plans that will get lost in the desire to live the American life, plans that get postponed to next weekend. Sure enough, a couple of hours later, we are enjoying the birthday party of a friend, drinking top shelf Margarita with thoughts of India on a pause until the next guilt induced trip.

And today I am thinking, “Kaun waapis jaayega. 10-15 saal baad sochenge! Abhee conscience ko kush rakhne ke liye desicritics par blog likho aur fir American Idol dekho” (Roughly translated - I am not interested in going back to India – maybe 10-15 years down the line. For now, to satisfy the conscience I will post on desicritics and watch American Idol after that).