An NRI's Dilemma

An excerpt from American Khichdi

I sit here in an Italian restaurant on fashionable Newbury Street, sipping Chianti and watching Bostonians go about their daily business. It is a wonderful summer afternoon, and the warmth of the sun’s rays feels just grand on the skin, especially after a long, cold, bleak winter. I see people of all colors, races, nationalities and shapes and sizes walk by.

The tall blonde in her tight, white top and figure-hugging blue jeans torn slightly at the hip, just enough to make you look and wonder about what lies beneath; the rotund, carefree, happy-looking bald man in a

flowery green, red and yellow-colored Hawaiian shirt, khaki Bermuda shorts and a matching straw hat, probably purchased from a street vendor on his recent trip to the Caribbean; the fifty-something, unnaturally lean, heavily made-up woman with large sunglasses, brightly painted fake nails, a shocking pink plain scarf around her head and a furiously barking miniature dog that looks more like a rat stuffed into an obviously expensive leather handbag that hangs over her exposed shoulder; the teenage kid on a bike with thin, white earphone wires coming out of his ears and vanishing mysteriously into his top shirt pocket, presumably plugged into the female end of an iPod or some other MP3 player.

I get into a thoughtful mood. Perhaps it’s the wine, perhaps it’s the sun, but more than likely it’s that peculiar buzz that you can get only when you mix those two in exactly the right amounts. In any case, the big question haunts me. Who am I really?

No, this is not that age-old, clichéd, midlife crisis-driven, “Who am I, and why am I here?” question. This is more of an immigrant’s variation of that philosophical original, if you will. It is a question that most first-generation immigrants ask themselves at one point or another or at least should ask themselves at one point or another.

Am I an Indian living in America, or am I an American who happens to be of Indian descent? As non-resident Indians, what is it that defines our identities? When I use “we” or “us” as pronouns, as I have done so abundantly in a previous chapter, what do I mean? Is that a “we” as in Indian, “we” as in non-resident Indian or “we” as in American? Is it all of those?

What is it that sets us apart from everyone else? Should there be something that sets us apart? Is it alright to be proud of our heritage or is that frowned upon as our reluctance to assimilate? Is it acceptable to feel good about our newly-acquired status as American citizens or would that equate to disrespecting India? Should we create and maintain our own little mini-India in this adopted land of ours, or should we slowly but surely shed our identities and our unique traits and blend seamlessly into the melting pot? Is there a happy medium that exists somewhere in between those two extreme choices? Do we even have a real choice?

We all left India in search of whatever it was that we were searching for – financial independence, more opportunities, a better career or the ability to travel around the world. Many of us have achieved those objectives to a great extent. A lot of us have found what we thought we wanted in this land of our dreams. And yet, that elusive search for identity continues.

The India that we know and understand as it was back when we left it, and that we so desperately and irrationally cling to, exists no more. We are horrified and watch incredulously as the India that we read about and visit occasionally tries desperately to mimic the ways of our adopted country – the same ways we try to steer clear of, because we know from experience that at least some of them lead nowhere and bring no happiness in the long run. Being Indian seems to have a completely different connotation for us NRIs and for resident Indians. And therein lies our dilemma.

As an NRI, I think about the many contradictions we face, and I am often baffled by our own hypocrisy. We expect our American-born kids to be fluent in Hindi or Bangla or Sindhi or Tamil while we ourselves try to fake American pronunciations of words like “bathroom” and “craft.” We fail miserably at both, of course, because anything that is not genuine is eventually destined for failure. Our kids, sooner or later, forget the language that was forced upon them by their parents and probably snicker behind our backs at our pathetic attempts at sounding American. Then we hear Jay Leno make fun of how folks in India are changing their names to John and Kathy and are answering support calls in phony, overly-exaggerated American accents and we don’t know whether to feel proud of India’s IT accomplishments, laugh at a harmless joke or hang our heads in shame at this egregious insult to our national and ethnic pride.

On our trips to India, we love to complain loudly about the traffic, the pollution, the water quality and the perpetual shortage of electricity. And yet, we thoroughly enjoy the company of lifelong friends and the taste of authentic Indian food. We miss the privacy and the space that we take for granted in America, yet we adore the genuine warmth behind Indian affection and hospitality and the intrusiveness that naturally comes along with it. We get aggravated by the still-existing, maddening inefficiencies, corruption and lack of logic in the Indian socio-political system, yet we instinctively understand them and relate to them.

Here in the U.S., we have adapted quite well and are comfortable with most things American. And yet, the dilemmas that face most first-generation immigrants continue to hound us as well. We ski in the winter and mow our lawns in the summer; we closely monitor interest rates and regularly refinance our home mortgages; we barbeque; we put up Christmas trees adorned with cheap, flaky ornaments and tiny, colored lights and on Thanksgiving, we buy an oversized turkey, stuff its belly with unhealthy, high-calorie stuffing, shove a thermometer into its rear, bake it according to the directions we found on desibakesaturkey.com and carve it with the skill and elegance of a tunnel-boring machine working to create a delicate ice sculpture.

But then, there is that occasional joke by a stand-up comic, that occasional reference to an old TV show or movie and that occasional mention of an odd cultural nuance that we can’t quite relate to, that leaves us scratching our heads in bewilderment. We can recall from memory all our favorite restaurants, their locations and the best desserts they serve, yet when the waitress tells us about the day’s special, we do not really grasp the names of all the strange-sounding ingredients. We listen to Hip-Hop, R&B and Jazz, but nothing touches our soul like an old Rafi or Kishore Kumar song. We remember the “Star Spangled Banner” by heart, yet it doesn’t make our heart pound and our pulse race like “Jana Gana Mana” still does.

In the absence of any exposure to real Indian culture, we saturate our children’s minds with senseless and often violent and vulgar Bollywood movies in the misplaced hopes of drilling some “Indianness” into them, whatever that means.

Day after day, we shuttle them from soccer practice to Kathak classes to apple-picking trips and from piano recitals to Asha Bhonsle concerts. No wonder they grow up confused. The constant stream of mixed messages that they get from us cannot but lead them in that direction. A good friend’s daughter, the cutest four-year-old you have ever seen, recently drew an adorable picture of Lord Krishna with a crown on his head, a flute in his hands and casually dressed in a t-shirt and boxer shorts!

And so the question remains. What gives us our true identity? Is it our facial features? Is it our brown skin and our jet black hair? Is it the multiple rings on the fingers or the large gold earrings and the mangalsutras dangling around our women’s necks? Is it our mannerisms? Is it our heavily accented English? Or is it our American passport, our Boston University degree and the mass-produced, photocopied letter from the President of the United States welcoming us as the newest citizens of this country?

Are we more Indian than that call center guy in India who changes his name from Billoo to Bill? Are we less Desi than those other Indians in America who pride themselves on their stubborn refusal to adapt in any manner to the ways of the land where they will spend the rest of their lives? Are we any less American than the guy next door with a paunch the size of a small truck, who was born here and has lived here through the years of World War II, through the administrations of Kennedy and Nixon and through the wonderful times of free love and flower power and the not-so-wonderful times of disco and Studio 54?

If I don’t go to satsangs offered by Indian Godmen living in luxury and flying first class to Boston or do not feel a burning desire to quote the Bhagavad Gita at the drop of a hat, does that make me any less Indian? If I really don’t enjoy Bollywood movies and the newer crop of Bollywood actors and actresses because I find them to be juvenile, does that in some way dilute my Indian identity?

I think I know the answer. India is in my blood and will always be, no matter where I reside. Meanwhile, I will do in Rome as Romans do. I will enjoy the great things that different cultures of the world have to offer, without guilt and without remorse. I will not succumb to group-think. I will continue to chew paan parag while watching strange, subtitled, grainy, black-and-white French movies at Harvard Square. I will retain the option of being able to distinguish between good Indian things and bad Indian things, as well as good American things and bad American things, without the fear of being labeled a traitor in either country.

I will support the First Amendment and oppose the Second. I will continue to be a Kishore Kumar fan and appreciate Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” I will remain skeptical of Ayurveda and wary of homeopathy till they prove themselves worthy in double-blind clinical trials. I will be firm in my belief that Bermuda shorts were designed as a practical joke by an alien race that wanted to see how far we will go in humiliating ourselves and that they are a piece of hideous attire that all men, whether in the U.S. or Europe or in India, should stay away from.

Oh, and I will say, “It’s wicked cold” but I will continue to pronounce “aunt” and “half” the way I always have. If people don’t understand my accent, well, I guess they’ll just have to learn. I am from India. I live in Boston. This is how I talk, and this is how I live. I need no labels. Indian or American, this is my way.

Get used to it.

Back to Top