written:1:47am 12/26/01
published: India Abroad (Magazine section- Print Edition only)

Threadbare

Recently i came to a point in every Indian Brahmin man’s life, whether he be IBCD (Indian born confused desi) like me or otherwise. It’s a question that we never really assumed would get here- because it would mean the equivalent of being blasphemers from Brahmin culture; the question of course is whether to keep wearing my sacred thread?

I went through the rites of passage into this first phase of my 4- part Hindu life and gained the thin three-stranded thread that drapes down over left shoulder and up back around my right side at some point before i was 10. It wasn’t too long after we had moved to the United States. I can still remember almost every evening, without fail, in this tiny apartment in Seattle, sitting down with my father, reciting prayers, taking orchestrated sips of holy water, all the while, facing different directions, and prostrating intermittently.

That was well and good for a few years, when it seems the capacity, or disk space in my brain came much cheaper and I could store just about anything I wanted without much effort. The carefree days of grammar and middle school were slowly replaced by the stresses of the average teenager, where time became a factor, and I prioritized other tasks using up that extra half hour of the day. My parents watched, wondered and questioned me often enough, as to why my irregularity in performing my prayers was now becoming the regularity. I often came up with far-fetched evasions and excuses as teenagers do, and we all let the ritual nature of my faith slip slowly away.

Mind you, I’ve trucked the tools to perform my prayers around the country rather diligently, from apartment to apartment, as most Indian men in my predicament do. I’ve carried both the silver cup and spoon set my grandpa gave me, and the copper one bequeathed me by my great grandpa, not to mention the trove of silk lower body wraps, for the day I feel randomly inspired I suppose. They sit quietly in the shrine area, growing gray with age and dust, until my cleaning binges when I straighten and shuffle things around them, avoiding the idea that these tools sit there, waiting for me. I take the thread off sometimes in bed, and definitely when I swim but otherwise, its on 24-7. I even go through this guilt absolution process of changing the thread at temple every year, with other men who are largely setting out resolute like me, to start their prayers again, but don’t.

I wonder if its all a sham, I’m running on the religion and myself. I still scramble 45 miles to temple every Saturday morning (when I’m not traveling) and manage to rattle off a half hour of the Rudram Namakam Chamakam with a tattered old Mantrapushpam book in hand. Does that make me Hindu and Brahmin enough, does that get me off the hook from the day -to-day stuff I’m supposed to do?

Most western educated Indian males (who turn out far more conservative than me in other ways) are surprised to hear my peacenik foreign policy opinions on India, confused that since I wear the thread, I must be a hard-line India-for-Hindus ideologue.

Should I even be proud of the economic advantages the thread/caste/birth rights offered/offers to members of this upper class- and consequently the disadvantages to those who were/are not? Is it fair for me to gain access to certain temples in south India when I know less, and am less devoted than someone who is forced to stand further back, but prays sincerely? Could this now be a spurious symbol I wear? Is it like draping myself in a slice of old Dixie; the old southern civil war flag which many feel acts like a reminder of the repression of so many people in the US? Is it like the hard earned Eagle Scout ring that I still wear today? In the scouts lies an egalitarian national organization, except for more recent pronouncements on their parts stating that some boys (gay ones) are less equal than others.

So all this being said, after a week of mulling over the idea of not replacing a thread that snapped recently, I chose to put one back on. The eagle scout ring may help explain why. Though I don’t support the closed mindedness of certain extremes of all organizations I’ve ever been affiliated with, I’m not rushing to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The ring, the thread, they are reminders of experiences that I’ve enjoyed a great deal and have helped shape me, and ones I want to keep close to me, in whatever way they exist. Perhaps its no more than a token now, perhaps it will be less later, I don’t know. I’m just hanging on by a thread.

feedback appreciated.

written: 9:57pm 09/02/02
published: India Abroad (Magazine section- Print Edition only)

A year after 9/11/...

Oh what a difference a year can make. Fortunately some of the personal incidents I described a year ago in the aftermath of the attacks on the United States had been the worst for me, however they have not been the worst or last bits of discomfort and uneasiness for people of brown skin in this land where baseball continues as usual. The past year has put South Asian communities in bizarre predicaments from empathizing with the rest of our brothers and sisters of color, to struggling with notions of patriotism and paranoia among our own communities.

The discrimination a year ago was overt, now it’s subtler. Brown-skinned men aren’t being yanked off planes with regularity like they were in the days after the attack, but the stares from other passengers haven’t stopped. Given, there are still incidents like the recent one in Orange County where two Cal. State Fullerton students were kicked out of a movie theater for speaking Pashtoun, but the incidents are fewer and less frequent. The problem now is that most of the fear and uncertainty laying inches below the surface of your American neighbor or co-worker are not crimes; they cannot be assuaged merely with more information. It will take time for these suspicions to subside, and there is a chance, that they might not.

For those who have seen Mississippi Masala (1991); a movie depicting the racial tensions between Indians and African-Americans, one can perhaps see a positive byproduct of 9/11. There is now, in some circles, an unspoken understanding between brown and black because brown-skinned folks are no longer immune from racial profiling, and can no longer hide behind safe stereotypes as hoteliers, programmers, engineers, and doctors. The nod is unspoken but understood between any African American who has ever been pulled over for driving while black, who now sympathizes silently with a brown person, being frisked a second and sometimes third time at the airport.

Our communities united and divided in the chaotic past 12 months. To our credit I must point to organizations like SAALT and its comprehensive documentation of hate crimes, which serves as a strong example of grass roots watchdog activism. The past year also made Indians sit up and take notice of whether their politicians stood behind them or not, in fact, some credit the Indian American community with the unseating of an incumbent congresswoman in Georgia.
At least four South Asians are running for public office in the San Francisco bay area alone, some probably motivated by last year’s events, and a national political action committee has become more active in order to support even more candidates.

I also witnessed some of the ways in which we carefully kept ourselves apart. Cowardly segments of Indian society sent out emails and other unofficial communications highlighting that Indians and Hindus were unfairly being targeted because the horrible acts were Muslim ones. For such narrow-minded people, the political importance of the strand that divided us, was more important than the ties that bound as all as humans and eventually some of us as victims of misunderstanding and backlash. At the public hearings in San Francisco city hall, people of Middle Eastern descent were at the microphone, without any Indian community leaders speaking forcefully at their side and against the religious and geographically blind harassment and discrimination that took place in the months following the attacks. While India and Pakistan grew to be more than blips on the international media radar screen, the American audience also began noticing the deep seeded ideological hostilities Indians and Pakistani immigrants have carried over from the old country.

There are government systems in place now to report “suspicious activity”. In the long run, these federally blessed surveillance tactics urging neighbors to turn on one another perhaps will prevent a future terrorist attack. In the short run however, the possibility of FBI agents forcefully knocking on an innocent person’s door due to a case of mistaken identity or spurious hearsay by a disgruntled neighbor is terror enough. Systems like Tips enable ignorant individuals to assume the worst of people, but more important they give these misguided individuals the ear of an authority figure, whether it is an operator at America’s Most Wanted or an answering machine at the F.B.I.

This brings me to the most interesting conundrum facing South Asians in the U.S. today; a collective questioning of our identities. What makes an Indian a patriot to the United States. I’m sure there were similar feelings of angst facing Japanese Americans in the U.S. before they were hauled off to internment camps, or perhaps even Indians and Pakistanis of our parent’s generation caught on the wrong side of the partition but the cycle is unusual and new for most of us. What happens when a brown-skinned person sees another one acting suspiciously? Do they call the authorities in an act of patriotism for what may be the good of the country they live in, or do nothing in order to avoid paranoia, for the cost could be the dignity of someone from a country they left.

feedback appreciated.

written: 12/02/02 4:04pm
published:India Abroad (Magazine section - Print edition only)
part in series: I

Immigrating all over - Part I

Generations change, but some patterns repeat themselves. Over the past few weeks, I’ve begun the enlightening experience of helping my cousin immigrate here to the land of opportunity. As I engage him in his rapid inculcation of what it is to be American, I find myself walking a sometimes-treacherous path, which an uncle of mine must have walked while helping my father immigrate here more than 20 years ago. A path filled with opportunity to reexamine the things I’ve "understood" from by my ability or inability to explain them to him, while becoming acutely aware of some conundrums as to what it means to live here and be Indian, and American.

Rajesh is a cousin on my father's side, someone whom I’ve known most of my life. When I headed to India almost every year while growing up, he was always what you might call "the fixer", the guy who could find you a better deal when you shopped, traveled, or could get you out of a sticky situation. In his complex upbringing as a South Indian in Baroda (now called Vadodra), he grew with the stereotypically south Indian head for numbers, combined with a vicious entrepreneurial business streak that maybe a cliché' characteristic of the average Gujarati.

After sneaking hugs and perhaps kisses to his new fiancé, (a neo classical cross-cultural "love marriage" in the making) Rajesh made his way to the Anna airport in Chennai for the first flight of his life. When I saw him emerge a day and a half later in San Francisco, he came through a much less hectic portal, unlike the traditional sendoff entourage in Chennai. Here just a handful of people gathered haphazardly to offer lifts to their traveling friends in a rather calm, disconnected manner. Wrapped in a tailored blazer too "fitted" for western fashion sensibilities, some khaki pants purchased "ready-made", new black Bata shoes, tired and travel weary, and pushing a cart with all his worldly possessions, he uncharacteristically seemed timid as he made his way out into the receiving area. It occurred to me that after 27 years of knowing everything about the systems in which he interacted, his confidence was still somewhere slowly trudging its way across the pacific ocean traveling by surface freight, bound to arrive months after the 747 brought all the fear he carried on. A part of me wished there were a throng of people like the standard outside any Indian airport, I felt his arrival lacked a certain pomp (which is annoying when you travel for pleasure) that seemed appropriate for a monumental occasion such as this. As I listened to him regale me of how he had saved so much money on his trip, by eating large portions of airplane food and spending but two of his $100 for coffee in Singapore, I began to get a drift of what was in store.

It was hard for me to imagine what it was like; leaving everything behind- I had come with my mother to meet my father who was already here. My father had walked in Rajesh’s shoes, my uncle (my father's brother) had played my role, now it was my turn to be this generation's godfather.

His awe at the cleanliness of the airport parking lots and streets, the dearth of honks and sputters on the roadways, the speeds at which we traveled, all were experiences I expected him to be surprised by, but they were still refreshing moments reminding me of what I take for granted everyday. It wasn't till later that first day as I zoomed him up peaks and down valleys of San Francisco, that it all started sinking in to him; that most people here looked nothing like him, and this was the real thing, he had arrived.

Our relationships had reversed when he got off that plane, he was always the one who knew the local flavor, how to manipulate systems to our advantage, to show me around, now it was my turn. The uncle who had helped my family get here twenty odd years ago, had hammered into me that I had to teach Rajesh the fundamentals; correct his grammar and pronunciation where possible, teach him how to get around, begin the necessary paperwork regarding social security, bank accounts and the like, but most of all, to keep him from getting depressed. My uncle recounted to me how miserable my father was during his first few months in the U.S., away from his family and friends, surrounded by cold climates and colder communities in the Pacific Northwest. I understood how important it was to keep Rajesh’s morale up, but also that there are certain things that immigrants take a long time to learn on their own, and this was a unique opportunity in my life (where one major goal is to teach) where my previous experiences could turn into what consultants call a "value-add". It was now time for me to figure out how to try and compress what I had learned, and make it digestible for him in a manner that could provide him a shortcut into whatever state of assimilation he chose to be in.

Your feedback appreciated.

written: 12/02/02 4:43pm
published:India Abroad (Magazine section - Print edition only)
part in series: II

Immigrating all over - Part II

No matter how prepared you think you are for the task, no matter how many people have advised you this way and that, you aren’t ever fully ready for the task of settling an immigrant into the United States. Once you accept that it’ll be as steep a learning curve for you as the other person, it gets easier (I hope).

Recently my cousin Rajesh emigrated from India directly into my apartment in San Francisco. He is a street savvy 27 year old that could manipulate most systems in your favor whether you were in Baroda, Bombay or Madras (first by telling you the latest names for the cities). However he hasn’t been raised on American serials or American cereals- avoiding a lavish western culture part choice and part circumstance.

Lets start with the weather because as soon as he got out of the airport it definitely became one of the first issues. I’ve lived in San Francisco for about five years, and the west coast for about 20 years, suffice it to say, I’ve acclimated. However, for a man who has known greater than 75 degrees for more than 98% of his waking life, this new world was frightfully air conditioned. Waking in the middle of the night in my shorts to turn on the fan in my room, I’d find myself handing him one blanket after another as he slept with his back toward the wall heater while the space heater blasted in his face on high power. I thought this was something I could expect for a day or two, but a month into his adventure as he moved to the warmer climes of L.A, his choice from my wardrobe was a large down jacket and a couple of smaller fleece ones.

Speaking of cold, the refrigerator means different things to different people. When I visit homes in India, I frequently find things that can’t possibly need to be cold, or items that are spoiling no matter what temperature they chill at. It became obvious to me quickly that to my cousin the fridge was not only the cooling device for food, but also a well lit place to store things. Lets take half opened bags of chips for example.

There are certain things that we all take for granted, one of the most conspicuous being uniquely non- Indian vocabulary. One of the first evenings after he arrived, I opened up my fridge to find a bag of pork skins, half opened. Bewildered I asked him when he started eating meat, to which he vehemently responded that he has never eaten meat in his life. When I pointed to the pork skins, his face was as confused as mine. His first notion was to explain why half open items were in the fridge. He told me that he had ventured to the corner store, and asked for something “HOT & SPICY” so sure enough, in large print, on the bag were the words HOT & SPICY. In smaller lettering were the words pork skins. When I explained what pork meant, I think he might have had a dry heave attempting to force a vomit.

What you see is not necessarily what you get is a tough thing to explain to someone that sees so many amazing transparencies in America. The other day I got a call from him bemoaning what a set of false advertisements were happening in this country. When pressed, Rajesh responded that he had gone into McDonalds and ordered a cheese burger and much to his surprise there was meat in it. I asked him how on earth someone in this millennium could possibly not know that a cheese burger had meat in it- that the largest clue in the world was the word “burger” etc.. he had a quick answer. “What about veggie burgers?” I was speechless. He said that he had known and accepted the idea of a burger being a meat patty, until that pesky notion of the veggie burger came along. At that point, he began opening up an otherwise logically sealed definition, to mean perhaps that the word preceding burger is what one can expect between two pieces of bread

The importance of learning to read a map for example is completely lost on folks who just have never had to read one before. Either a family member could deliver directions from one landmark to another, or else there were always the omniscient rickshaw drivers, who in a rather un-American fashion found no shame in asking anyone standing on the street when they were clearly lost with passengers gaping at the running meter. I think it clicked for my cousin when I pointed out that with a map and a car, a person had an unbelievable amount of independence in this country- so much so that almost without asking anyone, he could go from one coast to another.

The toughest lesson for me to learn was that that no matter how many times I tried to hammer home some kernel of wisdom, it really wasn’t going to sink in till he went out there and experienced it first hand. So goes another immigrant, another generation.

Your feedback appreciated.

written: 12/02/02 4:36pm
published:India Abroad (Magazine section - Print edition only)
part in series: III

Immigrating all over - Part III
Helping my cousin from India acclimate to the US is becoming quite the opportunity for me to revisit certain values. I’m starting to notice ones that have been acquired through living in the US for the past 20 years, and others embedded in me from my time in India. My cousin Rajesh just arrived a few weeks ago, and I’ve witnessed almost as many startled expressions on my face as I have on his - though for different reasons. While watching him begin to discern the differences and similarities of society, it dawns on me how I flip back and forth between value systems when I travel to and from the motherland.

Some of the values we develop here are foundations of how we act toward others and the world. The ideas of nuclear families and an almost atomic independence are things that Americans are taught from a very young age. {Get your high school degree, shove off to college and visit over the holidays is how it works} well of course due to a whole host of economic reasons its near impossible for people to achieve the idea of living on their own as soon as they leave high school in India. But it seems the economic reasons are merely the justification due jour; embedded in Indian society is the extended family which tugs at you in every direction from under the same roof. Here unless you are perhaps a victim of the dot com bubble bursting, or other such economic catastrophe, there isn't much of a reason to come knocking on your parent's door for a place to stay. When I visit India, I stay with friends in their late 20s and early 30s who still live with their parents without considering anything odd or out of place.

The notion of space among relatives was also an interesting double standard that I became aware of while discussing the realities of life with my cousin. Here, the fact is that I live about an hour's drive from an uncle and visit him perhaps once a month instead of once a week, because I like my space and he likes his. When I visit an uncle in mumbai there may arise a scenario where I’ll be sharing a 1 bedroom flat as one of six adults and two small children. That’s just the way it is, and the family there would be offended if I chose to stay elsewhere.

On a more microscopic level the notion of personal space around us is at times a foreign concept to a new immigrant from the old country. When my cousin and I would walk down the streets of San Francisco, I’d notice him walking very close to me, and I felt odd at times, to the point where I even mentioned to him that people here like to have about a 24 inch cushion of air around them. If I tried applying that luxury in even a first class compartment of a commuter train in mumbai, the men crushed up against me would probably hurl me out.

How we perceive natural resources and the world around us was starkly different. In his first two weeks here. While I was preparing for a trip to India, Rajesh bragged to me the magnificence of wild places like Mt. Abu and the like, and as I listened skeptically, I planned an eco-tour of the northern bay area to show him what I was talking about when I said I want to "get away" and be quiet with the world. I knew that the Indian definition of exotic and scenic natural wonder, usually included a cool drink stand not too far from the vista, and I was determined to figure out a way to communicate the purpose of leaving things untouched. As I drove him to point Reyes, back down highway 1 (arguably one of the most scenic highways in the US), walked him through Muir woods, drove up Mt.Tamalpias, and down through the Marin headlands, he retreated from his suggestions of places I should visit saying what we had seen in 5 hours was more majestic than anything he had seen in his entire life. When I was mentioning how old some of the trees in Muir woods were, his first comment was what great furniture they would make. At this shock I began injecting him with the western tree-hugging branch of environmentalism that I gained somewhere on my camping trips in becoming an Eagle scout, (which I hope inoculate him from such comments in the future).

My proselytizing of the value of nature, and how people here care for it as an extension and symbol of civilization, also lead to our discussion and examination of collective responsibility. Here we are taught early on, if we are parking in an unattended lot that asks for a fee, that we pay that fee, when we climb on a bus or a train, even ones without a "Ticket Collector" that we pay. There are systems in place on every major highway in the United States, where civic, religious and independent groups of people volunteer to pick up trash. The idea of not littering, or even staying in a single file line; are opportunities where collective responsibility here shines. While I’m in India, I cling to my environmental tendencies and search frustratingly for the nearest waste basket, but I’m also aware enough to realize I may never get to the ticket counter if I don't throw a few elbows when I get near the front.

I'm sure my cousin will "get" all this, and I’ve already mentioned to him, even in the worst case scenario, if things don't work out for him here, he'll head back to Indian society a different individual, having widened his perspective and realizing new possibilities. What he chooses to do with these observations, only time will tell.

Your feedback appreciated.

written : Begun 2:34pm 3/22/02--- 12:12pm 4/17/02
published: India Abroad (Magazine section - Print edition only)
part in series: IV

Non-Repatriating-Indian – Part I

The most common meaning for NRI is Non-Resident-Indian, implying that we are of course residents, patriots of the nation we left behind, and we happen to be on an extended holiday or stay abroad, who will some day repatriate. That is the only logical reason that people like me cling to our passports- the romantic notion of resettling in India and living a lavish life in the lap of luxury for pennies on the rupee. For me this last trip to India through all of March, robbed me of the ability to stand in denial of a fact any further; there is no way I can go back and become a resident in India anymore.

There were three layers of experiences that questioned the reasons I cling to my Indian passport and more important what I hope to accomplish by doing so; somehow at this juncture in my life, and this juncture in the world, my apparatus for processing these were much more acutely aware leading me to articulate observations I have long been quiet about.

Lets deal with the top level of experiences for this piece; I’m talking of course of India’s sad struggle with definitions of secularism. It is finally an issue that forces me to see the fortitude of liberal western thought injected secretly into me while I slept on the west coast of the US, versus the west coast of Maharashtra. This time throughout my trip, there has been a strain in the cultural identity of India as there usually is inside of me.

The notion of being a Hindu has at times in my life given me pride- to learn Vedic chants, to visit a temple weekly, to visit holy places in a spiritual land- its part of what made me unique among my American friends. Now however, it shames me to think that in the name of God, my brethren, no different than many others throughout history are acting like angry children seeking blood and vengeance for which there can never be paid a fair price.

We are well on our way to creating a permanent problem, one the likes of the Palestinians and the Jews in Israel. The blood spilled on both sides will dry and harden onto the souls of surviving family members who cannot be counseled in the ideals of forgiveness and non-violence. They will pass their heavy hatred of the unknown other down through another generation and prevent history from teaching us anything.

Seems for me, after and before sadness- there is another potent emotion; anger. It is the type of anger that can only spring from a lover. It disgusts me to see how a huge population of uneducated masses who have a stronger relationship to, and belief in a benevolent God more so than a dilapidated government can be manipulated by a small band of politicians with myopic ends. It would be too simple to say that it is the poor uneducated masses that are being fomented to a fervor, these politicians are also preying on deep-seeded dissatisfactions of the middle and upper middle class in India. A corollary to that proof is right here in the sparkling temples of suburban America. There are thousands of dollars, going in fits and starts, in checks and money orders, to fund young radical Hindu movements and their “activities” by doctors and lawyers and bankers in the US. These doctors that I don’t see too often at my temple, claim a certain ownership of a Hinduism that they have grown to appreciate in the waning years of their affluence. It is a sterile Hinduism they have recreated. The imported marble floors of their temples are spotless; there are no beggars on the driveways that lead there, and ample parking for their fancy European cars. It is a Hinduism that thrives in a society that has a certain semblance of meritocracy, through which these men and women have not merely succeeded but excelled.

These neo-conservatives have the audacity to insist a righteous claim to disputed land in Ayodhya 8000 miles away. A piece of property that questionable religious texts cannot pinpoint with GPS accuracy, however they hope to make this temple a symbol, a starting point for two more disputed locations in a country they left behind for a better world. Their hard earned dollars are washing the hands of the blood-letters, but the entrepreneurs overseas reprioritize the poverty and the basic needs that need to be addressed- instead they envision saffron flags flying over a temple they may one day take their ABCD kids to visit via A/C car during their stay at a Taj Group Hotel.

The sense that there are enough leaders in India who have the support of enough people to carry out these sort of pogroms without raising the ire of the average voter or average citizen, now makes me wonder why it is that I continue to have any semblance of pride in being a citizen. I have never run for office in India- for that matter voted, and the only real benefits I have ever gained from my in-between status is perhaps a discount or two as a tourist in India for being and Indian citizen.

After September 11th in the United States, I questioned my patriotism to the United States; a place that struggled horribly to accept those who were different in thought or appearance while it flew a battered flag of acceptance over the world’s heads. The conservatives under the Ashcroft regime wouldn’t hesitate to institute a “repatriation” of questioners like me. Simultaneously, the conservatives in India have no interest in people like me struggling with these dilemmas, they're happy to see one more "psuedo" secular get out of their way, so they can continue their very real cleansing for an India that may never be rebuilt

The choice for me now seems to be, to perhaps pick up a half-hearted dual citizenship and try to build one complete allegiance to myself between them both.

Your feedback appreciated.

written: 4/17/02 1:18pm
published: India Abroad (Magazine section - Print edition only)
part in series: V

Non-Repatriating-Indian Part II

Each visit back, another set of truths becomes self evident- India is just that way in its ability to reflect what is inside the traveler. There are of course macro reasons- India’s challenges to escape some foreign notion of secularism and be truly independent, but there are very particular and micro reasons on a communal and individual level, which concretize my decision to be incapable of settling back in India.

While I was growing up, my parents made it a priority for me to visit the motherland every summer or winter holiday, taking great pains to do so, sometimes working two jobs at a time to make sure that I wouldn't forget my culture, my relatives, my religion or whatever the essence was of my Indian-ness. They wanted to make sure that those first seven years of my life would not blur into a memory of overcrowded buses and under-serviced rickshaws. Their hard work kept me interested in India throughout my delinquent adolescence where most Indian-American teenagers casually show disgust at the "old country" due to the human condition. The expected renaissance in Indian culture during my collegiate years came surely and steadily where I began romanticizing notions of arranged marriages, and a sense of community around religion and God, which could not be recreated in the West. Since graduating college, I've been to India several times, always under different circumstances, once for a series of religious pilgrimages, once to settle my father into his new surrounding after a tumultuous divorce, another time to resettle him after a staggering stroke. Each visit I receive India differently as it does me, but this time I’m unable to keep the blinders on and shade myself from the light of a changing people.

Perhaps it is a new phenomenon, or just my awakening to an old one, but I feel like the NRI population has helped create a welfare middle class in India. It is a class of people who no longer consider the money coming from émigrés gifts but now have grown expectations around such funds and in the process have lost parts of their dignity and work ethic.

My family reads these words at times so I’ll have to be somewhat vague, but it has become so common for me to have some random third cousin, twice removed ask me flatly for an enormous sum of money on almost every visit I have now. They prey on notions of duty and family that I am supposed to harbor strong and deep. I can credit some portion of this expectation, a very small amount, to cultural difference. The western thought process includes raising children till they are 18 and shoving them out the door, except for holiday or birthday visits, while the parents take care of themselves. In India the 401K plan does not exist for the average middle class worker, and the “provident fund” has been touched by institutional graft in almost every case, leaving children to bear the burden of being the all encompassing life insurance plan.

When I visited India 10 years ago, I was too young to notice the financial conversations my parents must have been having with every relative on cash needed- when not why. Now those comments come flying my way and I’m unable to comprehend or respond to them. There is an underlying notion with these relatives that by my mere residence in the United States, I have “made it” and subsequently that I am being a stingy bastard if I do not come up with the money for their “needs”. These distant relatives still calculate my earnings in rupees while giving no credence to the fact that my expenses are in dollars.

Their wish list has changed over time. First it used to be small goods, like razor blades, and pens for the school kids in the family, and somewhere in the nineties it changed to electronics equipment and computer parts that I was supposed to bribe through customs. That’s when I began noticing it, that India has no shortage of almost any good available on the streets for relatively competitive prices, but these relatives wanted it for a better price from me- free. I also noticed it in how many otherwise well-to-do relatives would open their pocketbooks after an expensive meal at a fancy restaurant designed to welcome me home. The requests I get are not for a child’s school tuition, for which my pockets are always open, they are for sums in the tens or hundreds of thousands of rupees for extensions to homes, new cars, and the like.

I am more than willing to help members of my family in times of need, but the level of nonchalance with which these people approach me for cash is both frightening and depressing. The sad part is that some of these were ideals of men and women in my formative years, working hard, maintaining a sense of dignity and pride even in the toughest of times and surroundings. Now with a relative or two overseas, some have decided independently to retire early, and live off of the work and wealth of others, losing every shred of responsibility and interest in self-sustenance along the way.

These are the members of apathetic middle classes, that perhaps spend their time “working” on the religiousness of others, or muddy themselves in the politics of the day. One of the things that this group of well heeled and well fed people could focus on- that happens to women daily on the streets of any urban center in India- is the practice of “eve teasing” or outright sexual harassment.

For years I have heard the complaints from women of Indian descent visiting, as well as foreigners, and usually I’ve shrugged, sighed, and looked the other way. This time, throughout my travels in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, I shared experiences with several Europeans, and none brought me to shame as much as what the women endured in crowded markets or trains or buses. I saw a helplessness and anger, which somehow they managed to tolerate, while they regaled me with glowing reviews of the last temple or hill station they visited, but in them was always the nagging question- why? How could one of the few religious systems on earth which had given women status as goddesses, where mothers and sisters were sanctified in the households- how in such a culture could there be such a disrespect for women from outside the community. There would have been a time, perhaps in college, where I would have given credit to the western media and a clash of cultural morays- leading young miscreants down a slippery slope of logic to justify their behaviors, but this time, I just felt shame.

The husbands would ask me a more poignant question- “if I so much as looked at an Indian woman the wrong way on this train Hari- what are my odds of making if off this train unharmed?” to which I could only dwell on the irony.

“But this is India bheta”, and statements of the like come at me from both continents when I share these thoughts with anyone, and this collective apathy of emigrants and natives is the first thing that has to change.

Your feedback appreciated.