identity crisis

i am sort of apprehensive about this post because of the positive feedback from the last post. I feel like anything I write has the potential to disappoint, as many of you (three to be exact) mentioned that the last one was the most "veena" that you have seen thus far. (Ha! I act like I'm JK Rowling and Harry Potter 7 just came out.. :) )

Anyway, something has been bothering me for the last few weeks, and I couldn't quite put my finger on it, until today, when I rode for five hours on the KSRTC bus down to Bangalore. In order to set up for this post, I am going to reference the following excerpt of my own writing:

"I was sitting in the sixth floor lounge of my school at 2am with the only other person in the building. We were both feverishly working on projects that were to be turned in early the next morning. The lounge was dank, and filled with yellow light. Each of us had spread our things all over a table and were trying to make sense of complex topics at such a late hour. We both happened to be looking around at the same moment, as so often happens when one is working late into the night and eventually got to talking. We meandered through topics until we arrived at the topic of Indian culture. He was Indian, but unlike me had grown up in India but had completed his higher education in the United States. His accent had a touch of Bombay and a smidge of British. Somehow we managed to talk about how being Indian had impacted our youth. The next thing I knew, I found myself recounting in detail the way we would celebrate everything from Navaratri (“nine nights”, a festival celebrating good over evil) to Krishna Jayanti (Lord Krishna’s birthday) at my house.

I recalled the way my grandmother would paint little feet on our front porch to depict young Lord Krishna sneaking into each home to steal sweets. I explained that one of my fondest memories was of Vinayaga Chathurthi (Lord Vinayagar’s Birthday). This holiday was of particular importance because it was my “favorite” god after a toothache incident in Chennai circa 1987. Vinayaga Chathurthi was also the holiday where we would get home made korkatai (steamed sweet rice dumplings filled with brown sugar, nuts and ghee). Lalithamma would go so far as to shape the korkatais into a small Ganesh, complete with kum-kum (red powder that is applied to the forehead as a blessing).

On Navaratri, my mom would work for weeks to set up this beautiful display of dolls, stacked on silk sari-lined steps. We would have people over every evening; women would sing and talk and admire the dolls that my mom had taken great pains to display, while the men who visited would sit in the living room and eat through tons of bakshanam (snacks and sweets) that mom and Lalithamma had made. We would end the day by doing an arti (small ceremony involving a valakku (brass candleholder using a handmade wick) and a mixture of manjal). During Navaratri, my mother, sister and I would also visit others' homes, who would also setup a gollu display. During that same week, we would wrap up our school books for Saraswati Pooja, and my dad would hand them back to us after the pooja was complete so that we would do well in our studies.

The other holiday that I loved, was Tamil New Year (Vishugani) because we would wake up with our eyes closed and be led by my parents downstairs to the god room (room in our house where with all of the religious idols/books, also where my dad and grandmother did their daily prayers). When we opened our eyes, we would see a room full of fruits, grains, rice and a small mirror that sat in a pile of money. We would get money from mom, dad and Lalithamma (who would always take the opportunity to slip us a $20 :) or more...) and sometimes on Diwali we would get new clothes...

Then there were the daily things - we spoke Tamil at home, especially with my grandmother and always spent time with our family on weekends. Oh yeah, I recalled with a laugh "my dad made me stay at home during the first few months of senior year in high school so I could study for the SATs." At the time I remember thinking, "only Indian parents are like this!" There were also droves of relatives dropping by unannounced, plenty of good food on a daily basis, sweets and yummy fried treats (bhaji, pakora, casery) that would be whipped together in minutes at the nearest hint of a visitor. There was general hospitality, a love for song and dance and family; Bharathanatyam and Karnatic music classes and the obsession on the part of both my parents for us to get a good education.... and the conversation continued like this."

These events, I recounted to my friend, were the things that made up my "Indian" identity.



Until I got here this summer, had never thought that these things might just be a version of Indian, and not what it was all about. Well I suppose the naive part of me thought that south indians were similar to me, in the way I was raised, the food I ate, the values we held important. I was wrong, but I had no idea how wrong I really was. Being an ethnic Indian in America is nothing like being an Indian in India. The language, the culture, the mannerisms, the way things work, everything is completely different.

Something else that has been really confusing to me is that if I speak Tamil at a restaurant or to anyone anywhere really, they will say "Are you a Brahmin?" This has happened to me about 15 times over the course of the summer, which I think, is a lot. I couldn't figure out what I was saying that would lead people to this conclusion, albeit it is in fact true, I do hail from a Brahmin family. The other night, the waiter at the restaurant knew I was Brahmin when I told him Lalithamma's village, "Kalpathy." It is bizarre, if someone is a Brahmin, they get excited to talk to me, will tell me about their family etc. Its as if I have some bond with them, that I had never known about - is there a brahmin connection of which I am unaware? All of this has made me so confused - i thought caste was dead in india? yeah, i know, naive! and while it is not pronounced, it still exists, in the way people talk and treat one another based on who they are and where they are from. I think some people, after realizing that I am Brahmin, are sort of annoyed with me, while others are happy/proud (the latter being when they too are Brahmins). Also the Indians here, who grew up here, have this whole thing about "Tam Brahm" which is apparently some label for Tamil Brahmins and the way they are...I still have not figured this out, but it sounds like a very condescending, negative label from what I have inferred. I will say now that I am no Tam Brahm, my family hails from Kerala and as far as I know, I don't have any snobby Brahmin characteristics...

But I guess this just goes back to my initial confusion or conflict about what it means to be Indian. It is certainly not one thing, but could it be that there are nearly no similarities between me and the 1 billion people here aside from facial features, skin tone and hair color? How is it that only in a relatives home, a palaghat tamil speaking home at that, do I feel like I do in my own house, and not even then, depending on whose home I am in? Is this why masses of people are still so grounded in their own traditions, because each region, the next town, could be so different they dont want to risk dealing with change?

What about the super rich indians? The ones that scare me because they are young men and women, dressing sexy, going out late at night, drinking, dancing, acting like they are ...well.... americans/westerners - whatever you want to call it... are they acting like us? or was this cultural evolution imminent?

When I was sick a few weeks ago, I spent several evenings watching "B4U" television and other music video channels and was shocked, half of them i couldn't actually watch the whole way through because of the overtly sexual nature of the videos. Its so weird to me because when i watch a janet jackson/j-lo etc. videos, they are sexy, they might even be about sex, but I'm not offended by them, I don't feel like the directors are screaming "SEX" However, when i watch the new "hey baby" Hindi music video, where young Indian men, spray girls with champagne, as girls, with tight tops and short skirts dance around in a Fergie-like fashion, I think "oh my goodness is this really India? The modest, conservative India I thought I knew?"

And its not JUST the hindi movies, its all the channels, even the south indian films; instead of women in clubs, its men and women in a village. The women will be wearing a small top that exposes her midriff, an embroidered miniskirt that shows off her legs, while she dances in an inappropriate way, that is not reminiscent of talent or culture. Perhaps it is more affronting because of my understanding of Indian culture. Perhaps I (veena the American) make more allowances for the sexy/sexual behavior of American pop culture icons than I do for Indians. Perhaps again, I am looking at Indian pop culture through my conservative upbringing lens, and therefore I cannot look at it the way other Indians do...? Then I think, what about Bharathanatyam? What about classical dance, and the amazing lyricists and songwriters you have here? What is this new obsession that this country has with sex/modernity/money etc?

The most confusing thing is that while the movies, commercials, billboards and tv shows seem to display this semblance of modernity, I still see the same gender, caste and class rules play out here. It actually seems like they are more pronounced, then they are in other parts of the world. I see that girls are still expected to behave a certain way, follow their parent's rules, marry the man they choose for her and so on. An Indian girl, even from a family who encourages her college education is still less likely to work after she is married. You also won't find that many women out at night. If you are out at night (at least from what I can tell) its because you are really rich and you have a driver and your parents will allow you to go out. I am led to this conclusion based on my experiences at a few Bangalore/Chennai hotels/bars.

Then there is the inter-class/caste relations.... The way upper caste people treat their housekeepers (or servants as they are called here), their drivers and cooks. The fact that people in the Dalit community, still live on the outskirts of villages and are not mainstreamed into the regular parts of society. The way even children yell or command their ayahs (nannies) or maid servants to "come here! get this!" The shock that is displayed when I go to rinse my own plate, as if it isn't a job that I am not supposed to do...(this happened to me several times in Delhi last year when I was visiting friends of my cousins).

where are they going? who am i? is there a connection? is my palaghat indian upbringing within the US so structured that I cannot relate to the struggles with modernity, issues of caste/class etc? What would life have been like had my parents decided to come back to this country? (I will say that I am so thankful that they didn't because as a woman, I enjoy freedoms that are still not common here in India.)

I guess what I am left with at the moment is more questions.... Do I have any conclusions? Not really...

But - I do know that i am not an (I) indian, as in, I am most definitely not from this country. I'm also not an NRI (non resident indian), because its not as if I relate to anything at a sociocultural level, i don't have a "well" of Indian knowledge to draw from. I guess that leaves me with POI (person of Indian origin), yes, perhaps thats the one that makes sense... I identify with some part of this culture, but overall, I am from somewhere else... I, veena, nationally an American, ethnically Indian, culturally/socially/emotionally --- Im still not certain about the answer to this....looks like what I have is a slight identity crisis. ;)