veena, the american

So as I mentioned in an earlier post...some people think that I am an American. Not a South Asian American, but a White American. Yes, I know for my friends who are reading this, they are thinking "umm Veen... are you sure?" Yeah, I'm sure, I have polled several people (even the training center staff) and they all assumed I was. In addition, most of the sangha women, will ask Vijay (my translator) or Rafi (our driver) in Kannada, "where is this woman from?" They will also make remarks like "Oh my such a long distance she has traveled to see us!" when they find out that I am from "Ummm AY ree ca!"


This was a helpful realization... After finding this out, I asked the translator to curtail my introduction by only mentioning that i was a PG (post graduate) student, studying savings and loan usage amongst sangha women in accordance with Myrada. If after the interviews are done, they ask about where I am from, Rafi or Vijay will explan that at one time my grandparent's/parents etc. were from Kerala but they eventually moved and have resettled in the US for the last thirty years.


On one such occasion, I had interviewed three sangha women, in a more remote part of Holalkere district. The first woman, was rather reserved, she had a few daughters that she was waiting to marry. (One had been recently married.) A second woman was very talkative and rambled on and on about her children, her exhaustion from working as a daily laborer and other things. Towards the end of each survey, there is a section that focuses on trainings that the women have taken or would be interested to take. When we asked this woman whether she would want to take training, she agreed that she would like to. However, she mentioned that it was not possible because her husband was a drunk and was known to come find her and harass her no matter where she was. He was known for causing a commotion, and therefore she couldn't leave the home in the evenings.

The last woman, whose home we were in, had two children, an older girl, who had completed her BS in engineering and a son, who was doing the same. Her husband was a professor and she stayed at home and maintained their home and watched over there 8 or so acres of farmland. Later on, she explained how her daughter had the opportunity to work in Singapore for a year, but because the grandmother (an old lady who laid on the bed in the far corner of the room) was against it, the daughter could not go. I asked her to explain why and she mentioned that "hajji" (grandma) was afraid that the daughter would meet someone and run off and get married etc. or just lose her way. (I had to suppress laughter, because these are things I had heard growing up, but have not encountered in several years, not even from my own grandmother in her later stages of life.)


Then, they started to ask questions about me, "what do her parents do?" "how many siblings do you have?" Rafi and Vijay responded, business man, two, and older one is married. Hajji then asks "did her sister marry an Indian?" At this moment, I felt frustration because I knew what was coming. "No," I responded, "he is an American." Immediately everyone grew very quiet and grave, like I had just told them that someone died. Even the driver and translator looked akward, some people looked down, or stared out. It then hit me, the women actually felt bad for me; when I realized, I wanted to laugh or scream, but I just said "Oh! I musn't forget to take your photo!" as I rushed everyone outside for my customary ending picture.


So I felt like two things were going on, had they (Rafi/Vijay) never mentioned that I had grandparents from India, these four women would have been perfectly happy and excited to entertain the "American" for an hour or two. However, Veena, the American, the South Asian American, had strayed from the Indian path. At that moment I felt bad for them, because they only know two states of living "the known" and "the unknown" and things will certainly not in Hajji's lifetime. It was also interesting to be assaulted by someone else's values or opinions and feel their looks of disapproval and in Hajji's case, disgust.


The disgust bothered me. It got me thinking for two or three days and at the end, I still could not wrap my head around how those women had reacted to something "different." I don't even think of relationships between people as "inter-racial." I don't see it like that, I don't know how. I mean I joke occasionally about "brownness" "whiteness" and so on.... but it doesn't really mean anything to me. What I have learned is that relationships are a lot more about building friendships...supporting one another's interests...celebrating your differences.



religion and caste are polarizing forces. Even though people in these rural areas get along with one another, have mixed sanghas, with women of both the Muslim and Hindu faiths, an inter-marriage between religions or castes is still seen as absolute blasphemy. They live in relative peace but limit themselves to the confines of the known.



Women continue to marry young, to bear children young, to stay at home and let the men go to work unless the family needs the supplementary income. Most young women do not work, as they are almost in the endless marriage waiting room...



Anyway, what I am trying to say is that Veena...the American is quickly realizing that while she grew up in a very traditional Indian home, waking up to Suprabatham early on Saturday mornings and smelling incense before my eyes ever saw sunlight, this same woman is also very bold, willing to challenge the structures.

Wow what a bizarre conversation I just had! ... Veena the American sat and defended American culture and everything else for the last hour to a guy who just didn't like "westernization." He was so staunch about the importance of family in Indian culture and the higher marriage rates.. And I kept saying "numbers" do not represent the success/failure of a marriage. Just because people stay in a marriage doesn't mean its good...Moreover, there are so many unreported cases of domestic violence and divorce is a no-no in this culture. As a woman, you are looked down upon and ostracized in society. (At least in more rural areas.) He kept saying but if you look at marriages! You know Americans... and i said "umm I think you are generalizing that all Americans are blonde with bikinis!" or something like that.... He really seemed affronted by "western culture" or what he called was the"breach of Indian culture." He says that he comes home every weekend even though he works in Bangalore, because its his duty and he could not wrap his head around the idea of "own" experiences or individual experiences. I was like, my parents are happy when I go skiing or read a nwe book, you are supposed to celebrate those things. He was also shocked that I only visited my parents once or twice in a month... I kept thinking "ummmmmm do you even know how often other people visit thier parents?" Also, I felt so frustrated because he did not realize that "American" doesn't mean just one race, we are a country of a diverse set of races, religions, cultures... just like India..but... its weird bc despite all of those differences, they share this social pressure blanket.. the "dos and donts" of culture. Whereas we have so many "Dos and donts." It is odd because I am realizing how strongly I hold to some "American" values, that I think are "American" and at the same time, others' American values are probably directly opposite, it was hard to articulate this to this man.

Okay I am going to leave the computer lab, sorry about the rushed nature of this blog post.. I have to really absorb this conversation, before properly addressing it..It just happened to be that the guy from the computer lab decided to engage me in this conversation.... Also, this totally explains his look of disapproval for me initially!

More later.... (Ps.... I couldn't sleep for the last two days due to unexplicable abdominal pains and woke up and found that the veg noodles i ate last night did not sit well with me. (i will leave it at that.) I can't seem to eat anything..managed to get some coke and cadbury's down just a few moments ago.)

I still don't like this city or my dirty hotel.... at least there was cable! (PS I watched big momma's house II on television, and it was really funny... im not sure if it was bc i hadn't eaten all day or what.)


Also... being in places like this...and just realizing how long I have until I can go home..or see a familiar face is making me homesick.... yes, i admitted it! :)