NRI Maami

I turned a year older last week and I didn’t feel as excited as I usually do when the day started. I knew there was no surprise gift from my husband, because he had let me choose my own gift. I guessed I would not have any surprise parties either because I had just had one the previous year. I had to go to work and had a lot of work lined up for the day. I had picked up a new set of clothes a week earlier while grocery shopping at Sam’s club. So, nothing exciting happened. I was beginning to feel that may be I had finally grown out of the birthday excitement age group.

However, it was not to remain so. Our good friends and my brother in law and his wife surprised me, by first leading me to beleive that they had planned a surprise which had flopped because one of them couldn’t get there in time, and then when I had let down my guard, they ended up surprising me anyway. So, we started with a cake cutting, ate samosas, gulab jamuns and ended with pizza.

So, thank you Fa for always remembering but pretending to forget, to P for sitting through it patiently because I know how much you hate this stuff, to S for singing ‘happy birthday’ so beautifully (you have definitely improved over the past 3 years), to V for the beautiful card and the personal note in it, to the other V for the 80 gulab jamuns that you took the trouble to make and to dear husband and dear daughter for being the special people that they are.

Thank you for making me realize I am not so old after all.. and to all you folks who weren’t a part of the birthday bash and are bored of the vote of thanks addressed to alphabetized folks, chill.. I promise the next post will be better.

When I was a fresh off the boat desi, I was quite amused by the friendliness of americans in spite of being perfect strangers. They would smile at you, comment on the weather, hurriedly enquire on how you were doing as they jogged past you on the sidewalk. In stark contrast, I noticed that desis just saw right through you - as if you did’nt exist. Unlike now, at that point of time I was quite oblivious to the ins and outs of desi behaviour in the US. But soon enough, I learnt to be stone-faced when I faced other desis and appear friendly to non-desis. Asian (not south asian) people are an exception here, and due to my limited knowledge of their characteristics, I am quite unable to explain their reason for being stone-faced.

Indian stone-facedness has a reason. I learnt it the hard way. During the first one or two months in the US, I seemed to fall victim more than once to the uncharacteristicly stranger-desi-friendly desis. The first time, my friend A (who had been around 3 years and still didn’t know) and I were at Kohl’s looking around. A desi lady and her 5 year old daughter commented on how pretty my red embroidered kurti was and got to talking about which part of India etc.. etc.. In my over-enthusiasm to make new friends, I was very happy to exchange numbers with her. In a week, she called me and enquired if I would be interested in making more money on the internet. I pressed for more details and was surprised to see that no further information was forthcoming. I told her I would talk to my husband and get back, and when I told him, he told me this was one of those Amway kind of schemes. I was never interested in that kind of thing and so the next time she called, I politely declined saying I had found a job and didn’t have time. But, this lesson was not enough. In a few weeks, I saw a desi lady at Sams club with her twin little boys. The kids were so cute, that I was watching them and (by mistake) returned the mother’s smile. That was an invitation for her to trap me. She came over spoke very sweetly, said she was working in the IT industry in downtown Chicago, and commented on how her sister had the same name as me, etc..  The fact that she was in the IT industry somehow convinced me that she wasn’t one of those marketing types, so I gladly gave her my phone number when she asked. Soon enough she called me and asked if I was interested in trying out some beauty products and that her friend was going to display it at her home etc. Should have know it’s one of those Avon marketing schemes. So I told her right away that I wasnt interested in any of these marketing schemes. Since then, I’ve been really careful not to appear like I have any interest in desis around me, and I’ve learnt to put on my best stone-face when I see them. Our latest experience was however hard to avoid. The couple out of nowhere called out loudly “Madrasaaa?” at JCPenney and eagerly told us what they do and spoke to my daughter as if they were her ‘god parents’. My husband and I knew something was fishy but because we didn’t want to snub them, gave them our phone number, but we have been careful since then not to pick up their call. After all the conversation did end with “I will get in touch with you, my friend is doing some market research, so you might be able to help”.

Unfortunately, we could end up being really rude to the genuinely friendly people. We almost did that to one couple (P & S) who wanted to talk to us because they had just moved to our apartment community and hadn’t found any indians around. Fortunately, they were quite persistent and we soon found that they had no evil intentions. They are now very good friends of ours.

So much for kinship..

I recently read this post by Bikerdude, and instantly identified him to be my kind - the kind that has lived in many different places, and speaks more than one indian language.

In India, I lived in 4 cities in 22 years, regularly visited one other. I liked all the places I lived in for different reasons, and therefore don’t really think any one place to be a favorite over another.

During the four years that we spent living in the ’Kongunadu’ of Tamil Nadu, I was often asked a most baffling question - ‘Onga native ennanga?’, to which I wish I had a simple one-word reply, but unfortunately didn’t. This is how it would it go from there..

Me: Well.. I finished my schooling in Hyderabad… (and before I finished)..

They: Oh.. Teluguvaa..? You speak such good tamil though.. (already wondering how..)

Me: Oh..well, I am actually Tamilian..

They: Appdiya.. Appo onga “NATIVE” edhunga?

Me: I don’t have a native place. My father grew up in many places, but you could say he is a native of Bangalore. (Before they jump to the next assumption..), but he is not a kannadiga, he is a tamilian too.  My mother is from Salem, but I’ve never lived in either Salem or Bangalore, so technically, I cannot be called a native of those places.

They: Well, then your native place is Hyderabad… I guess..

Me: Um.. well.. we moved out of Hyderabad last year, and we have no ties with the place anymore. No family there anymore.

They: (By now utterly confused, at the prospect that there could be a person without a native place).. Appo.. Did your father work in a bank?

Me: No, he is not a bank officer. He just changed jobs (and not every year), just once every 8 years may be.

So, I spent 4 years in Kongunaadu, and then moved to Chennai for the second time. Realized nothing had changed since the 80s - still no water, still too hot and humid. I worked there, got married and lived there for a year before we moved to the US.

Now that I am not in India anymore, I am still asked questions about where I am from - and because I’ve decided that the last place I’ve lived in is to be henceforth my native place, I used ‘Chenna’ to anwer the darned question.

Other desis I meet here (including my husband), often reminisce about their favourite hometowns (chennai, bangalore, hyderabad, etc.). I have very good memories, but spread across all these places, and therefore there are times when I never feel completely Madrasi or Hyderabadi or Kongu.

The perception of ‘back home’ or India for most desis here usually means Chennai, Bangalore or Hyderabad (wherever they belong), but for me, it is hard to choose one place over another. For me India is, not any one city or place. To me ‘back home’ means just India where I will be closer to my family and friends, wherever in India that might be. It is the feeling of getting off a plane and smelling the myriad of smells, hearing the cacophony of porters and taxiwallas, feeling the heat when it’s hot and the cold when it’s cold, seeing the crowds of people going about their business (and others),  those gigantic posters of politicians and super starts, be it Pondy bazar, Commercial street or Oppanakara veedhi.

Hmmm.. India…