An Indo-American Odyssey

by K. S. Venkataraman

(Editor's intro: Kollengode S. Venkataraman lives in the greater Pittsburgh area. He is afree lance writer, and has occasionally contributed to newspapers in the US on topics on or about India. He maintains that "my professional background -- PhD from UC Berkeley in engineering-- is totally irrelevant to the context of my skit. ")

I have been an Indian for 25 years. Now, in the next several years I'll try to become an American. I will quickly learn American expressions, but my Indian accent will not go away no matter how hard I try. I will go to a university to earn my MS, MBA, or PhD or take a fellowship in a US hospital to become legit. The kids of Indian immigrants I see around I will derisively call ABCDs (American-Born Confused Desis), but little will I realize that I will be as confused, if not more.

I will hang around with other Indian boys. During weekends, we will eat masala paratha and watch good "bad" masala Hindi movies. You may call us Parathé kids. I will watch X-rated films and think that Indians are ignorant and prudish about sex. Then, I will read Vatsya-yana's Kamasutra, and feel embarrassed about my ignorance. Then I will read more about India, and feel even more ashamed of my ignorance on India's social, political, literary and artistic history and contribution to science.

Then I will get a job, or start my practice. I will buy expensive cars with lots of gadgets. Even though I will have a well-paying job or a good practice, I will always be looking for a better one that I never seem to get and everyone else seems to have. I will always be comparing my- self with others who are better off than I am, and feel miserable. If I am well-off, I will still compare myself with those who are talented or successful, and feel miserable all the same.

I will think that Indian arranged marriage system sucks. Therefore, I will date girls at work or in the hospital. But when it will be time for my marriage, I will chicken out, and willingly get sucked into the very system that I derided. I will go to India and see many girls - engineers, scientists, accountants, and doctors. Particularly doctors. I will get married to someone I think is modern outside, but traditional inside. But she will be the opposite. Or worse still, I will mistake modern outlook for modern outfit, and will regret for ever for my mistake.

I will go to professional meetings in big cities. I will meet other Indians, and we will talk not about professional issues, but about Indian social life in our cities. But, when I will meet other Indians in social gatherings in my home town, we will talk about our professions. There will be language-, religion-, and caste-based subgroups among us. We will not attempt to understand each other. I will become more parochial, and be proud of it.

Then I will buy a home. It will be mine, except for the 90% mortgage. I will buy a house that I cannot afford, because other Indians I want to ape live in big homes. I will buy fancy gadgets. I will buy extra warranty for the gadgets not knowing what the warranty buys. I will misplace them so that when will I need them, I will not find them.

I will drive a lot. I will take my family to many touristy cities, and stay with my extended family and friends. I will give them only half- an-hour notice before we land even though I have a car phone. When they do this to me, I will be irate, not at them, but at my wife and kids.

I will buy the fastest junk food, and eat it slowly while watching TV. I will buy a VCR-camcorder set with fancy features. I will try to record. The VCR/cam-corder's instruction manuals will be written in Chinese, Mexican, Kore-an, or Japanese English that will be confusing. If it will be in confusing Indian English, I will at least understand. Then I will swear. I will mix American swear words and the choicest swear words in my native language and make them even better.

I will continue to see "bad" Hindi movies. They are now worse, which is better. But I will now also see equally worse regional language movies. I will stop X-rated movies because 1) Indian feature films are almost there, and 2) my kids are growing.

In God we trust, I will say. But just to be safe, I will also trust in gold, IRAs, and mutual funds. I will work hard, because I want to be rich. I will be always in a hurry. I will believe "Time is money, and money is God." Then I will see my friends/associates getting laid off. They will have lots of time, but not enough money. Then I will question the wisdom in my beliefs.

I will go to India on frequent-flyer miles. There I will see many of my classmates in senior positions, and I will find that in the States I have hit a very low glass ceiling in my career. But I will be sophisticated enough not to reveal my torture inside, and I will think that people in India are jealous of my American lifestyle. That will make me happy.

While in India, I will criticize the Indian system, but will use it to my advantage. And back in the US, I will hate the American system, but will acquiesce in it. I will do little to change either.

I will smoke, drink, and enjoy beef and pork. Then I will read about cancer, cirrhosis, the high-tech plumbing job people need because of high cholesterol, and the mad cow disease. I will try to give up smoking, become a teetotaler, and a shudh vegetarian. It will not be easy. I will become a health nut and an exercise maniac.

I will try to change my life and my lifestyle. I will see divorce as a legal option, but will not follow through. I will endure in my marriage. Then I will hit middle age, and with recalcitrant teenage children, I will think that I should have divorced my wife and my children, and taken early sannyasam (the voluntary withdrawal from worldly pursuits).

My kids will go to college and they will major in subjects that fascinates them, and about which I will know very little. I will be embarrassed about my total lack of familiarity in those subjects. Then, they will marry someone of their choice. For my kids, who are now adults, the whole idea of languages, religions, castes, subcastes that we parents are so obsessed with, make no sense or meaning. They will choose someone who will be very different from my caste, language, and from my "proudly parochial" ethnic identity.

I will then become fanatically religious. I will see no difference between religiosity and spirituality. I will make no attempt to understand the evolution of spiritual, religious and social ideas even within my own religion. I will see no inconsistency between what my religion preaches and how I and others practice it. I will dislike people who aren't as exactly religious as I am.

I will think that I have become detached. Little will I realize that in reality, people around have detached and jettisoned me: They will take cue from Wall Street. Like American corporations giving involuntary retirement to their employees, my family will involuntarily give me sannyasam precisely when I will not want it.

Then I will recognize that America, like India, is quite diverse, and thrives on diversity. Diversity is what has made the society great. With this recognition, I will be comfortable with my identity. I will finally realize that in trying to become an American, I imbibed the values of the some of the people around me.

I absorbed some of their values - not all of them good though, and I discarded some of the values of my ancestral land - not all of them bad though. In my psyche, I will become a hybridized species, having made a unique synthesis of values taken from my old world and my new world. I will be a hyphenated American.

(The central idea for this sketch is an article by Mikalos Vamose, a Hungarian American that I came across sometime back.)