Culture is a many-splendoured thing and we can choose to celebrate it wherever we live or just go through the motions and ignore it
Culture is one of those wonderful aspects of living that we find easy to forget in the hustle and bustle of daily existence. While we in India have our culture and traditions brought to life through the myriad festivals we celebrate with much sound and light, our families abroad always need to make the extra effort to remind their children of their cultural roots.
I have always been intrigued when I interact with the ABCD (American Born Confused Desi) community, at the contradictions they have to face at home and outside. We have been fortunate to have a few of this ilk stay with us for a few weeks to help their concerned parents get their kids an immersion into Indian culture.
My favourite anecdote is of this young man who was born and raised in California by traditional parents, who had moved to that country before he was born. When we visited their home in the late nineties, 10 year old Akaash (name changed for confidentiality) enthralled us by singing a few bhajans, watched proudly by his doting parents. Fast forward a decade and 20 year old Akaash was landing at Pune airport for his cultural immersion through a six week stay with us.
True to our prediction. Akaash touched our feet and seemed for the first hour every bit as ingrained in Indian culture as we had expected him to be. Till my wife Uma asked him “Ganesh is going to a BPO party but you can stay home and have an early night” to which the young Akaash jumped up and said, "The BPO party will be what I think it will be, I am certainly going with him.” It took us just a few days to understand the motivations of this American youth in Indian skin and even less for young Akaash to throw himself into the party circuit with a vengeance. It also showed us how adept young folks are at keeping their parents happy while choosing to live their own life on their own terms.
This is not to say that young Indians living abroad do not enjoy Indian culture. Our own daughter Karuna went abroad for high school over 15 years ago and after a stellar academic journey through Cambridge and Harvard, is now a research scientist and oncologist at the famous Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre in New York. When she and Hugh Skottowe decided to marry a few years ago, she wanted the wedding of a true Indian princess. But not for her, just the pomp and pageantry of Rajasthan, where we had a memorable wedding. The scientist couple wanted every minute of the two day wedding scripted and choreographed to perfection. And not only did they immerse themselves into every nuance of the wedding process, they took efforts to ensure that every line they would utter as part of the marriage process was scripted and sometimes jointly done by the 100 plus American and European guests who joined nearly 200 Indians at the wedding. Even for us, it was an opportunity to delve deep into every tradition and understand every nuance of the traditional Indian wedding.
Each one of us as responsible citizens of the country need to develop an attitude of respect for all cultures, traditions and social mores of every citizen who co-inhabit India. We must ensure that we are truly a land of equal opportunity, not only for our own countrymen but also many people from different countries and cultures who are increasingly choosing to live and work in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune and so on
So, what’s the point I am making here? Culture is a many-splendoured thing and we can choose to celebrate it wherever we live or just go through the motions and ignore it even living in traditional bastions of culture like Pune or Chennai. And culture can still be celebrated, whichever part of the world you live in, if the need to understand and celebrate it rests deep within our hearts. The recent “haafu” controversy featuring Miss Japan Priyanka Yoshikawa and the outrage created by her and the previous winner Ariyana Miyamoto, the first half-African woman to represent the country in a beauty pageant, underline the fact that people living away from their country will always suffer the double disadvantage of being laughed at when they come to the country of their origins while occasionally being spurned in their adopted land. It takes a wise head and a forgiving heart to ensure that such folk have the spirit and courage to understand their roots while still integrating themselves in the cultural milieu of their new homeland.
Back home in India, each one of us as responsible citizens of the country need to develop an attitude of respect and celebration for all cultures, traditions and social mores of every citizen who co-inhabits the land we call India. We cannot condone condescension or derision towards any community or state and must ensure that we are truly a land of equal opportunity, not only for our own countrymen but also for many people from different countries and cultures who are increasingly choosing to live and work in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune and so on. How can we expect a Europe or America to open its arms to our youth and give them free access to jobs and pathways to residency and citizenship if we resent people from other countries and sometimes even other states moving around in search of a better job or entrepreneurial opportunity? Let us genuinely become open in our minds and hearts and create the Atithi Devo Bhava culture in our land.
By Ganesh Natarajan
