This last month my 6 yr old son and I went to India for my sister's wedding. It was an interesting trip, meeting extended family and observing my son interacting with everyone around. His observations and questions reminded me of when I went back to India at the age of 8.
I never delved into it much in the past, but I vividly remember the day we landed at Delhi International Airport. Our relatives had come to meet us at the airport....people I had seen in pictures, came to life. It was thrilling. I found the airport dirty, and as my parent's cried and met their family after so many years, I stood quietly watching. As we went outside to get a taxi home, i found the streets dirty too. My aunt's and Uncle's gave me chocolate candy bars...I held them, but didn't eat them. I wasn't feeling like it - and it wasn't even a familiar wrapper. I held them most of the way to Meerut, taking a bite only when asked to.
We made a stop at my maternal grandparent's home for a while, and I liked it. They had a huge painting of Shiv-Parvati painted by Mom's sister in the living room. The house was brightly lit up. I met my mother's parents for the first time - since I could remember. Then we went to my paternal Grandparent's home . I remember it room by room. I remember seeing my mother wearing a saree, and then covering her head as we entered - for the first time. I had seen her wear saree before - but never cover her head. As I watched her touch the feet of all the elder women on my father's side, she looked different, and I was just quiet - waiting for her to just be done. The surroundings were alien...and I was confused. The house was not as well lit up or decorated. There was no dining table - it was just old fashioned. I met my Dad's parents for the first time too. But my cousins were the only familiar people there - since they had sent their pictures to us.
As days passed by, I remember asking my Mom question before I went to sleep everyday, as to why we were there, and why she had to do things differently. In that old house, the kitchen was a 'sitting' one. She cooked on coal - even for 1981 it was a really old way to do things. I remember her legs would hurt squatting down all day. In all that time I never saw her complain. She always told me that her legs would finally get used to it. "Our body adjusts to new circumstances" - she would remind me. My Dad had left to join his new job in Trivandrum. It was far away. So it was only Mummy, my sister and me with my grandparents for the first few months.
Then one day, my sister got an ant in her eye! She cried and cried, and finally we had to go to the doctor to take it out. Even I tried to help her, but couldn't. Then another day I left the gate open and she walked out.....all the way to the main road - the neighborhood kids saw her and brought her home when my Uncle went to look for her.
So, I didn't really like India at first - maybe culture shock of going to a small old fashioned city after staying in the US and UK. It was too dirty. The house - especially the Indian bathrooms - were terrible. When I complained, Mummy would just tell me that different places had different ways of living, and we had to live there now. I would be told that I had to see the good side - I was meeting my cousins, and my aunts and uncles, grandparents - everyone loved me so much. That did make me happy. Though I didn't like the place - emotionally I was always sure that everything was fine - I never felt that anything was wrong. I wonder how I would have felt had she been a complaining personality. Aren't we all just as happy as our mother is when we are little?
I look back and feel those first few months set me up in a very different way. My sister was too young to understand, or even remember. I went to school there, and went from being in a classroom of 20 - to a classroom of 60. I was so lost and maybe un-confident/shy in my new environment, that even when a few of my books fell out of my bag on my way to school in a cycle rickshaw - I didn't tell anyone. I was just quiet - wondering how I would tell mummy that she had to buy new books for me. Luckily for me, someone else saw them fall, and told my driver to stop and pick them up!
I think it was from her that I learnt that I had to 'adjust' to new situations in life - to new places and people. We had to respect traditions and blend in with our surroundings. Whenever I complained about anyone we knew or their family, she always analyzed how their experiences must have led them to behave that way. Being a Sociology major in college, she gave me an interesting sociological aspect to every human behavior I talked about. Complaining just wasn't worthwhile - we were all different, and had to understand that it was ok. In the larger world picture, we were just a fragment of a society which was constantly evolving over thousands of years.
Today I do realize that her attitude strongly influenced me at that young age of 8. In such a radically new environment, I was always given positive reinforcements. Till today whenever anyone around me refuses to adjust to any given situation - I remember my mother coming back to India after 7 years, and re-adjusting to life again, in an old fashioned neighborhood, with 2 kids. That image always grounds me.
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