Thursday, August 21, 2008

Cousin........

...And fly are here. They are relocating to Bangalore after their 12 year stay in US. It’s undeniably a shrewd move from my point of view. My cousin says
“If it din’t happen now , it may never owing to the fact that the kids are young and ready to follow their parents unlike the few who got stuck there with rebellious teenagers.”
The move has been thorny initially with finding a rental apartment which has been settled as of now and the next major milestone of getting kids into a good school, midyear is yet to be met.
I wonder if most Indian parents feel the same urge of relocating to homeland with the prime motive of bonding kids securely to our Indian culture. I could definitely assure them that once they settle down with everything in place, they would never regret the fact that they came down to a filthy place filled with lot of manual HELP and LOVE around which is unavailable in THE US of A.
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Off topic…right now my toe is swollen with a broken bone (may be) and I need to hurry to the doc to check if that can be repaired. Like Ajith puts it, lots of pending things to be repaired, and this is top priority kekeke.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

sour grapes, eh?!!
So Indian culture is 5 yr olds dancing to age-inappropriate flirty bollywood songs? Or is it imitation of every possible hollywood trend? Or is it doing all that and using every opportunity to lash on USofA?
If you are successful, you can afford manual help in any country-only you pay appropriate wages to domestic help. When one lives in a different country and open your eyes to other cultures, one learns what dignity of labor is all about. If one has a closed mind and looks for LOVE within same ethnicity of people, then it is hard to find it. HOME is what you make of it. World would be a better place if we all try to find common traits rather than berating other cultures that we have experienced only through media or through short work-related visits.
My 2 cents....

Anyway, I would like to commend your courage and spirit here. Great job with your kids!

Vidya said...

@anon
It is never sour grape in my cousin’s case.He is a green card holder and he can definitely return in case his motives are not met.
5 year olds dancing to flirty bollywood songs is better than kids shooting around with real guns huh!!! Dancing in itself is a form of art and i don't think you should dig too much into what tune they are dancing to as long as they are enjoying what they do.
Living in a different country for a period of 12 years (which is not short visit) and realizing that they have been missing something may be associated to the strong roots they are bonded to back home.
In short am not trying make any cultural liabilities here. Home is where you are made to feel at home by people surrounding you which can be achieved easily in one's own country without having to struggle for it.
Some points that you pointed out like dignity of labour is something I appreciate and would like my fellow indians to adopt.
Anyway thanks for your comment.

Anonymous said...

We should not confuse social deviance with cultural issues here. Random teen shooting is far less rampant than child marriages and dowry deaths in South Asia. But media just feeds to the frenzy.
Being an expat myself, I have noticed fellow desis resistance to change and assimilate the new culture they dreamed of and moved to the US for in the first place. People who moved here even in the 70s want to hold so steadfast to their roots that they do it by imposing conservative ideas on their children, who would then go on to rebel/despise anything remotely Indian. India has progressed further along but believe it or not Indians in India are much more cosmopolitan than the most who moved here a decade ago. Since the early 90s, theres so much influx of Indians, that most of them donot have any need to understand the cultural differences or open up to new friendships. My pet peeve is that they live in a new country and still fail to find the good around them.
Anyway, my point of view is that many(not all) move back for the wrong reasons- for a vision of India they had decades ago and wanting the same for their children. However noble their intention, change is the only constant thing. And India today is a changed place.
PS: hope ur toe's better :-)

Vidya said...

@anon
Check out this post
http://kaafisahi.blogspot.com/2008/07/white-washed.html

Anonymous said...

Thats exactly my point!!! Indians in US form these kind of minority groups who behave badly in a foreign country they donot care to know much of! The blog is about younger Europeans that I can not comment much about. White or brown, its the same crime. Whats bothersome is that this ignorant minority will instill a generalized image of their countrymen amongst the locals that they would treat any newcomer from that country with aversion. Be a Roman in Rome.

Unknown said...

Yeah, I'm the person who relocated:)

What a definition of an indian culture- 5 year old dancing to age inappropriate flirty bolly wood songs!! If a 5 year old is unable to sing a keerthana, I will balme it on the parenting!

American Indian kids will really know more about culture as parents spend time for that.

At the same time, US culture is not about shooting at schools! The actual americans are very family orinted people who will stick with their family in all circumstances with all finanical independence.

I have been fortunate to have a good association with many close knit, family oriented americans, europeans and south east asians. At the same time, I also have the flirty, bogus american friends who would not care for anyone else other than themselves. I moved because many of the excellent indian teenagers I know are facing problems of being a minority in school(teasing, unable to/doesn't want to have girl friends/boy friends etc.) Since I personally know what these kids are going through, I thought I should come back and live around here for a while. This also will give an opportunity for kids to experience the indian culture and religion( the hunderds of carnatik songs he learned, he can see and understand that each of them has valid meaning)

Being a american-indian, I have high respect for both countries and I strongly believe that US has more opportunities than any other countries.

But when elementary education in India is really good, why can't I utilise my Indian back ground to make use of that and then later college education in US. That would be wise thing than worry about the school shooting and social pressure for the kids.
(To understand the social pressure the kids has to go through, you should know kids who grabs first in all kinds of competitions and go to upper middle class community)

If you actually think that all people are treated equally in the society(by regular people) not in a court of law, you are in a mistaken world!