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Return to India: One Family’s
Journey to Ameri ca and Back
In the following essay,
Bangalore-based writer Shoba Narayan describes her family’s
decision to return to India
after living in the
U.S. for 20 years.
Leaving Home to Go Home
This story is about India and America and the love-hate relationship
that I (and perhaps other immigrants) share with the two lands.
It is about America ; about why I came to this country and
why I left. It is about India ; about why I left and why I
returned. It is about the immigrant journey away from home
and then back to the homeland. The arc of its narrative, I
believe, encapsulates many of the conflicts and issues faced
by immigrants in America and the world. But in the end, it
is my journey. I hope I can carry the reader with me. We start
with a dream — my dream of returning to my homeland. Other
Indians share this dream; perhaps all immigrants fantasize
about riding back home on gilded horses, with gold coins,
to the sound of applause from adoring families. They may do
nothing about this dream; they may not speak of it. Some eventually
disdain or discard it. But for others, it festers in the back
of their mind, rearing its head at random moments, until —
as it did for me it becomes an obsession.
Home — a word filled with loss and longing. Snatches
of music bring to mind a mother’s song. Smells in restaurants
conjure up a kitchen back home. A face in a crowd looks like
a relative. Birthdays, anniversaries and other milestones
bring guilty reminders of aging parents and the relentless
march of time. Eastern values of filial piety and taking care
of your own begin gnawing away at your psyche. And so it begins:
a tug of war between two cultures — New York or New Delhi
, San Francisco or Santo Domingo , Toledo or Taipei ; a competition
between countries with no clear winner; a championship game
for the title of “Home.” Or, as the Indian jingle goes, “East
or West, home is the best.”
Horace Greeley’s edict, “Go West, young man,” has been turned
on its head. Today, it seems, the East is the new West, thanks
to the burgeoning economies of China and India . The East
is where opportunities, jobs and profits lie, or so governments
there would like to have you believe. Statistics point to
it and the popular press practically trumpets it: The immigrants
are returning home. Non-resident Indians are opting for jobs
in Bangalore rather than Boston .Harvard Business School students
choose internships in Seoul over San Jose . Chinese-Americans
are returning to the land of their ancestors in droves, seeking
to profit from the meteoric rise of its economy. Returning
Taiwanese account for more than half the start-ups in Taipei
. The Western gold rush has come full circle. Or so they say.
The truth is a bit more complicated. Immigrants from the
East are returning home, but not just to take advantage of
economic opportunities. I should know. I spent the first 20
years of my life trying to escape the stifling confines of
India . I was a student in search of freedom and opportunities.
America beckoned like a siren.
In America , I could escape being slotted by religion, caste
and class. I could change my name, start a business, own real
estate and go from rags to riches. In return, I had only to
work hard and pay taxes. That was the promise of America :
Regardless of where I came from, I could go places, from refugee
to immigrant to green card holder to citizen. I could belong.
Or so I thought.
What I found was that every choice involved a sacrifice;
assimilation involved losing bits of my identity as an Indian.
After 20 years in America , I sat atop my Manhattan high-rise,
watching the planes and longing to fly back home. Most immigrants
of my generation are haunted by this conflict. They leave
their homeland but it doesn’t leave them. We are economic
immigrants, changing identities, choosing cultures and chasing
opportunities. But unlike generations past, we can
go back home and frequently do.
Compare this with the political refugees and religious
exiles of yore who fled native lands to escape starvation,
persecution and even death. They were the pregnant women who
threw themselves onto boats, willing to submit to raging seas
and the risk of drowning just so their children would be afforded
the rights of U.S. citizenship. They were the desperate refugees
who begged, borrowed and paid their entire life savings to
visa agents to come into America , saying just two words:
“Political Asylum.” They jumped fences, crossed borders in
the middle of the night and slipped into the shadow world
of illegal immigrants for years on end for one simple reason:
They didn’t want to go back home. So they anglicized their
names, disavowed all relations and links to their past and
started fresh in the West.
Mine is not a tale populated by bloodthirsty dictators,
rampant epidemics, boat people, barking dogs and blood-smeared
fences. I am neither a political exile nor a refugee fleeing
from revolution. I came to America merely as a student seeking
opportunities.
The problem for economic immigrants like me, immigrants
of this generation, is that we are equally at ease in two
disparate cultures and therefore fit into neither. We do the
Namaz five times a day while trading derivatives or keeping
track of baseball scores. We can sing in Sanskrit and Rap.
We belong to both countries, yet choose neither. At some point,
perhaps when the going gets tough with the INS [the U.S. Immigration
and Naturalization Service] and the green card [the card which
authorizes permanent residency in the U.S. ], the isolation
that comes from being far away from family and friends becomes
too hard to bear. That is when people like me, who live the
American Dream, start dreaming about going back home.
As with most immigrants, home for me is a mélange of memories
that have softened with time into a happy haze, like an Impressionist
painting. There are people in this painting: iconic figures
like my grandmother. There are physical places and wide open
spaces. Most delightful of all are the scents and tastes of
childhood — the fragrance of blooming night jasmine, dew wobbling
on a lotus leaf, tinkling cowbells, the taste of cilantro,
cumin and ginger — all of which imbue me with a powerful longing
for the land that is called India , but which I call home.
Most people ignore this call because inertia is easier.
In many cases, circumstances prevent such a move. Jobs are
specialized and cannot be easily transported. Teenage children,
American by birth and inclination, get used to their hyphenated
identities (Mexican-American, Indian-American, Korean-American)
and vehemently oppose changing schools and leaving their friends.
Even if both spouses agree to move back, they argue over logistics.
The husband wants to live in New Delhi with his parents, but
the wife who can’t stand her in-laws chooses Pune. Many times,
the couple hasn’t saved enough money and decides to stay for
“just one more year,” for the income.
The arrival of children complicates the process but compounds
the longing. Both my daughters are Americans by birth but
cannot escape being Indian. As a mother, I want to offer my
children America’s benevolence. But I also want to bequeath
them India’s heritage. I know they will love America, but
I also want them to love India just as I do.
My love for India is one that a child feels for her mother
— albeit, a chaotic, unwieldy, harassed one who doles out
exuberant affection and unpleasant surprises in equal measure.
My admiration for America is what one feels for a perfect
if emotionally detached father — part hero-worship, part reproach.
Because I put America on a pedestal, it sometimes falls short.
Because I take India for granted, it sometimes surprises me.
One of India’s recent surprises has been the fact that this
lumbering elephant of a country has been able to dance to
the tune of technology and turn itself into an outsourcing
Mecca. When my Indian friends and I met to celebrate Diwali,
India’s largest holiday at — paradoxically — a church in Queens
a couple of years ago, the post-chai discussion centered around
returning home.
This is a trend: Central Americans are returning home, preferring
the simple life to New York’s squalor. The English, Scots
and Irish want to raise their children in the U.K. as they
were raised. In my own case, post 9/11, finger-printed and
saddled with ID cards, I was being slotted, not by caste as
in India, but by ethnicity. Being brown-skinned was no longer
merely exotic. It was a liability. My husband got stopped
more often at airports. We were used to being stared at, but
suddenly we perceived hostility. So I, too, reached a point
when I just wanted to go home. But is home a place, a person
or merely a fleeting memory? Can one ever go back home, or
is such a trip inevitably fraught with disappointment? Why
do some people go back home and others don’t? I didn’t know
the answers when I began asking these questions, and perhaps
the answers are individual. I found no universal truth, no
personal path to salvation. But in the meantime, I discovered
many things — about life and loss, identity and compromise,
and about my place in the world.
Pros and Cons
Returning to India is a topic that obsesses Indians. Chat
rooms are devoted to it; multiple websites ponder the question
and offer help, both practical and emotional; and first-generation
Indian families can’t seem to stop thinking about it, if not
actually discussing it. Lists are made about pros and cons.
Mine went like this:
Reasons to move back to India :
- Parents are getting older. Want to take care of them.
- Want kids to have Eastern values, like putting out for
family and respect for elders. (Can we teach them these
values while living in America ?)
- Want kids to have relationship with their grandparents
and that is easier if we live in India .
- Want to give back something to the country that nurtured
us. (Can we do that from here? Contribute dollars to Indian
charities.)
- Viscerally miss living in India — the food, smell of jasmine,
the auto-rickshaws, music concerts, cows on streets, haggling
at bazaars, wearing silk saris. Is this just nostalgia?
- Family is family. You can buy anything in America . Can’t
buy family.
- America is a very high-octane society. Want to protect
kids from random shootings, drugs in high school, sex in
middle school. (Am I being puritanical?)
- Don’t want daughters to become Britney Spears clones.
(Am I overreacting?)
- If we live here, there is a fair chance that India gets
eroded out of our lineage. Can I deal with non-Indian grandchildren?
- Want kids to love India as I do.
Reasons to stay in America:
- Global opportunities for a career. Meritocracy in the
workplace. Encourages you to be the best in your field.
Exciting place to work. If we move to India, have to give
up on a career.
- America is a multicultural society. Kids will get to know
classmates from all over the world, especially if we live
in a large city like New York. They will have a broad worldview.
- Very comfortable life here in terms of material comforts.
Systems work. People are efficient. Easy to get things done
without encountering corruption.
- Dollar income, strong currency, good purchasing power.
Can use it to travel the world, buy things, enjoy life,
go on cruises.
- Want kids to have American values of independence, self-reliance,
go-getting drive. (Can we teach them that in India?)
- America is the least imperfect society. Has its problems,
but at least I don’t have to worry about traffic, pollution,
bribery and petty corruption, trains running on time, etc.
- Even if we move back, I would want the kids to come back
here for college. Then why bother hauling them back?
- Medical facilities are much better in America. What if
we move back to India and have a medical emergency? If someone
dies because of medical mistreatment, can I live with that?
- Kids can learn skiing here. No snow in South India. Then
again, how many times have we gone skiing in the last 10
years?
- Have a great life here. Have many dear friends. Why uproot
ourselves? Are we nuts?
- Want kids to love America as I do.
The impetus to act, however, doesn’t come from lists. My
questions about life in America grew out of a series of mundane
events. Parties, for instance.
Dressing up for an Indian party in New York was, for me,
a complicated exercise fraught with rules and miscues: I didn’t
want to seem too Indian, dressed like my mother in a traditional
sari and dime-sized bindi; I didn’t want to confront a sea
of women decked out in ethnic finery, while I wore a cocktail
dress or pantsuit, to be instantly labeled as a pseudo Indian
who tried to be too westernized.
Indians have a highly honed instinct for spotting artifice,
probably because many of us have attempted it ourselves. After
all, what is the point of starting fresh in a new land if
you cannot reinvent yourself as a suave corporate chieftain,
Nobel-prize winning professor, media-darling with political
aspirations, policy wonk, or UN high-flier cloaking ambition
with charm?
Yet, within each of us lie contradictions. We tout American
enterprise and capitalism yet engage in acts that are antithetical
to free will: conducting an arranged marriage before a thousand
guests in one’s native village after spending years in America;
consulting an astrologer or shaving a child’s hair on a preordained
auspicious day. We are — all of us — rational professionals
with irrational Indian predilections: a love of cricket, curry
and cold water without ice; a craving for mango pickle and
mother’s rasam; a belief in the curative powers of Vicks Vaporub,
Fair & Lovely face cream and Woodwards Gripe Water.
I thought of this as I stood before my closet, discarding
outfit after outfit. Usually, my sartorial decisions weren’t
so complex. I wore Indian clothes to Indian parties and Western
clothes everywhere else. But Vicky and Tina Kapur, our hosts,
were the most westernized Indians in our acquaintance. There
was a fair chance that their party would be full of Americans,
in which case a cocktail dress or a pantsuit would work just
fine. Then again, they may have invited only Indians, in which
case an elegant silk sari was more appropriate. Every Indian
carries a mental inventory of differences. Saris and shawls
are Indian; pantsuits and short skirts are Western. Chunky
gold jewelry is Indian; sterling silver is Western. Sandals
are Indian; shoes are Western.
Living in Queens, New Jersey or Long Island was Indian, while
living in edgy Manhattan was more Western. Goods that offered
value-for-money were Indian; outrageous splurges were Western.
Driving an SUV or BMW was Western; driving a Toyota or Honda
was definitely Indian. Decorating your home with Indian artifacts
was obviously Indian, while buying minimalist modern furniture
was Western.And so it went. Lifestyle choices that should
have been spontaneous became complicated by analyses. An ‘Indian’
home or a ‘Western’ one? Should I wear a bindi or not? Should
I keep my hard-to-pronounce name, or anglicize it, like the
Jews and Chinese had done? Should I celebrate Christmas, a
holiday that I didn’t grow up with, or should I ask for a
day off to celebrate Diwali, the most important Hindu holiday?
Should I remain aloof or assimilate? Sometimes, I just wanted
to pick an outfit, not a country.
When I was single, the answer to such questions was simple
and pointed to all things American. I wanted to wear Western
clothes, celebrate American holidays, embrace new traditions
and assimilate completely. That changed after I became a mother
and took upon myself the self-imposed but nebulous task of
passing on “Indian values and culture” to my child. I didn’t
have a clue as to what exactly constituted Indian values,
but I knew that they had to be different from American ones,
which meant that I had to be different, too. I had to become
more “Indian.”
In comparison, I felt, European immigrants — particularly
Western Europeans — had it easier. They were closer to America
on the cultural continuum. When my Swiss or German friends
talked about going on ski trips, for instance, it sounded
natural — what they had done in the Alps as children, they
were continuing in Aspen. When Indians talked about ski vacations,
it sounded like an affectation, given that there is no snow
in most parts of India . Similarly, some of my Indian friends
cultivated an interest in wines and waxed eloquent about them.
While their interest was genuine, and their knowledge honestly
gained, it seemed contrived — in comparison to, say, a French
man’s interest — because India has few vineyards and is not
a wine drinking culture. Indian booze consists predominantly
of beer, whisky and scotch. I couldn’t help wondering if my
fellow Indians cultivated such interests — golf, wine, opera,
art or jazz — as a means of fitting into mainstream American
society. I had studied modern art in America and gained an
understanding and appreciation for it. Still, it seemed “pseudo”
when I dropped names like Jackson Pollack and Christo, because
Indian modern art is a mere 20 years old and I had little
interest in art before I came to America .
My problem — and perhaps all women face this — was that depending
on the event and the people involved, I switched roles and
changed personas. In the presence of elder Indians, I reverted
to what I called my “Indian bahu (daughter-in-law)”
role, touching their feet respectfully, plying them with fresh
lime and samosas, and politely calling them Auntie and Uncle.
In the presence of Americans, however, I got into my “feminist”
role — she of the strident laugh and strong opinions. My husband’s
answer to all this was devastatingly simple: “Why don’t you
just be who you are?” But who was I really? And who were all
these Indians pretending to be?
My husband Ram, I knew, didn’t view our fellow Indians through
so jaundiced a lens. He didn’t think anything wrong with an
Indian acquiring new loves — be they Western hobbies, racecars,
nouvelle cuisine or all of the above. I viewed such choices
as traitorous pretensions; he saw them as a natural evolution.
In a new country you learn new things. “How can a guy who
has been eating dosa and sambar for 25 years suddenly guzzle
kimchi and proclaim Korean cuisine the food of the Gods?”
I would ask.
“Why not? Just because you grew up in England doesn’t mean
you have to love Shepherd’s Pie. Just because you grew up
in Vermont doesn’t mean you have to love snow,” Ram would
reply. “You don’t have to love it, but you don’t turn your
back on it forever,” I said. “After all, a leopard can’t change
its spots.”
I was right, and Ram was right, too. Most of our Indian friends
hadn’t changed spots completely, but they hadn’t remained
the same, either. We had retained some of our Indian-ness
while absorbing some American mannerisms, habits and interests,
and morphed into something unique. We were unlike any of the
Indians we left behind back home but hadn’t completely become
American either. We were mutants. The Kapur party had already
reached the highdecibel zone when we arrived. Their Upper
East Side townhouse — “fitted with a swimming pool, no less,”
as someone said — was filled to the brim with Indians, and
a smattering of Americans. There are many overlapping circles
amongst Indians in New York , and the Kapur party contained
a fair representation. On one side was the Asia Society crowd
— the auteurs and art patrons who paid $1,000 a pop for an
evening with filmmaker Mira Nair. Across the room were the
Columbia University professors and the journalists. Many of
the men were from Wall Street and you could tell who was where
on the corporate ladder by what they wore. The ones who appeared
genial, almost professorial, were the top guys who ran big
divisions. The ones with the $5000 Armani suits were the ladder-climbing,
mid-level executives, and the young, single analysts…well,
there weren’t any young singles at Tina’s party. They were
all probably enjoying Indian Bhangra Night at S.O.B.’s [a
New York club] downtown with DJ Rekha.
City lights twinkled in the background, the Kir Royale had
a delicious fizz and the murmur of conversation was punctuated
by sudden guffaws or giggles. This, I supposed, was my world
— and it wasn’t a bad one.
My daughter, Ranjini, would have loved this party. She enjoyed
playing hostess. When we had dinner parties at home, she liked
to go around and serve people, which sort of drove me nuts,
because it was such a traditional womanly role. I wanted Ranjini
to take charge, to be tough and strong. She would probably
end up traumatized by these mixed messages. On the one hand,
I wanted her to be humble and respectful to elders like a
good Indian kid; on the other, I wanted her to be an American
go-getter.
She would probably end up an ABCD — an American-Born Confused
Desi. Desi is a Hindi word meaning “native,” and immigrant
Indians like me used the term ABCD pejoratively to indicate
firstgeneration Indian-Americans who were born in the U.S.
but burdened and confused by the strong Indian values of their
parents. Yet, there we were, rearing ABCDs ourselves. ABCDs
who would eventually view us disparagingly as “Fresh Off the
Boat (FOB)” parents who knew zilch about American culture,
rap music and proms. “I would hate to spend the rest of my
life with an FOB,” my American-born, Indian-parented niece
said whenever the subject of marriage came up, even though
she considered herself ‘Indian.’ We called them ABCDs, they
called us FOBs. Who were we really?
Living on the Hyphen
We had arrived in this country, carrying little but our wits,
and then clawed, scrambled and fought our way to decent positions
in respectable professions. We had grabbed our share of the
American dream. Now we had little to fight for, but hadn’t
lost our stray-dog spirit. So we jockeyed and practiced against
each other, dropping names, developing new interests, joining
non-profits like the American India Foundation and giving
money to fashionable charities. In this, we were still the
immigrants who had something to prove — to each other and
to the world. Yet, for all the assimilation, our current personas
were sometimes at odds with our past.
This is my problem. Many people shrug off their origins for
reasons that have nothing to do with migrating to another
country. Americans from the South may shed their accents;
people from Hawaii may shun beaches or the surf; people change
their names to become models; others hide their sexual preference
when joining the armed services. They change their identities
and are the happier for it. You can’t be imprisoned by your
past, they say, and I agree wholeheartedly. But when an Indian
does this, I take it personally. Because I am part of that
land, the choice to disassociate pains me. The most painful
example of this disconnect occurs when my mother recounts
stories from Indian mythology and my daughter prefers to watch
the Cartoon Channel. Or when my daughter speaks English and
my parents can’t understand her accent.
“What is she saying?” they ask, gazing at me, confused. “My
own mother can’t understand my daughter,” I think in theatrical
despair as I translate. This disconnect is happening in India
as well — the youngsters play pool while their parents play
cards; college students patronize pubs in Bangalore even though
their parents don’t drink; teenagers listen to rock bands
instead of native Indian music. The generation gap: For Indians
in America, the gap has become a gaping chasm. It was late
at night when we hopped into a cab. I leaned back, exhausted.
“These Indian parties really get to me,” I said. “We are such
pretenders, the whole lot of us…with our foreign affectations
and faux accents, when what we really do is go home and eat
dal-chaval [lentils and rice] every day.” “Why can’t we be
both?” Ram asked. “Indian and American. Indian-American.”
“An ABCD, you mean?” “Not necessarily. American for sure,
but not necessarily Confused. The best of both worlds.” I
shook my head. “Doesn’t exist. India and America are too different.
Best of both worlds leads to confused kids. Best of both worlds
is a prescription for an ABCD. You have to pick a country;
you have to make a call.” “I disagree.” Ram’s voice rose.
“Being cosmopolitan is not a bad thing.” “Being cosmopolitan
is all very well for adults with set identities. It is a disaster
for young children,” I said.
That’s not true,” Ram said.
There was silence. We turned away from each other. “It is
true,” said a voice from the front. Our cab driver was looking
at us with interest through the rear-view mirror. “It’s true,”
he said, nodding his head emphatically. “Raising kids in foreign
country is no good. That’s why I sent my wife and kids back
to Nigeria last year.” “Thank you for your comments but...”
Ram began testily. “Hear him out,” I interrupted. “This culture
— very different from African culture,” the man continued,
clicking his tongue. “Here it is ... what you say ... sex,
drugs and rock & roll, no?” I smiled and nodded. “Send
your wife home,” the Nigerian cab driver advised. “Nice life
in India. Hare Krishna, Hare Rama!” He grinned.
Ram rolled his eyes.
“Look, if giving Ranjini Indian values, whatever they may
be, is so important to you, then do something,” Ram said,
“rather than hankering for something which doesn’t exist.”
“I will,” I said as we got out of the cab. “I am taking her
to the temple tomorrow.” I wasn’t surprised that motherhood
changed me. After all, I, an avowed agnostic, had suddenly
started taking my child to the Hindu temple in Flushing, Queens,
so she could be exposed to her faith.
What surprised me was that motherhood changed my attitude
towards America. Until then, America had been a welcoming
land where I had spent ten glorious years being young and
free. It had denied me nothing because of the color of my
skin or the foreignness of my character. Indeed, it had allowed
me to fly, freed me from the constraints of my homeland.
After my child was born, America became my daughter’s birthplace,
her homeland, and I held it to higher standards. I wanted
it to accept Ranjini, but - irrationally, perhaps
— I resented that she wouldalways be a minority. I didn’t
want Ranjini to think like a minority, to carry a chip on
her shoulder, to feel compelled to try harder like I did.
I wanted her to have the ease of entitlement, the confidence
of knowing that America is her country — because it is. I
wanted her to believe that she would have equal opportunities
here, and that she was just like the other kids.
So I began to look at other parents, particularly Indian
ones, to figure out what techniques the successful ones adopted.
Ram and I had many nephews and nieces who had grown up in
America, and I talked to them about growing up as an Indian-
American. Two years into the process, when Ranjini was about
five, it became apparent to me that she would not be a typical
American kid. She was American by birth but couldn’t escape
being Indian, not because of the way she was but because of
the way her parents were.
Ram and I were too Indian. We enjoyed America but had not
been able to leave India behind. Because of us, Ranjini would
always be the other, the outsider, the minority, the “Indian”
kid. She would be Hindu and vegetarian because we were. She
was doomed to spelling out her strange-sounding name because
we had thought it pretty and named her so. She wouldn’t escape
Indian culture because we surrounded her with it. Ram’s attitude
towards parenting was more sanguine. He believed that as long
as we gave Ranjini a stable home and basic values such as
honesty, compassion and equanimity, she would turn out fine.
“You are overanalyzing things,” he told me often. “There
is no magic cause-and-effect for parenting. It is more like
a crapshoot. You do what you can, and hope for the best.”
“That’s not true,” I said. “I want Ranjini to believe that
the world is her oyster, that she can become anything she
wants, including the President of the United States.” “You
really want her to become President?” Ram asked. “Like Clinton?”
“Not really. But I want her to believe that she can. I want
her to believe that she can walk in space and touch the moon,”
I said. “That’s great,” said Ram. “But how do you propose
to impart all this confidence and make her humble and respectful
to elders like a good Indian child?”
I pursed my lips. He was mocking me. There was a lot I needed
to figure out. Cross-cultural parenting was harder than I
thought.
Priscilla the Pretzel Lady
Although it seems illogical, many Indians activate their
plan to move back to India after they get their green card
or citizenship. It seems contradictory - the
American government finally gives them permission to stay
forever and then they pack up to leave. This certainly was
true for me, thanks in part to Priscilla the pretzel lady.
Snow was falling as I climbed up the steps of the Brooklyn
College auditorium, plump, happy flakes that danced over the
red brick buildings and settled on my purple overcoat like
fairy dust. I was early, or so I thought as I pushed open
the door. The long lines of people inside testified otherwise.
They were from all over the world — 54 nationalities, I would
later learn, ranging from Haiti to Hungary, Tajikistan to
Tasmania. In all, 1600 immigrants — waiters, nurses, bankers,
cab drivers, divorcees, single mothers and transvestites —
gathered together for the same purpose: to become naturalized
citizens of the United States of America. I took my place
in line and surveyed the faces, each remarkably different
in color, tone and bone structure — Caucasian, Chinese, South
Asian, Middle Eastern, African and others I couldn’t recognize.
They all reflected the weary resignation of people who had
been waiting for a long time. After the application forms
came the interviews, fingerprinting and security checks. This
was the last step — the oath of allegiance — in a long, grueling
journey — a journey which, for me, had begun in a line just
like this one, outside the American consulate in Madras. I
glanced around at my fellow travelers. It hadn’t been easy,
this immigrant path we had chosen. By the time I and a thousand
others had traversed the minefield of barriers, red tape and
rules — by dint of will, hard work, perseverance and, occasionally,
cunning — we possessed one quality that set us apart from
the average American: steely resolve. Immigrants are fighters.
They have to be.
At exactly 11 a.m., the doors opened and we were ushered
inside. The large auditorium was full. On the stage was a
posse of local, state and federal officials who gave cliché-laden
speeches about what a long journey it had been for each of
us, and how happy we must be to have reached this point. Finally,
one of them told us to rise. She had been previously introduced
as the INS commissioner for the region. “Raise your right
hand,” she said. We did, and repeated the oath after her.
“I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure ... bear true
faith and allegiance ... bear arms on behalf ... work of national
importance ... take this obligation freely ... so help me
God.”
Published in: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/india
A Note to Readers:
For decades, it was widely assumed that
the brightest Indians would go overseas to study and eventually
settle there. India
offered few opportunities except for those who had money or
political connections. For many ambitious, middle-class Indians
who had neither, going to an American or British school meant
not just getting a better education as an engineer or a doctor;
it was also, usually, a passport to prosperity. So pervasive
was the phenomenon that people called it the “brain drain.”
Today, though the evidence is slender,
signs show that the tide may be turning. The buzz phrase du jour is the “reverse
brain drain.” As economic growth picks up in Asia with the
arrival of China and India on the global business scene,
Indian students are not leaving the country as eagerly as
they did in the past. If they do, they go back home faster
because of the attractive professional opportunities there.
The fact that global companies are setting
up operations in
India makes it easier for
nonresident Indians to return home, often without even leaving
the companies that employ them. Bruce Chizen, CEO of San Jose-based
Adobe Systems, noted during an interview with Knowledge@Wharton
that the company’s Indian operations were set up by an expat
Indian engineer who was eager to return there. Pawan Goenka,
CEO of Mumbai-based Mahindra and Mahindra’s Auto division,
is another example of a non-resident Indian who returned to
India after working for General Motors in the U.S. Raju Narisetti,
a veteran journalist, was once the managing editor of The Wall Street Journal’s European
edition in Brussels
; he is now the editorin-chief of Mint, a new
business daily in New Delhi . The examples go on and on….
Because this trend is so new, studying its impact is
difficult. Vivek Wadhwa, who has been researching immigrant
issues with colleagues from Duke
University ’s Pratt School
of Engineering, says large numbers of skilled
Indian immigrants are heading back because of the six to 10
years it takes for their green cards — or permanent resident
status — to arrive. “This
is a double loss for the
U.S. One is that we lose
good people. The second loss is that they will become our
competitors,” he told Knowledge@Wharton. The Indus Entrepreneurs
(TIE), a network of Indian entrepreneurs, estimates that 60,000
IT professionals from the U.S.
have returned to India
.
India Knowledge@Wharton
decided to take a different approach toward exploring this
phenomenon. Rather than a statistical overview, we chose to
take an in-depth look at the experience of one family and
view it as a microcosm of a larger trend.
Writer Shoba Narayan was born in India and came to the U.S. as a student. She settled down
in the
U.S. , became a citizen,
wrote for publications such as Time,
Newsweek, Gourmet, The New York Times and The Wall
Street Journal, and authored a book, while her
husband Ram had a successful career on Wall Street. After
20 years in the U.S. , the family moved back to
India in 2005. This is their story.
As you read it, remember that it is being
retold tens of thousands of times.
To Do:
After that, things got a bit crazy. People began hugging
each other, even perfect strangers. Someone shook my hand,
someone else took a picture. Spanish broke out on one side;
Haitian Creole on the other. Two women shouted excitedly in
what sounded like Russian, while another man was yelling into
his cell phone in Yiddish. The speeches from the stage continued
booming their congratulations. As we left the auditorium,
an usher gave us a certificate of naturalization, a voter
registration form and instructions on how to apply for a U.S.
passport. My attorney, Ann LaRue, was waiting for me outside.
She had been with me at the beginning of my voyage as an ‘alien,’
and I had invited her to be part of the finish as well. I
was touched that she had taken the time from her busy workday
and trekked all the way out to Brooklyn. “Congratulations!”
she said as she hugged me. “Come on, let’s have lunch and
celebrate.” We had lunch at the Williams College Alumni Club,
where Ann was a member, and then went our separate ways —
I to my apartment near Lincoln Center, Ann to her Madison
Avenue law firm. At the corner of 66th Street and
Columbus Avenue, a stone’s throw away from Lincoln Center,
is a tiny stand named Priscilla’s Pretzels, manned by an old
woman who looks to be of Eastern European descent, perhaps
Polish. I had always assumed her name was Priscilla, although
the stand could have been named after her mother or daughter.
I passed Priscilla’s Pretzels several times a day
· on my
way to the subway, after dropping off and picking up my daughter
at her pre-school, on my way to pediatric appointments, and
when we walked together as a family to Lincoln Center during
the summer for outdoor concerts. “Hi Priscilla!” I would say
as I passed her and she would wave back. I hadn’t made a single
purchase from her stand because I disliked pretzels, but I
didn’t think she held that against me. On that cold February
afternoon, a few hours after I became a U.S. citizen, I passed
Priscilla again as I walked back home. It was still snowing.
Wisps of smoke came out of her stand as she wrapped a warm
pretzel and handed it to a customer. On impulse, I stopped.
It was a momentous day in my life. I felt exuberant, yet strangely
weary. I was embarking on a new chapter and wanted to share
the news with someone. Priscilla, I felt, would understand.
She, too, was an immigrant and had probably undertaken a similar
journey. We shared a longing for America alloyed by a deep
aversion to the INS. Or so I believed as I stood before her,
holding out some bills. “I became a citizen today, Priscilla,”
I said. “Congratulations!” she said, slathering some mustard
on my pretzel. She waved away my money. “It’s on me,” she
said. Her accent was hard to decipher. “Thanks,” I replied.
“No more dealings with the INS.” “That’s right,” agreed Priscilla.
“No more waiting for green card and visa extensions.” “Absolutely,”
said Priscilla. “Now it’s time to go back home.” I laughed.
“Sure,” I drawled. “Work hard to become a citizen, and then
turn right back and go home.” “That’s right,” said Priscilla.
“Family is family.” “Is your family back home?” I asked. I
still couldn’t tell where she was from. Priscilla nodded.
“Every single one of them. I’ve been in this country 22 years
but not a day goes by when I don’t think about them.” “I know,”
I said, nodding. I knew. “Thanks a lot,” I said, holding up
my pretzel. “Bye, Priscilla.” “My name isn’t Priscilla,” she
said. “Priscilla is my daughter.” “Sorry,” I apologized. It
was only when I reached home that I realized I still didn’t
know her name. So Priscilla she would remain, at least in
my mind. Now it’s time to go back home. Priscilla’s words
haunted me. It wasn’t the first time I had heard them or even
thought them myself. Every time the going got tough with the
INS, I would question my desire to stay in America. “What
am I doing here?” I would think. “Is this worth it?” But there
had always been the next step, the next challenge. Mount Holyoke
College, graduate school, applying for a work permit, getting
a job, getting a India Knowledge@Wharton Special Report
12
green card and finally, after 15 years, becoming a U.S. citizen.
I had been so busy getting to the next step, I hadn’t bothered
to check where they were leading me. I had finally “made it”
as an American citizen — what next? How now to make meaning
out of my life? Staying the course was easy; inertia, easier.
Dreams were prettier when they remained just that
· blowsy,
diaphanous and distant. The minutiae of living cut into the
examination of a life. Until something or someone broke the
cycle ... as Priscilla had done for me. My first ten years
in America had been glorious. Single, then married but still
independent, I enjoyed them thoroughly. Life was exciting,
and trips back home were boring necessities that I undertook
reluctantly, mostly to assuage parents and close family. After
every vacation, I raced back to America, eager to embrace
its fast pace and pulsating rhythms, to see friends, to go
to restaurants and catch up on the movies, sit-coms and magazines
that I was addicted to. When the plane touched down at JFK
International Airport, I would pump my fist and utter a silent
whoop of delight. Yes! I was home. It was after I had a child
that I first entertained the previously heretical possibility
that, perhaps, America wasn’t home for me. I was tired, sleep
deprived and encumbered, and the “land of the free” no longer
seemed so to me. I was saddled with a toddler and missed parents,
relatives and other potential babysitters. I missed the respite
that came from dropping off a child with a trusted aunt for
a few hours. India’s social fabric seemed more conducive to
raising a family. There, I could call a neighbor, any neighbor,
at a moment’s notice and ask her to watch my child while I
ran out for some milk. I missed the septuagenarian grandfathers
who patrolled my neighborhood and reported back all naughtiness
and babysitter negligence. I had hated their interfering as
a child; now, as a mother, I viewed them as allies. I missed
the whole village of people who had raised me, who would help
me raise my child. I wouldn’t dream of dumping my child with
a friend, however close, at a moment’s notice. All my friends
led hectic, tightly packed lives. While they were perfectly
willing to watch Ranjini, their schedules wouldn’t allow it
unless we made arrangements days in advance. Work and family
were distinctly different. There were work colleagues whom
we never saw on weekends, and family or friends whom we rarely
saw during the week. Our days and nights, too, were similarly
divided: there was family night; date night, when my husband
and I went out, leaving Ranjini home with the nanny; and couples
night, to which children were not invited. All this compartmentalization
increased the odds of enjoyment but didn’t allow for lapses
of efficiency. It was fun to dine with another couple at a
fancy restaurant unfettered by tugging children. Yet, at the
same time, the amount of planning that went into searching
for, procuring and paying a babysitter made me question the
necessity of such elaborate arrangements. In India, the kids
would have simply tagged along. They would have created a
ruckus and, after a point, we would have paid the waiter a
few bucks to entertain them at another table. It wasn’t very
efficient, but it wasn’t a production, either. Part of the
complication was that India was several time zones and several
thousand miles away. I couldn’t just jet over to see family
or attend a wedding over a long weekend. For the first time
in my life, I began missing my large, close-knit family. When
Ranjini uttered her first word, there was no one to share
the delight with me save my husband. When her arm swelled
after a fall, I couldn’t S.O.S my grandmother right away for
an herbal poultice recipe. Most immigrants I knew didn’t want
to return to their home countries. I knew several Indians
who considered it infra dig to even acknowledge that
they were from India. While they missed certain things, they
had grown roots in America, ties both legal and emotional.
In our building lived a Peruvian couple who spoke Spanish
to their young son, ate ceviche every day, but had no desire
to live in Peru — ever. Ranjini played with a little girl
whose French father considered America the best country on
earth. He liked to visit Paris, yes, but after twenty years
in the States, he said, there was no way he could live or
work in France.
India’s social fabric seemed
Ram, too, was one of those people who loved living in America.
He worked in asset management and enjoyed being on Wall Street.
He liked being surrounded by brilliant, driven people and the
fastpaced exchange of ideas. He could move millions of dollars
with a computer click or a phone call. He could e-mail a broker
or research analyst with a question and have financial information
on just about anything within a few minutes. Perhaps as a result
of watching economic reform inch along at a snail’s pace in
India, Ram was a big believer in the capitalist model of getting
things done and moving on without endlessly looking back. Regret
wasn’t a part of his psyche, and Wall Street and its here-and-now
culture suited him perfectly. No wonder he was loath to question
it. “Priscilla thinks we should go back home,” I told Ram one
evening as we sat on the steps of Columbus Circle having an
ice cream together. Ranjini was watching a juggler, entranced
by the sight of the colored dominoes that he threw up in the
air. “Who is Priscilla?” he asked. “The pretzel woman at the
corner of our street.” Ram raised his eyebrows. “And she’s the
authority on when we should go back home?” he asked. “You just
became a citizen.” “Two separate things,” I said. “Two separate
things. Becoming a citizen is like taking life insurance: It
is a cushion.” “So now you want to go back?” Ram asked. “Why?
I thought you liked it here.” “I do,” I replied. “I love New
York. But I also think we should explore the possibility of
living in India.” “After all these years? What will we do in
India? I can’t work there. My job is too specialized,” Ram said.
“All I am saying is that family is family, and our parents aren’t
getting any younger, and if our kids need to have contact with
their grandparents, now is the time.” Ram shook his head. “I
don’t understand you,” he said. “Is this some kind of a feminist
reaction to what you’ve just done? I thought you wanted to become
an American citizen.” “I did want to become a citizen,” I replied.
“I do. I wanted to make sure that our kids were born here so
that they won’t have to wait in line outside the American consulate
like we did. I wanted to get my citizenship so I never have
to deal with the INS again.” “And so you won’t,” Ram said, chewing
his cone. “Aren’t you overreacting?” “India is a great place
to raise young children,” I maintained. “Life there is more
relaxed, not as stressful. I could get much more household help
for far less money. Our families would babysit. Things are slower.
The whole system is set up to accommodate young children.” “So
you think,” Ram said. “So you think. You haven’t lived in India
for years.” “But do I want to live in this country forever?
I am not sure.” “Well, you’d better get used to it,” Ram said.
“Because I am not packing my bags and moving.”
Arguing the Other Side
My brother was moving. A month later, Shyam visited
me from Chicago, where he and his wife then lived, to inform
me that he was moving to London. His firm had openings in their
London office and he was taking one of them. After two years,
they planned to move back to India. I was dismayed. “Why are
you doing this?” I asked. “Don’t you like America? You want
to leave me all alone here?” Shyam chuckled at my aggrieved
tone. “Look, in order to continue working in America, my firm
requires that I have a green card, and I don’t.” “I can fix
that,” I said quickly. “I know Ann. She’s a great immigration
lawyer.” “I am not sure if I want to go through all that hassle,”
he said. “The INS really makes you jump through hoops, doesn’t
it?”
Becoming a citizen is like taking life insurance: It is
a cushion.
India Knowledge@Wharton Special Report
14 “Not really,” I lied. “It’s mostly procedural.” “That
may be, but I am still not sure if I want to live in America
forever. People work too hard here, and there is little time
for family. Europe is more laidback.” “But it is so far away,”
I said, feeling strangely bereft, even betrayed. “You know
what your problem is?” Shyam said. “You are willing to put
up with anything just to stay in America.” “And you know what
your problem is?” I shot back. “You have a chip on your shoulder!
You are so quick to see the bad side of things.” Shyam was
right, and I was, too. In order to survive as a foreigner
in a new country, you have to be willing to discount minor
infractions, and I had become very good at that. When sales
girls ignored me at department stores, I told myself it was
because of my dowdy clothes, not my brown skin. When acquaintances
asked questions like, “Do people still ride elephants in India?”
or “Is India full of beggars?” I brushed them off as silly
questions from well-meaning people. Shyam, on the other hand,
would have called those people parochial and ignorant at best,
racist at worst. He was a Leo. He had too much pride. He wanted
America not just to accept him but also to adore him, to welcome
him with open arms. “Why does the INS treat everyone as criminals
until proven otherwise?” he asked. “And why do you put up
with it?” “Because a hundred other people are waiting to take
my place if I don’t,” I said. “Don’t you see? There are nuclear
scientists and Nobel-prize winners standing in line to get
into America.” “Not me,” Shyam said. “I refuse to stand in
line. If America wants me, it must accept me on my own terms.”
“Yeah, right. Like you’re some hot-shot who this country can’t
do without,” I snarled. “The truth is that we need America
more than it needs us.” “That’s not true,” Shyam said evenly.
“America needs its immigrants just as much.” We glared at
each other, upset and at an impasse. This always happened.
I was desperate to get Shyam to live in America with me and
couldn’t understand why he was being so dense and unrealistic
about it. Why couldn’t he just focus on America’s rewards,
instead of going on and on about transgressions — real and
imagined? Shyam, on the other hand, couldn’t understand why
I was glorifying America at all costs. “Don’t you have any
pride?” he often asked. “I can’t afford to have pride,” I
said. “Be practical. Until this year, I wasn’t even a citizen.”
“Well, I am not going down that route,” Shyam said. “I am
going to spend a couple of years in England and then move
back to India.” I paused and took a deep breath. Our conversations
on this subject always disturbed me. For better or worse,
I measured my life against my brother’s and when he made decisions
that were the exact opposite of mine, I questioned my own
choices. When Shyam talked about racism, it finally brought
to mind all those instances when I had felt it but brushed
it off — the patronizing Columbia journalism professor who
assumed I couldn’t understand English, the rude salesclerk
who enunciated every word when he spoke to me, the redneck
in the pickup truck who had honked all the way while following
me on a single-lane dirt road in Alabama, and many others.
To pull yourself up by the roots and move to a faraway land,
it is not enough to be lured by distant attractions. You have
to find your present existence odious enough to let go of
it, to fly away as I had done from India. Shyam had had enough
of Chicago, of America, and was ready to flee to London. I,
on the other hand, didn’t dislike America enough to pick up
and leave. Living in New York was easy and stimulating, which
was why it was so hard to consider anything else. “Don’t you
miss India?” Shyam asked. “Don’t you miss home?” “Oh, get
lost,” I replied.
Raising Indian Kids in America
There is a reason why so many immigrants who come to America
never move back to their home countries, even if they — like
me, the Nigerian cabdriver or Priscilla the pretzel lady — may
long to. Many of us, even the ones who love our homelands, have
gotten used to the ease and efficiency of America. I, for one,
had lost the ability to cope with constant elbowing and jostling
that living in a populous, resource-constrained society like
India demanded. New York was good practice but it was still
not India. The combination of circumstances that facilitate
moving back to India is so rare as to render it almost impossible:
one spouse wants to move back but the other doesn’t; both spouses
want to move but the children don’t; the family is dependent
on an American income — not just for themselves but for an extended
clan back home. Even if money were not a factor, uprooting a
family involves numerous decisions — which city to move to,
what job to take, whether to work or to live on American savings.
By the time a husband and wife argue, agree and finally decide,
time may have flown and the kids, too, may have flown the coop.
We knew some friends in that situation who had talked for years
about moving back and now talked about “retiring” to their hometown.
“Sometimes, I wish I were one of those lucky Indians who has
no desire to move back, ever,” I told Ram. “I wish I were one
of those people who are able to put the old country behind them
and live happily ever after.” “A lot of them don’t,” Ram replied.
“Pierre goes back to France three times a year. Tomas still
has his parents in Uruguay. Avi visits Israel with his American
wife. But they’ve all figured out one thing.” He smiled. “Life
really is better over here in America.” I pushed the food around
on my plate and nodded, unconvinced. We had just found out that
I was pregnant with our second child, and were ecstatic. But
the nausea had made me averse to all food. “Come on,” Ram said.
“We don’t have a bad life here. You love New York, we have a
nice home, I have a decent job, we have friends, family. What’s
not to love?” “I am just worried about our kids growing up as
Indian-Americans,” I said. “Hyphenated identities are tricky,
especially ones where the two parts are as different as India
and America.” “They are not radically different.” “Oh come on,”
I said. “Americans eat sweet things for breakfast. Indians eat
hot and spicy foods first thing in the morning. American kids
sleep separately from when they are a month old. Ranjini sleeps
in our bed and she is four.” “What’s your point?” “Indian parenting
is all about hanging on to your kids and smothering them and
preserving their innocence for as long as possible. In America,
it is all about independence — separating them, teaching them
to become strong and independent individuals.” “Both ways have
their merits.” “You can’t choose both,” I said. India Knowledge@Wharton
Special Report
“Best of both worlds,” Ram repeated. I shook my head. As
a nation, America treated foreigners better than most others.
It wasn’t perfect, to be sure; many immigrants in America
face prejudice. But it was the least imperfect of all systems.
My aunt had lived in Singapore for years but still could not
own an apartment there because she was not Singaporean. Many
of my cousins had emigrated to the Gulf countries like Abu
Dhabi and Kuwait but had many restrictions imposed on their
investments because they were not natives. America had denied
me almost nothing because I was a foreigner. I had gone from
being a young girl with a suitcase and very little cash to
a middle-aged mother with an awful lot of possessions. I could
own a home, invest money and vote in the next Presidential
election. It had been good to me, this nation of 300 million
people, just as it had been good to the Silicon Valley Indians
who arrived as nervous students and ended up as entrepreneurs-turned-millionaires.
Yet many — if not most of them — worked in American software
companies, bought American products and then retreated into
a world that was unequivocally Indian. They combined American
comfort with Indian culture. The best of both worlds, they
said, and it was hard to argue with that. Had I lived in Silicon
Valley, I could see myself falling into the comfort and convenience
of doing just that. But what was the point of living in America
but shunning its culture? What was the point of living in
America but socializing just with Indians? When I met like-minded
friends of a certain age with young kids, an oft-repeated
lament amongst us all was how simple and great life was back
in India and how confusing and difficult it was raising Indian
kids in America. Part of this was nostalgia, part of it, amnesia
— the kind that glosses over realities and assumes that the
grass is always greener on the other side of the ocean. A
lot of it was ignorance. Most of us had leapt across the precipice
of youth and emerged in America as fully formed adults. The
India we knew and remembered was devoid of adult responsibility.
I, for instance, had never opened a bank account in India.
Nor had I applied for a job, tried to get a telephone connection,
bought a house or a car. I had done all these things in America
with astonishing ease yet yearned for the “simple” life back
home. Several Indians I knew had made “firm” plans to go back
home by a certain year. There were always postponements: to
get a promotion, pay off a mortgage, finish a school year
or wait for options to vest. There were always reasons to
remain. And so I remained, a slave to opportunity, an Indian
in New York, a paradox.
The Cost of Leaving
One night after Ram and Ranjini were asleep, I got on the
Internet and went to a website that Shyam had told me about.
It was called “Return2India” and it was full of people like
me, caught in the dilemma of choosing between their homeland
and their adopted land. “Two pieces of advice to prospective
returnees,” wrote DolphinOne. “Both spouses should take a
full month off to settle in; and two, you should move back
with sufficient savings. It’s nice to be nostalgic, but India
is great only if you have the cash. No question about it.”
This prompted a spirited thread about how much cash was “enough.”
Some said $300,000; others said $25 million. One post from
“Loyal Indian” said that $640,000 was all that was needed
to retire in India. “Do we have $640,000 saved up?” I asked
Ram a few days later.
“Why?” “That’s the amount of money we need to move back to
India,” I said. Ram stared at me. “You’re serious about this?”
“Well, I am just exploring the possibility,” I replied defensively.
“You are nuts,” he said. “We’ve worked so hard to come up
the ranks. Just when we’ve reached a comfortable plateau,
instead of heaving a sigh of relief and enjoying life, you
want to throw it all away and move back to India. Why?” “Why
not?” I asked. “All our friends talk about it, everyone dreams
about it, but no one is able to pull it off.” “With good reason,”
Ram replied. “Don’t you remember what Rahid said?” Rahid was
a well-known author and policy-wonk who appeared frequently
on network television. Like many others, he both loved and
despaired for India. He missed certain things about it, he
said, but would never consider moving back for a variety of
well-considered reasons: religious fundamentalism, pollution,
the slow pace of economic reform, collapsing infrastructure.
I had heard the list before. “India is such a lost cause,”
said Rahid. Well, I was a sucker for lost causes. But it was
more than that. I had started thinking of our return to India
as something we needed to do to prove to ourselves, and to
others, that it was possible. It would be a grand message,
our return — an inspiration for legions of Indians to move
back home. They would start companies, fuel India’s economy
and put it back on the map. A nation would rise, and all because
of one small act. Recycling, going organic, moving to India.
Why not? Ram interrupted my fantasy. “Our life is not a cause,”
he said. “We don’t have to prove anything to anybody.” He
was right, of course. This wasn’t a cause. It was our life.
“Look, I know you miss India,” Ram said. “I do too. But moving
back may not be the best thing for us as a family. In fact,
it could be the biggest mistake we make.” “You think I haven’t
thought of that?” I asked. “You think I haven’t envisioned
scenarios where Ranjini gets some rare Indian disease because
of the pollution, where I get killed in one of those horrible
traffic jams in Madras, and you get kidnapped and India
tortured by the Bombay Mafia? You think I haven’t
thought of all this?” Ram’s jaw dropped. “You actually think
up gory scenarios like this? I was merely thinking of difficulties
with school admission and finding a place to live, not rare
Indian diseases and the Bombay Mafia.” “I have a vivid imagination,”
I muttered. I took a deep breath. “Look, I know this sounds
corny, but don’t you want to give back to the land that nurtured
us?” “You can give back from here,” Ram replied. “We can contribute
money to any number of charities in India.” “Don’t you want
Ranjini to get to know her grandparents?” I asked. “It is easier
if we are in India.” “That I agree,” Ram said. “But that is
not a good enough reason to move.” I had run out of arguments.
“I ... just don’t want ... to look back ten years from now and
regret it. I don’t want to be one of those Indians who dreams
forever of retiring in India.” “And that’s your main reason
for moving back.” I nodded. “Not good enough for me,” he said.
“This Is Our Life”
One evening, Ram came home early. As soon as I opened the
door, I could tell that something was going on. “How badly
do you want to move to India?” he asked as soon as he walked
in. We stared at each other for a moment. He was dead serious.
“What happened?” I asked. “A senior guy on the emerging markets
team is quitting to start a hedge fund,” Ram said. “I am thinking
of raising my hand and expressing an interest in it.” I didn’t
know very much about Ram’s business, but I did know that “emerging
markets” were countries predominantly in Asia and Latin America.
India was one of them. If Ram joined the emerging markets
division, it would mean travel to Asia, to India. Perhaps
we could move there. The thought made me smile. “Don’t get
your hopes up,” Ram responded. “Even if I raise my hand, they
may not hire me. The two divisions are quite different. Even
if they hired me, it doesn’t mean that we will move. India
is a financial backwater as far as Wall Street is concerned.”
“Then why are you thinking of changing divisions?” I asked.
“Because an emerging markets job will bring me closer to India
compared to where I am now. It will at least allow me to travel
there a couple of times a year,” he said. “Go for it,” I said.
“But once I make this move, you can’t change your mind and
say you want to stay in America forever,” Ram warned. “I am
changing career paths here, and it has all kinds of consequences.”
“Hey, don’t hold me responsible for your career,” I said.
“Do it only if you want to. I mean, clearly you don’t want
to move back to India.”
Ram rolled his eyes. “Look, the India you have in mind is
a fantasy,” he said. “It doesn’t exist. You are thinking of
your childhood. All of that has changed now. India is polluted,
crowded, economically mismanaged. Life there is hard.” “Then
why are you changing divisions?” I asked. “Because I want
to give this thing ... India ... a shot,” Ram said. “When
I go back home, my father won’t even let me change a lightbulb.
My mother fusses over me like I am a guest. I want to be a
son — to my parents and yours. I think they’ve earned it.”
“And that’s the only reason?” I asked. Ram nodded. “The only
reason you want to move back is for your parents’ sake?” I
asked again. “That’s it for me,” he said. I shook my head.
“That is not good enough,” I said. “You’ve got to come up
with more. Parents are not forever.” “Look, unlike you, I
don’t have all these Indian fantasies of wearing jasmine in
my hair and going to concerts,” Ram said. “I don’t have a
visceral love for India. If I could get our parents to move
here, I would not even consider moving back. I like America.
I like the seasons, the systems, the efficiency, the people,
the workplace, everything.” “Then we shouldn’t move,” I said.
“Because you’ll hate India and want to move right back in
two months or less.” “That’s not true,” Ram said. “I also
recognize that we have a set of circumstances that are unique.
We would be fools not to take advantage of them. We get along
with each other’s families, the kids are still young, parents
are healthy, and we’ve saved some money. So if we must move
back, it has to be soon.” “Must move back?’” I imitated Ram.
“It’s like pulling teeth for you, isn’t it? Why are you so
down on India?” “I am not,” Ram shouted. “Unlike you, I am
just realistic.” We stared at each other, our eyes both accusing
and defensive. “Why are you so hung up about moving back?”
Ram asked. I thought for a minute. How could I explain the
love of a land that had snuck up on me so gradually that I
wasn’t even aware of it until someone questioned it? “At first,
I thought we should move back for the kids’ sake,” I began
hesitantly. “But now, I realize that the kids will be fine
here, and in fact, they will thrive in America just as they
would in India. Then I thought we should move back for our
parents’ sake. But even that is not a good enough reason.
I think the real reason I want to move back is ....” I struggled
for the words. “I don’t want to wake up as an old woman and
wonder, ‘What if?’ It may be horrible for all of us in India,
although I doubt it. We may even question the decision two
years later and decide to come back to New York. But I think
that if we ... if I hanker for it so much, we should at least
give it a shot. Better to try and fail than not to have tried
at all.” “Well, it is a costly experiment,” Ram replied. “And
this is not a game. This is our life. We can’t afford to fail.
We have to make it work.” The wheels were set in motion.
Epilogue: October 2007
Today, as I walked my daughter, Ranjini, to her school bus,
I saw a snake charmer playing his pipe at a hooded cobra. I
laughed at the rare but stereotypical sight. This is India,
I told my 10-year-old. Anything can happen on the streets —
and usually does. Ranjini smiled and nodded. She’s heard this
one before. We ambled on. At 7:00 in the morning, Bangalore
is somnolent. It will be a while before the bustling call centers
and outsourcing companies that have put this small South Indian
city at the center of a global maelstrom wake up to action.
Having moved to Bangalore only a couple of years ago, my family
is still getting used to the rhythms of Indian life. Our morning
walk to the school bus is as good a place
I don’t want to wake up as an old woman and wonder, ‘What
if?’ ...
Better to try and fail than not to have tried at all.
India Knowledge@Wharton Special Report
20 as any to acclimatize: We see few things that remind us of
our recent life in Manhattan. There are uniformed school children,
just as there were on Central Park West when we walked uptown.
But here in India, there are flower-ladies balancing baskets
of fragrant jasmine on their heads; vegetable vendors hawking
their wares with ululating cries; rumbling, fuming trucks (or
“lorries,” as they are called here) carrying sacks of potatoes;
auto-rickshaws stuffed with school children; and hundreds of
scooters, mopeds and motorbikes. There are strange and interesting
sights, so different from New York: two men riding a motorbike
with a goat straddled between them; a beggar who sleeps on the
median, oblivious to the traffic around him; and yes, there
are “holy cows” eating on billboards. We stand at the street
corner and wait for the bus
· Ranjini
eating her jam sandwich and me sipping my coffee. Suddenly,
she asks, “Mom, why did we leave America?” I freeze. This
question keeps coming up. I hate answering it because it tells
me that my two daughters still miss the States. So I dodge.
“How has it been for you in India since we moved back,” I
ask in reply. This question, too, keeps coming up. “How has
it been since you moved back to India?” All my friends in
America want to know — all those people who knew how conflicted
I was about moving back to India now check in with us. The
short answer to the question is: Great! But like most generalized
responses, it fails to encompass the shades of gray. I still
miss New York, especially when I watch “Die Hard,” “Seinfeld,”
or any show or movie set in the city. I miss the yellow cabs,
the black-suited men and women with their staccato Wall-Street
walk, the spring flowers in Central Park, the subdued belligerence
of a native New Yorker, the bagels, thin-crust pizzas, the
mix of accents, the Korean deli down the street, Lincoln Center,
summer concerts in Central Park, the Dinosaur Hall at the
Museum of Natural History, molten chocolate cake at Isabella’s
on 79th and Columbus, the natural sophistication
of urban Americans — in New York, L.A., Philly, or Boston.
All this, I miss. Last week, I was in hinterland Rajasthan,
and along came an American tour group. They were loud, they
toted cameras and yes, as the cliché goes, they rolled in
wearing Hawaiian shirts. But they were open and friendly,
loud and cheerful. I struck up a conversation with them. I
couldn’t stop myself. I reveled in the news and tidbits they
offered — about the new TV shows (when I left, “The Sopranos”
hadn’t ended and “Desperate Housewives” was just beginning).
What you see is pretty much what you get with Americans. They
are, by and large, guileless. India is much more complicated.
Conversing with Indians is full of layers, and I am still
learning. My kids, however, have jumped right in, making friends
with the 30-odd Indian kids in our building friendships free
of the caste, class, lineage and net-worth overtones that
somehow still permeate much of India. In India, you can be
best friends with anyone, but subliminally you still know
that they are a Rajput Rathore from Jodhpur whose father was
in the Civil Service and whose mother descended from the Gaekwad
royals of Baroda — or whatever. Where you come from and whose
child you are still matter in India. America, too, has these
dynasties, but as an immigrant, I hardly came in contact with
them.
Immigrants are lucky to be exposed to one of the best things
about America: its meritocracy. My husband misses all this.
He is philosophically more American than Indian. He believes
in capitalism, admires Milton Friedman and emulates America’s
systems and the can-do attitude of its people. Yet, somehow,
India has calmed him down. He is less high-strung here. Having
close family around — even though we don’t see them as much
as we would like — is indeed a cushion. His mother calls him
when she feels like it, not having to worry about the cost of
the call or the time difference. His father calls and they discuss
mundane things like whether it rained last night and weighty
issues like how well the cricket team performed in the One Day
International (ODI). My brother and he play pool. Or badminton.
The cadences and rhythms of India are more peaceful. My kids
miss the States, but theirs is a longing that we have managed
to satiate through transatlantic pouches — Jolly Ranchers, Heelies,
Gap T-shirts, Cheetos or the latest animated film — and the
occasional trip back. They still talk about America to their
Indian friends but not that often. They reminisce about their
friends in New York, but we still keep in touch with the important
ones and they have made new friends here. In New York, I used
to tell my kids about the poor starving kids in India to make
them finish their vegetables. Here, I actually point them out.
Down the road from us is a construction crew that lives in a
shantytown. Among them is a four-year-old girl with limpid eyes
who wears the same clothes every day. She smiles as we walk
to the school bus stop. Malini, my five-year-old, offers her
food and toys. I encourage this. I want my kids to see how privileged
they are — and here in India, it stares them in the face everyday.
I want them to develop compassion and America’s wonderful spirit
of volunteerism. And I want my kids to return to America for
college. Living anywhere is a package deal. No place is perfect,
so you have to choose a place that feels right for your stage
in life — choose and hope that it turns out okay. My niece came
to visit recently. She is just what a young woman ought to be:
thoughtful, curious, considerate and smart as a whip. She grew
up in Florida ; it worked for her. We chose Bangalore for this
stage in our lives. Hopefully it will work out. But for now
... it ain’t bad. It ain’t bad at all.
I want my kids to see how privileged they are — and here
in India , it stares them in the face everyday. I want them
to develop compassion and America ’s wonderful spirit of volunteerism.
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