{"id":896,"date":"2019-03-27T22:21:39","date_gmt":"2019-03-27T16:51:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aradhanamishra.com\/?p=896"},"modified":"2019-03-27T22:21:39","modified_gmt":"2019-03-27T16:51:39","slug":"i-maithili-and-my-nri-cousins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aradhanamishra.in\/?p=896","title":{"rendered":"I, Maithili and my NRI Cousins!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\u201cOh! How good he is with Maithili!\u201d, \u201cDespite staying in America, they are so well versed with their culture\u201d, \u201cChildren here are not half as \u2018Indian\u2019 as the Indian children in foreign land.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just some examples of the sentences I came across as a ten-year-old Indian child staying in India and the recipient of those glorious sentences were my NRI cousins!! They could express themselves so well in a language that is not spoken in their adoptive country. And they were good at everything Indian, like Indian dance, music etc.! I remember, one in particular, was appreciated for reciting \u2018Gayatri Mantra\u2019 every day. Also, he would touch feet of all elders before he began his day! Thankfully, I have never been much sensitive about these kinds of judgement (had I been-\u201cchildren here in India are not half as Indian as them\u201d jibe would have hurt me , you see!) and it didn\u2019t bother me even then, though I did sense that suddenly my mom was imposing \u2018Maithili only at home\u2019 rule on me. Maybe she too wanted some appreciation directed towards her son\u2019s way. That seemed important to her. \u00a0I had felt bewildered. I didn\u2019t understand why suddenly Maithili had become that important. She had inculcated in me the belief and understanding that the language not withstanding, it was more important to articulately convey one\u2019s thoughts . \u00a0She always had been an advocate of \u2018survival of the fittest\u2019 ideology and languages, cultures, traditions fell in that ambit for her. She believed that whichever culture had the strength to provide good living to the human race, shall survive . It made sense to me. Then why this contradiction now! \u00a0Slowly though, this dictate of \u2018Maithili only\u2019 died its own death, to my relief. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has been some years since and I do understand quite a few things about life and culture now but still find myself at a loss about certain things, especially about the two extreme behavioral patterns- one by the NRIs and another by the resident Indians!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first one is, why do NRIs become so obsessive about Indian culture! What is it that makes them enroll their kids for kathak classes or Ramayana recital classes on the weekends! Why, despite living off the benefits of their adoptive countries, they continue \u2018yearning\u2019 for the \u2018Indianness\u2019! Incidentally, they want their children to have the same set of values that they themselves grew up with, sans the same surrounding! \u00a0Is it their love for their country? But if that was the case, why did they leave it at the first place! Why didn\u2019t they lend their expertise for the benefit of their \u2018motherland\u2019! And even now if they see such merits in the \u2018Indian culture\u2019 and its way of thinking, they should rather pack off and head back home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In reality, this \u2018Indianness\u2019 has got nothing to do with India, has never been! As it turns out \u2018the foreign social status\u2019 gets too big to consider that (coming back).\u00a0 Stuck in the vicious cycle of money and social pressures, they are not able to break away from the social barriers to return back home. Instead, they look for ways to imbibe Indian culture and traditions into their kin and tell people back home that their kids are more culturally inclined than any Indian kid could be. While in some cases this might be true, in most of the cases these are statements to satisfy the self from the guilt of not being able to return to their roots. Also, it provides them a kind of moral strength to survive in a foreign land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, one cannot expect to have the cake and the cherry both. But then that\u2019s their battle to win (or lose).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Personally, I feel alright about this whole \u2018move\u2019 to a new country for better prospects, life style, professionalism. Since time immemorial, people have been explorers, moving from one place to another in search of food, shelter, good living! And hey ! Who wouldn\u2019t like to go and work at a place where one can earn enough even at the entry level to visit different countries and explore the world, who wouldn\u2019t like to go\u00a0 to a place where ones work is the only criteria for promotion, where one gets an opportunity to experience different cultures ! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I do not feel alright about is, the baggage of forced cultural notions for reasons that\u2019s anything but organic!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second one that I still am to figure out is, why do Indian people start behaving differently in the presence of their NRI relatives! My mom suddenly bursts into her fake \u2018Priyanka Chopraish\u2019 American accent while talking to my cousins or will start using her chaste Maithili. It\u2019s her \u2018Dude, I too care for my culture\u2019 look- more for the benefit of other listeners than the cousins!\u00a0 Also, increasingly I am getting the invite to Halloween parties! ‘Baby shower’ pics on my timeline is a regular now ! Some of my friends are planning to be a part of \u2018Tomatina\u2019 in Bangalore! Wonder if we didn\u2019t have enough festivals, rituals already! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interestingly, the answer to both these extremes lies in one explanation- We all are in a constant search for something that exhibit us in a certain way- a way that makes us feel secured- sometimes at emotional level and sometimes at aspirational level. \u00a0While the NRI set is constantly in search of \u2018emotional anchoring\u2019 and finds that via \u2018cultural activities\u2019 in their adoptive country, we in India follow our aspirational needs and imitate all things that\u2019s a part of \u2018developed world\u2019. It\u2019s so not misplaced to notice that this trend is increasing at the same rate as the rising income levels of the people here. Our \u2018cultural- emotional needs\u2019 well taken care of, it\u2019s the \u2018aspirational needs\u2019 that we long to fulfill and prove to the world that we are at par, by hosting and attending parties that\u2019s completely out of sync- no one is complaining though! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But to me, this seems as forced as the NRIs carrying the baggage of \u2018Indianness\u2019! Clearly I have to walk a long way to understand more about these things. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Copyright \u00a9 Aradhana Mishra <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cOh! How good he is with Maithili!\u201d, \u201cDespite staying in America, they are so well versed with their culture\u201d, \u201cChildren here are not half as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":897,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[36,80,129,188,222,299],"class_list":["post-896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social","tag-baby-shower","tag-culture","tag-halloween","tag-maithili","tag-nri","tag-tradition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aradhanamishra.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aradhanamishra.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aradhanamishra.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aradhanamishra.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aradhanamishra.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aradhanamishra.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aradhanamishra.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aradhanamishra.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aradhanamishra.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aradhanamishra.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}