Dealing with the Distance

How I learned to embrace my Indian heritage

Art by Isha Mitra and Ricky Riley | VOX Staff

By Isha Mitra | VOX Staff

At 1 a.m. in Calcutta, India a few weeks ago, my grandfather felt sharp pains in his abdomen and started bleeding profusely. My grandmother, white with worry, called my aunts and uncles who stumbled out into the heavy rain, found a taxi, and rushed my grandfather to the hospital. There, he underwent immediate, successful surgery to repair a blockage in his kidneys. For the next few days, my relatives came and went, bringing fresh samosas and pakoras to his bedside and praying everyday.

But 3,000 miles away in Atlanta, my parents and I only learned what happened through short, worried phone calls. Completely removed from our family, all we could do was wait tensely in the living room, hoping that it would turn out for the best.

Such incidents don’t happen too often, but as my grandparents get older, they’re bound to occur more and more. As a daughter of Indian immigrants, I find one of the hardest things to handle is my detachment from relatives in India. This not only leads me feeling helpless when a crisis hits far away; it is also much harder to learn about Indian traditions and society without a large family to teach me. I’m starting to fear that my lack of connection to my Indian roots will ultimately lead to a loss of my identity as an Indian American—something I hope to avoid at all costs.

I Felt Out of Place in India
Perhaps this fear first awakened as my parents and I started visiting India more frequently as I got older, compensating for the fact that my grandparents weren’t healthy enough to complete the 18-hour journey. Since I was 12 years old, we have visited India twice every year. Once we step out of the plane in Calcutta and enter the arrival gates, a dozen relatives in saris pour out and smother us, exclaiming about how unnaturally tall and skinny I’ve become. Overwhelmed with all these people, attention, and unbearable heat, I wearily walk out of the airport with my energized family members.

Although I am ecstatic to see my grandparents—I am, after all, their only granddaughter—for years there were always moments when I displayed my embarrassing lack of knowledge about Indian social customs. At weddings, I was always the one who needed help putting on my sari or had no idea what exactly was going on. At meals, I had trouble eating the strong, smelly fish that makes up much of traditional Bengali food. So my aunts and uncles would kindly cook milder Indian food for me, not knowing that this only humiliated me more.

Even speaking to my relatives posed a problem, because my Bengali was shaky. Though most family members were nice enough not to show these thoughts too plainly, I always had the distinct impression that they were discussing my “Americaness” and shocking lack of language ability behind my back.
In other words, I didn’t fit in.

I Realized I was Missing Out
So despite the attraction of seeing my family, I dreaded my trips to India and started to distance myself from it. During middle school, my parents had to force me to talk to my grandparents over the phone, and even then, I only spoke for a few minutes. Also, I refused to go to special and important religious celebrations like Durga Puja or Diwali, and my Bengali became even worse. None of this bothered me then, because I was more focused on fitting in with my friends, reading trashy magazines and dealing with boys. I wasn’t trying to reject my Indian roots. They just weren’t important to me.

Then, when I was in the seventh grade, my maternal grandmother passed away from a sudden heart attack. A writer and a feminist, she had won prestigious awards for her social work in helping to bring about more equality for women. Although my mom flew back to India for the funeral, I could not go with her because of school exams. The last time I spoke to her was three weeks before her death.
Her death came as shock to me, not only because it was so sudden but also because
I had always regarded my grandmother as the strongest woman I knew. But did I really know her that well? Looking back, I realized that I hadn’t taken advantage of my trips to India and the valuable time
I spent with her.

Reconnecting with my Indian Culture
My grandmother’s death was a wakeup call for me. I knew it was time I started to take more interest in both my country and my family. So, rather than dreading my India trips, I attempted to make them better. First of all, I told my parents to only speak to me in Bengali. Although it was extremely difficult at first, it paid off. I can now clearly communicate with my relatives every time I go to India, which not only makes the experience better, but it allows me to get closer to my family members as I learn more about them.

Also, I pay more attention during religious celebrations and weddings. When I am in India, I have even started making an effort to observe traditional customs such as touching the feet of elders in greeting and eating all my food with my hands. Though my relatives still view me as the “American girl,” my parents, excited that I’m taking such steps to know more about my culture, have started organizing amazing trips all over India. They don’t hesitate to converse with me in Bengali, and my father has started lecturing me about the interesting and not-so-interesting details of Indian history.

Keeping India with me in America
At school, my internal changes involving India and my family don’t manifest themselves strongly. Like any other teenager, I still worry about grades, college, friends, boys, etc. My Indian connections don’t play a huge part in my day-to-day life at school.

But they do become important when I travel to India. This past summer, I went to Calcutta for my uncle’s wedding and to visit my family. I don’t know exactly what I expected, but I certainly didn’t think it would be so much fun. I got to hang out with my cousins as well as talk to them in Bengali. I never understood just how good Indian food was until I ate daal, chicken curry and even more at the wedding.
My grandparents and I became closer. And despite the heat I always found so unbearable, I was able to go out and have a great time.

Although I’ve become closer to my family, it’s a double-edged sword. Now more than ever, I’m aware of the tears in my grandparents’ eyes when I leave India. I can hear their voices choke up as I talk to them on the phone. All of the sudden, I feel that visiting my family twice a year is just not enough.
In many ways, it is now much harder to deal with the distance between my family and me.
But I still don’t regret the changes I’ve made. I have started appreciating my country and my roots as I take the initiative to learn more about them. In my everyday life in America, my ties to India don’t make a huge difference, but I know that as I get older, they’ll become more and more important. I do hope that first-generation American teens out there will not forget their backgrounds, despite the craziness of high school life. Because our families and cultures are important parts of who we are, and we should never forget them.

Isha is a junior at Westminster.