Chasing India

I am proudly Indian-American. I was born in London and raised my entire life in Connecticut. I only moved to California when I was 32. I led a pretty sheltered life on the east coast – having mostly American friends and occasionally accompanying my parents to what my sister and I would call “some Indian function”. There was always a connection to India though – my parents painfully and carefully made sure that every summer of our lives was spent in Bombay (now Mumbai), where they were from. But still, when I was younger, I was embarrassed to not be American. The only cool thing was in the 2000’s when Indian jewelry and fashion finally became popular in the west.

When I hit my twenties, I did what any typical first-generation girl would do – I became “lost”. And so I set out to find my roots. At age 27, I backpacked India for one year, staying with family in Mumbai and making excursions to places like Varanasi, Delhi, Kerala and Tamil Nadu for months at a time. It was during this year of my life that I discovered yoga and meditation (two practices that have defined me since then). I found a love for India, for its people and for its culture that far outweighed my family connections, and long after my sister and I were old enough to make our own decisions about travel, I kept going back.

Now in my late thirties, I return to my home country twice per year. My parents moved back eight years ago, so I go to visit them. My sister remains in Connecticut, blissfully unattached to India and visits once every five years, only if there is an important event. Me? I never quite determined where I was from and continue to spend my life searching for an answer. This means that India is constantly in the back of my head, and many of my life decisions (career, geographic location) are made in terms of how that will bring me to an end in my country of origin.

I call this syndrome “Chasing India”. And what I have learned about India over a period of 38 years is both hopeful and hopeless. Do I believe India will become a superpower one day? No (but I wish it would). Do I think the people of India are holding their own country back? Yes (but I wish they weren’t). And finally, do I feel that India is in limbo because of the arrested mental development of its people? 100%. The conservative mental state of Indians still living in the past of British rule with archaic ideas and concerned more with the social fabric of society than with the infrastructure is what will not only hold the country back, but destroy it. This is my belief, and I wish it wasn’t so.

Some examples: When I was younger, my Indian aunties and uncles (the older generation) would say to my parents, “We know you are raising your children in America, but you must bring them here frequently, so that they can know their roots and be Indian”. And so, like that, we packed up ten suitcases on the day after school finished every summer and flew Pan Am for thousands of dollars halfway around the world. When I think of what my parents went through to keep India in our lives, it brings tears to my eyes. But what’s even more saddening is what those same aunties and uncles would say when we arrived, “Oh! You are so American. We don’t do that here! You won’t understand. You don’t do that in your country”. And so the line was drawn – we were always invited to come, but never invited to stay.

Last week, I returned from a three-week trip back to my country of unrequited love. For the past six years, I have worked with startups throughout Silicon Valley. A common theme is that many of them have offices in Bangalore. Suddenly, India was in my face all the time. Not only did I have family there, but the world was taking notice. India is another tech center! Bangalore is the new Silicon Valley! If you have a Palo Alto office, your second office must be in India! And so on, and so forth.

But even though tech was seeping into a country full of young, ambitious minds, the culture was not changing. The open mindedness that Silicon Valley permeates was not seeping into India. The infrastructure was not getting better. The politicians and police were still corrupt. And society still believed that a woman could not publicly speak about who she was dating. This was India – the same India from my first visit at age five. And it had not changed since, except only to allow more expats and business travelers in, update the international airports, and become a back-end destination for software. You’ll realize that software is actually intangible – much like a lot of India’s boastful progress has been. None of it actually exists.

At dinner a few weeks ago, in a swanky restaurant in south Mumbai, I said to two of my India-based girlfriends, “I think he has a crush on her! I think he really likes her!”. Suddenly, I was met with cold silences. And then was given “the lecture”: “You cannot say that!” my friend exclaimed. “I know you aren’t from here, so I know you don’t understand, but you can’t say someone likes someone because what if anyone found out and it caused a lot of problems for them?”

Huh?

At a second dinner at the Cricket Club of India, the conversation between three married couples centered around how India is not what it used to be, and how they cannot relate to the emerging nationalized masses. “Wait,” I interrupted, “how often do you talk about this? Every time you meet?” There was a long silence and then finally the man who had been speaking said, “Yes. We do talk about this every time we meet”. There was laughter all around the table, but it was hollow. It seemed like everyone knew that they were stuck, but no one could break past the mental barrier – or even wanted to. For breaking past the mental barrier would mean giving up cars and drivers, staff in your home, and the social class that comes from being within a certain crowd.

It’s not just the mental barrier that socio-economic status brings that is holding India back, however. If this was the only reason, India would stabilize within the next fifty years. Instead, I tend to think about India like a traumatized child. It was abused and exploited by an extremely violent United Kingdom. However, this was also the same country that mothered it, built infrastructure, buildings and rail transportation. They built schools and hospitals. They brought some semblance of rationale to chaos. And in truth - to this day - India has a “white complex”. Most advertisements for Indian cosmetics or goods have white or European models in them, despite their target audience being locally native. Many will argue with me here, for Indian nationalism runs long and deep – even I have it in my blood, despite being so removed. But the truth is, an India without order is an India of wild animals. The call of the wild runs true to every Indian; I cannot explain this in words or help those in the west to understand. And because of this free spirit, there is no order - there are no rules. Instead, nature takes care of its own, both in death and in karma. In fact, India only functions best in chaos, a long admitted observation both by foreign nationals and visitors.

Another thing to keep in mind here is the lack of education to the masses. In a country still built on personal relationships rather than laws, it is hard to gain cooperation to build much infrastructure, including schools or the provision of good teachers. Further, the somewhat cavalier nature of rape as a cultural expression is predominant among the masses, with only the educated being able to really understand the implications or create process and legal procedures that move forward at an acceptable pace. This is a constant battle in India, one that leaks into the schools and workplaces, creating drastic fear which is not suitable for a learning or working environment (the foundations for progress, evolving and moving forward), much less life in general.

On many levels, India holds itself back, but is not aware of how they do so. By nature, the country is loving, but not optimistic. It is warm, but critical. And it is ambitious, but closed-minded. The ancient deity or Goddess is the reason for good luck, not hard work. And the office is a place to bring home money, not to change the world. I believe India wants to find its place in the global economy, but the culture is so complex, that until it figures itself out, it won’t be able to contribute in any way more meaningful to the world than to provide back- office outsourcing. 

And for a girl like me, a die-hard India-phile with the honor of also having Indian blood, that is really, really sad. Will India not be a place my own children will be able to call home one day? A place where they will be accepted and forgiven for the sins of their fathers - the sin of being only one generation removed? So far, it does not look like it.

*This article was written in reference to the 1% of India – the ones who have the education and money to make the changes the country so desperately needs, but remain stagnant in their close-mindedness. It is truly a great injustice to this (and the next) generation.