Feel like cringing at the worn Bollywood plot of \u2018Boy and girl fall in love, and their families go ballistic\u2019? Well, sadly, art continues to imitate life for many Indian-Americans!<\/p>\n
I write as an American desi girl thrown into a whirlwind of culture, tradition and allegiance by her parents\u2019 yearning for their motherland.<\/p>\n
My mom came to the United States from India in the early 1970s, at the age of 20.\u00a0 She journeyed by herself, bright-eyed, heart full of dreams, and hands and feet ready to work towards making a better life for herself and her entire family back home in Kerala, India.\u00a0 She was recruited as a registered nurse to work for an American hospital that had a shortage of nurses.\u00a0 She worked hard and looked forward to marriage and raising kids in this land of opportunity.\u00a0 In time she was married and my brother and I also came into being!<\/p>\n
Like most parents, my mother and father wanted their children\u2019s lives to be better than theirs.\u00a0 And, boy, were they proud to raise me in America!<\/p>\n
Yet, they continually struggled with the fear of losing their grip on their homeland.\u00a0 The traditions and culture they held on to were ingrained in them.\u00a0 They feared, though, that as my brothers and I grew up we would become so assimilated in the American way that we would lose sight of our Indian heritage and the \u2018right\u2019 way.<\/p>\n
My family was very religious, so church and Indian culture was much like breathing.\u00a0 What it meant was that I became mashed and moulded into this ball of Indian and American\u2026 but mostly Indian ball.<\/p>\n
It was an untold rule at home that dating would be forbidden.\u00a0 I knew that I was expected not to talk to any boys and to be, against the grain of my personality, a gentle Indian flower that they could present to relatives and members of the desi community as their prized offspring.<\/p>\n
Everything my parents did was out of love and out of fear.\u00a0 They did not want to mess up in raising children in an unfamiliar America.\u00a0 My parents very well knew the peer pressure and mainstream American culture that went against much of what they believed in.<\/p>\n
So, my life growing up was a constant struggle between two very different worlds.\u00a0 Blue jeans and T-shirts at school and salwar kameez at church and home.\u00a0 I was taught from a young age how to make chai and perfectly round rotis<\/em> so that when people would visit they would say \u201cWow, look at Raju\u2019s daughter!\u00a0 They did such a good job raising her in our culture!\u201d\u00a0 Then would come the jokes from the friends and family about one day finding me the perfect husband from India.\u00a0 These jokes made me feel so uncomfortable.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t want to have an arranged marriage.\u00a0 Yet, voicing this was unthinkable because we never talked about love and relationships in our home.\u00a0 It was a taboo topic.\u00a0 When I was older it was clear within my family that I would have an arranged marriage and that that was all I needed to know.<\/p>\n I\u2019d watch movies and listen to music that talked about love and my heart would just well up at the idea of being in love.\u00a0 I hoped that maybe one day I could have a boyfriend.\u00a0 I dreamed about a beautiful romance with the love of my life.\u00a0 I dreamed of dates and how it would be to see my date at the door with flowers.\u00a0 I could picture him say, \u201cI have no words to describe how beautiful you look tonight.\u00a0 I really am the luckiest man on the planet.\u201d I imagined I would blush and smile.\u00a0 Perhaps we would go to a nice restaurant.\u00a0 I would be all dolled up.\u00a0 I fluttered at the thought of doors and chairs being pulled out for me.\u00a0 I envisioned my Prince getting down on one knee, with tears in his eyes, asking me to marry him and I would exclaim \u201cYes!!!\u201d<\/p>\n My days and nights were lived in this dreamy cloud of wanting to be like my other American friends.\u00a0 I realized at the age of 18 that those dreams were to come to a crashing hault.\u00a0 My parents started putting pressure on me to get married.\u00a0 I would run into my room crying.\u00a0 I felt like I couldn\u2019t fight them back, and any objection I showed was counteracted with emotional blackmail stemming from their own fears.\u00a0 (\u201cWe have an image in the community to maintain and a culture to uphold.\u201d)<\/p>\n If anyone were to think I had fallen in love before marriage, or even simply known the guy in any way, it would be a shameful thing.\u00a0 My parents\u2019 only way to make sure that no one would ever wag their tongues about the origin of my marriage was to find a boy from India.\u00a0 They began placing a matrimonial ad for me in Indian newspapers and proposal letters with pictures attached began flooding in from India.<\/p>\n I was so heartbroken and sad.\u00a0 My gut told me that this was all wrong.\u00a0 I needed to know more about the man I would marry.\u00a0 When my ailing mother asked me in a pleading voice to allow them to take me to India to get married, I knew that I had been emotionally swayed to the point of sacrificing my own life and happiness for my family\u2019s honor and my parents\u2019 happiness.<\/p>\n This aspect of life \u2013\u00a0love and marriage \u2013 is one of the biggest challenges that desi kids raised in the west by traditional Indian parents struggle with.\u00a0 The next time you watch a Bollywood movie and feel like cringing at the worn plot of \u2018Boy meets girl, they fall in love, and all hell breaks loose among their families\u2019, remember this: Art continues to imitate life for many of us, and painfully so!\u00a0 Indeed, this struggle between who I am as an American and as an Indian is at times more than I can bear, and I continue to be torn between my two worlds.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Stacy A. is an American desi\u00a0\u2013 a proud American and a proud Indian! \u00a0She tweets at@AFemaleView<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Image courtesy of keith_rock<\/a> via Creative Commons<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Editor’s note:<\/p>\n Here are some thoughts from another non-resident Indian on what it is like to be in India: Hear From a Young NRI from Qatar<\/a>.<\/p>\n