The Milano Has Landed!

Thanks for all your great comments on my posts!  There seem to be many more blogs these days on Indian/American relationships than when I started looking a year ago–lots of good resources and perspectives now!

So I titled this post “adaptation” because I wanted to write about how the chips are falling on my end.  After having the chance to get to know R’s family a bit, asking more questions, and feeling many feelings (good, bad, resentful, surprised), I think I have a decent sense of where R and my relationship is headed.  After the big reneg on the India invite, the “make a commitment!” demands from his parents, and their general “not knowing how to act around me” I was pissy and mad for a while that they just didn’t “get it.”  Allow me to let you in to the nitty gritty thoughts that went through my head: “They live HERE, not INDIA!  They should adapt (or have adapted a while ago)!!” “Those damn bloggers on CBC were right!” “Why won’t all my experiences/knowledge of India/Indians WORK here?!?!?!”  Call it the eye of the storm, or hopefully adaptation in my mind, but I’ve managed to get past must of this exasperation.  Here’s why:

I called up about 4 friends and explained my situation, bitched and moaned after R wanted to go see his family again and I didn’t.  The first 3 didn’t know what the heck to do, but the last gave me something I haven’t stopped chewing on.  She said basically, “Screw ‘em!”  I was like, “What?!  I can’t do that I have to work with this situation.”  She articulated, “Listen I’m not saying you need to start WW III here.  I’m just saying you’ve worked it A LOT for his family, really gave it your all…now pull back.  If R wants to go visit his family and you really would rather not…don’t.  Just don’t do anything you don’t want to any more.  You’ve done the very best anyone could have in the situation.  Now just chill and only do what makes you feel comfortable.”  And she added, “Just focus on your relationship with R and that’s all you need to do.”

So I decided, no more extending my caring and concern for R’s family farther than I wanted.  That weekend I let R go alone to his family visit.  I stopped asking about how his family was doing all the time and how they were feeling about our relationship.  I let him have his time with his folks and did my own thing — and it felt great.  I missed him, but now that we have been in the same city for a while, the break was fine and I would see him in a few days.  And I didn’t care if his parents wondered why I didn’t come either.  I’m just going to let them think what they want, not let it bug me so much, and do my thing.  Before talking to my friend, it tore me up a little that his parents/family made me feel so uncomfortable to the point that I didn’t want to visit.  But then I just let it go and let R go on his own.  Same thing with the India trip.  After thinking about all the drama and scandal that it would have caused if I went with him “uncommitted” I thought I’d just spare myself some discomfort.

And I am prepared to take this approach in the future, too.  If things don’t change between his family and I R agreed that we would not have to live close to them and we can do visits every 6 weeks to 2 months—not bad at all.  Maybe they can stay with us a few weeks a year, too.  I can handle that in the future.  As I said before, it’s not that his parents are mean to me at all–they are very sweet, respectable Telugu people…it’s basically their lack of understanding Western style relationships that kind of gnaws at me.  But hey, every few months, I can handle that for my prince.  And, they will have to tolerate seeing their son hold my hand and put his arm around me in the future too.

So that’s pretty much how I envision my working relationship with his parents at worst.  And who knows, maybe it could progress into something more and different.  Who knows, all I know is that we are content where it stands right now and I’m rolling with it.

R knows his parents like me otherwise they would be causing a shitstorm in his life.  That’s promising.  Also promising is that his parents ask about me and tell R to say “hello” to me.  I do they same when I feel comfortable doing it–not because I have to or out of desire to please them anymore.  I have respect for his family and am always cordial to them.  I may have my feelings behind the scenes, but it’s not in my nature to be rude to anyone’s parents regardless how they behave.  This has been extremely helpful as well.

Those are just some tips and ideas for those out there interested.  R and I are doing great!  Lately, it has been wonderful just focusing on all I have learned through him and through our relationship.  I am very content and happy.  This is remarkable for me as I sort of have a restless soul.  Most days I am just thankful to have someone so caring and supportive in my life–every day.  It’s amazing!  And with that maybe I should write a post just about him…

I found the following quote on a site I used to comment on and still occasionally read.  It’s from someone named CulturePhile and if they stumble onto this site, I would be happy for them to respond!

“The thing is this; western Indophiles like all the artsy cultural stuff – the clothing, the dance, the poetry, the arts, the languages, etc, of India. But the day to day cultural grind – overbearing and smothering family and all that, na, we can’t deal with that. But that is the core of Desi culture.”

Before I met R, I thought I had a pretty decent handle on “Indian culture.”  I had BEEN to India for a month, lived with an Indian dude (among 4 other dudes) in college & met his family, lived an Indian gal post college (who is now a close friend) & met her family, and had read some Lahiri books.   I wouldn’t say I was a western Indophile, but I’d say I had a working knowledge of what “Indian culture” was all about.  And I liked it.

I knew the moms could get kind of crazy about their sons, I knew my Indian peers tended to be incredibly reverent of their parents all the while forging their identities in America, and I KNEW the food was, like, the best in the whole world. 

For the most part, the Indians I had met were Northies and sort of accepted/embraced America at least half way if they lived here.  From what I head, I gathered most Indian parents would like their kids to end up with Indians, but I had met a few mixed couples (and even Indian parents of them) and didn’t see there was too much strife.  My old roomate’s parents (the Indian guy) were probably not thrilled I was living with their son, nonetheless, they were incredibly decent and kind to me.  All I had to do was say I loved their spices and most Indians were putty in my hands!  And so it went with most of the other Indians I had met:  show just a tad of interest and they will give you the keys to their vibrant and intriguing castle!  This was true until I tried dating one of them… 

Specifically, **and this is important y’all**, I ended up dating a son from one of the most Traditional types of families in India.  R’s family are Telugu Raju’s and have an incredible amount of pride in their particular culture.  So much so, they don’t even really relate to what is going on in the rest of India beyond about 3-4 hours outside their small town.   They have lived in the US for the past 30 years…but not really.  R’s mom runs a very Indian household, they ventured back to India for months at a time almost every year, and only a few times has anyone non-Telugu been in their house.  His dad works here so he has sort of a sense of who/what Americans are but his mom has never worked & does not have this sense.  Also, they are Raju’s…yes Raju’s.  The warriers, the staunch Hindus (R doesn’t know one Raju who has converted to Christianity), the top of the totem pole in India.  So, suffice to say, as an extremely traditional family, they are really big on preserving their culture…and not really inclined to share it with anyone else.

So this was all news to me!  I had always known Indian mothers who worked, Indians who had friends outside their culture, and Indians who traveled.  Nonetheless, I kept telling R, ”Pish…I GOT this!  Don’t worry!  I know Indians!”

Like a lot of things in life, little did I know until I was on the inside of it.  Since getting over the initial shock between Indians I had known in the past and R’s family, I have learned to slowly work with what I and R have.  There have been times where I have felt angry, resentful, and that R and I really cannot work together because the family structure & expectations (a huge issue) are so different.  I began to think about Indian culture less intellectually and more how it made me feel.  Before, I had kind of a superficial working knowledge, but now I am really starting to *know* it in my heart.  Sometimes I still think it’s quite beautiful and other times I am totally irritated by it.  And I know now, I’ll never quite see it the way I did before. 

 As an outsider of Traditional Telugu, Raju culture, it can feel sort of lonely and more distressingly, it can make me feel disconnected from R at times.  As I have said before on here, I don’t know R when he is Indian R.  He has been better about showing me he’s the same R when he’s with his family, but at first it was very shocking.  It’s hard to keep trying to engage his parents in conversation and let them into the very modern relationship R and I have without getting blank expressions or under-the-radar-but-there disapproval.  However, despite these things, I am at a point where I realize there are lots of variations of Indianness, the cultures, social orders, and so on.  Through R, my knowledge of Indian culture has expanded ten-fold and branched out in ways I never expected.  The bottom line is, if I want R and I to work, I just need to make this one intercultural situation work for me.

So we work on it…slowly.  At first I put myself all out there for his family.  I “worked it” to try and meet them on their terms (bringing them a traditional (and pricey) gift, not touching R, speaking some Telugu words, keeping discussion topics to “Telugu” to not alienate anyone”).  I’ve also been accepting of the fact that I’m kind of a scandal right now since we aren’t “committed” (married).  It basically infuriates me that his parents think we aren’t committed to eachother when I know in my heart I am just as committed to him today as I will be in 10 years.  But I’d still go visit, put on a smiling face, and act accordingly.  Some Indian familes might have taken to my efforts more, but his really does not try and understand R and my relationship in “modern” terms.  Now I’ve decided to pull back.  I’m not going with R to his next family visit…not out of spite…but to give him and his family some time together.  I’m doing it to give myself some time and space, too.  If R and I do end up together we will always be doing things as a unit and though my level of committment remains the same, life will change for the both of us.  It will just be R and I to decide everything for ourselves.  He knows that, I know that, so given this, I do have some compassion for his family as the center will shift from them to us (not something Traditional Indians really welcome).

While I don’t think I ever was or am currently an Indophile, I have really learned a lot by thrusting my heart out there towards R’s parents.  And this has encompassed both the good and the bad.  When I really think about it, I wouldn’t have done it any other way.

On some levels, this holiday season has been a contemplative one for me.  Minus the “dance off” I engaged in NYE.  Anyway, R spent so much time picking the perfect gifts for me and one was a fantastic, inspiring book called, “Thou Art That.”  It is a collection of Joseph Campbell lectures focusing on how the Christian tradition confuses literal/historical aspects of the bible as being objective truths.  For example, he finds it absurd that people go out and want to find the *actual*, physical Noah’s Arc when the myths of the Arc live within us today.  Christ’s Passion and Resurrection is a process that rings true to our collective humanity–we all must die and experience rebirth on several levels to reach our highest potential.  Campbell invites us to contemplate on all the wonderful religious stories throughout time and their many, many mythological similarities.

Like me, Campbell grew up Roman Catholic.  Post-reformation, Campbell felt that Christianity broke into several forms of spiritually deprived, man-made religious scripts.  Later in his life, he did come to appreciate the rich symbolism in the mass and the Biblical stories that revealed deep human truths.  He had always revered the Latin mass and its uncompromising reinactment of the passion of Christ.

Campbell’s respect and love for Hindu stories is abundant thoughout his work.  He suggests strong linkages with Christ’s passion and the Hindu notion of karma and rebirth.  I am drawn not only to his perpective on Catholicism, but his love for rich Hindu stories, symbols, and traditions.

Of the things R and I have to work out across our cultures, religion has not been a big thing.  When I started learning about lives of the gods like Ganesh, Kali, and Parvarti something in me clicked right away: they were similar to the Catholic Saints!  The gods felt like a different version of my spiritual home.  When the reformers told us we worshiped idols in the form of Mary and other saints, Catholics remained rooted in their family of saints.  The saints, much like the gods, speak to our inner and sometimes opposing aspects.  The Hindus have strong, feminine gods, as do the Catholics.  Both traditions boast an entire family of those who seek or represent god often in human ways.  These characters tap into what Carl Jung called our collective, human unconsciousness.  The gods and saints represent archetypes that speak to the core of not just Catholics and Hindus…but to the core of humanity.  

Sometimes R and I get all crazy and talk about having kids and how we would introduce spirituality to them.  I have this idillic fantasy of having tens of children’s books scatted on the living room floor featuring various stories of the gods, Jesus, and the saints.  In each of these stories our kids would get to learn the great truths through vivid characters who soar through the air, sacrifice their body and blood, and take on superhuman powers to defeat the evils of the world.  Not one story threatens the other because often, they inspire the same things: duty, sacrifice, responsibility, love, and nobility.  Of all these incredible stories, people, and gods, our kiddos would get the chance to choose what character attracts…who or what inspires them.  What a grand thought!

I do not mean to make religion sound like a Lord of the Rings movie…but after all…the best things our hearts connect with are born out of great mythological truths and characters we want to be like. 

So whenever I think that Hinduism is far beyond my understanding, I just reach for my Joseph Campbell book and contemplate the heroic and noble stories of the gods.  They aren’t so unfamiliar afterall.  And, I’m excited for my children to be able to draw from these two giant pools of tradition.  What could be better than having this rich family of saints to guide one on their spiritual path? 

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***This post is dedicated to CT, an enthusiastic Campbell fan.  Also, I forgot to mention a few other gals in an earlier post in terms of people who are super positive in the area of intercultural relationships: sf and GoriGirl.  Hope you are still reading out there!