The Dilution of Heritage

This might be one of those posts which come straight out of my heart. An answer to all those men who have asked me the “implications of raising a child in two different cultures”. That question pisses me off so much. So so much. If your concern about raising a child is about which of their parents' culture they should align more with, you are worrying about the wrong things.

On a lighter note, this post is for all those who have asked me what it is like growing up in two worlds that no one expected to come together, until one engineer decided to tell it all in one of his books. And then came in Arjun Kapoor and Alia Bhatt who put my parents on the map. My dad is not Chetan Bhagat. My dad was way cooler and far beyond his own generation. My mother is no Anusha Suryanarayan either. She is a force to reckon with. Born to Mr. Arora and Ms. Mylvaganan, here is me. 

My parents met at work and my father pursued my mother for almost three years. One time, my mother jokingly dared my father to propose to her- and guess what- he did. That’s how they got married. Unlike the movie though, my grandparents were never against this match. For one, they had seen enough life to know that casteism held nothing against love. My parents made each other happy, and that’s all that mattered to them at the end of the day. This was back in the 90s, and I am so glad I was born into a family where love is celebrated, everyday. 

But like the movie, these two worlds are definitely apart. Majority conversations in Punjabi households revolve around food and our weddings are their own versions of a MET Gala. Tamilians on the other hand, are somber (my brother a somberi hehe) and much definitely, simpletons. Doesn’t mean one is right than the other. That’s something I understood at a very young age. Two cultures can exist together without one upping another. That’s how my parents raised me. All cultures and beliefs were welcomed. If my mother said that we couldn’t start anything on a Prathamayi (day one after a full moon) we didn’t. When my father said that there would be only sattvik food on festivals and during the nine nights of Navratri, it was implemented right away. No questions asked. We woke up every morning listening to MS Subbalakshmi’s Suprabatham, and went to sleep every night listening to Hanuman Chalisa. I grew up in a temple, no cap. While fate brought them together, it was their love for God and Kishore Kumar that made these two very different worlds and personalities create something beautiful. Aka Me. 

Coming to festivals, there were always two ways of doing things. It wasn’t because it came from a place from one person getting the way over the other, it came from a place “why not both?”. In January, we would celebrate Pongal in the morning where my mother would lay out a whole tamilian style breakfast. Venn Pongal, Sakra Pongal, Sambhar, Coconut Chutney, Medu Vada and Idli. At night, we would light a small bonfire and walk around it as a family with my grandmother reciting some prayers to celebrate Lohri. Rabdi and Gajjak were my favorites, my teeth would say otherwise. Come Ganesh Chaturthi, my mother would host for two days. Every meal prepared was an amalgamation of both cultures. My job was to put together the kozhakattai, which would be served with either black chana or peanut shundal to guests. Rajma Chawal and Matar Paneer were other non-negotiables. Diwali was always celebrated both ways and on all days. Every occasion was celebrated two ways, and I now when I look back, I would have never had it any other way. 

I remember in our school calendars (a small diary meant to be given for remarks or noting important school information), there used to be a section for parent information. Those were always the funniest. My mother would make us write our mother tongue as Tamil and Hindi, which would always take my teachers aback. How is someone with a last name Arora (a very common Punjabi surname) writing Tamil as their native language? It didn’t help that my mother had taken my fathers last name after marriage so unless I told them that my mother is a tamilian, they wouldn’t believe me. It was always a conversation because it wouldn’t stop there and would continue into questions like “Oh, so do you identify yourself as a North Indian or a South Indian?”. Ma’am, I identify as a child. 

The identity crisis started right there, that I had to pick sides. Why can’t I just exist as both? What made matters worse was that my father was a vegetarian Punjabi. Vegetarian Punjabi? No butter chicken or beer, just paneer tikka masala and aloo de parathe.  

On the other hand while on paper my mother tongue was Tamil, I could barely speak in Tamil. I grew up in Mumbai for the most of my life, where everybody around me spoke in Marathi. My parents spoke to each other in Hindi, and communicated with the rest of their respective families in Tamil and Punjabi. While my brother turned out to be a linguistic genius who speaks all five languages impeccably, I did not. Not that I ever tried, I am not a linguist. My inability to be fluent in Punjabi or Tamil always led to questioning my cultural authenticity, which I will admit, was very heartbreaking. Still is. It doesn’t make me any less a part of these cultures. Who decided that fluency in a language determines one's authenticity with the culture you grew up in? For a country that will never fail to talk about diversity and sovereignty when exposed on a global level- it’s saddening that these things unfortunately still matter. Thousands of Indians move out of India every year only to hang out with other Indians (preferably who speak their own language) on a foreign land. Relatability and a sense of community is one thing, but oftentimes it comes from a place of superiority over Westerners and the fear of losing their “roots”. The same ideology they condemn their parents for practicing amongst people of different states in India. What pisses me off even more, the same people don’t think twice about feigning over immigration policies that impact “Indians”- green card wait times, H1B. It’s only a problem if and when it impacts you.

One thing I have learned in the past few months is that when a war is on the horizon, the ammunition doesn’t see what language you speak or what caste you were born into- the colour of blood that flows will always be red. 

After such an upbringing and having lived across so many cities, a lot of people think I am a dilution of heritage. Never fully Punjabi, never fully Tamilian. Maybe. After all, I could never belong in a room that spoke just any of their languages. Or even English for that matter. I am too Indian for America, and too American for India. But I do know that I am a piece of all the people who came before me, of all places I have lived in and all the people I have met in this life. Some may look at it as “dilution”, to me it’s all delusion. In a world where sinners judge sinners for sinning differently, a priest could be abusing children on while an alcoholic could be fighting the world to give his children a future he never got to have. Dilution or delusion, you pick your side.