Esther Duflo, a development economist at MIT, recently won the John Bates Clark Medal – which is basically means the economics field is saying “You’re brilliant, doing amazing work, but not quite wrinkly enough to win win the Nobel. Please stick around for 20 more years and Sweden will be calling.”

Duflo’s work is all about figuring out what sort of aid programs work and what don’t, so that our aid efforts end up actually helping the poor – basically, she’s taking development work out of the dark age, “we think using leeches to rebalance the humors will help” era of thinking and into an era where scientifically rigorous experiments will let us know what actually does work. In the video above (from the wonderful TED) she explains the sort of work she does, and the results from some of her studies – for instance, in one experiment in Udaipur, India she was able to figure out a way to increase full child immunization six fold for only pennies per child. It’s a very understandable and clear talk, and I highly encourage you to give it 15 minutes of your time.

Development economics is a field very near and dear to my heart, since I think we all have a duty to help  the absolute poor around the world (but not by giving money to beggars). Moreover, as I’ve written before, it’s critically important to help out in ways that are effective – not just the ways that make us, the donors, feel good. Yes, starting your own charity to help the poor back home (something I see and read about many NRIs doing) makes you feel good (and heck, I’d like to have a charity named after me: the “Jaclyn Chaudhuri Foundation for Malaria”, I’d call it). And, yeah, you’re probably doing some good – but not as much as you could be doing. It’s much better for you to donate your money directly to existing organizations which can leverage your money into their existing – and proven effective – programs. For a list of such programs, both in the US and internationally, I encourage you to visit Givewell.net, an organization which has done all the hard work of figuring out what programs are doing the best job at making real and measured progress at improving people’s lives.

Ringing endorsement, eh? But let me explain…

Our recent trip to India was:

• Delicious. There wasn’t a single day where we didn’t have great food – of all sorts: chocolate confections at Barista, Maharaja Macs from McDonlds, crazy spicy Indo-Chinese prawns, the best chole bhature both Aditya and I have ever had, endless kabobs cooked to order, and simple-but-amazing home food. I won’t mention how much weight I gained, but let’s just say that there’s a reason I’m now working out six times a week.
• Heart-warming. We saw a lot of family, some of whom I’d never met, as well as a fair number of  friends and close teachers that Aditya hadn’t seen since high school. More than once there was a dispute over who we would stay with, or who would get to take us around the city, which was both endearing and a bit awkward (for me, at least).
• Tiring . We visited Delhi, most of the cities of Rajasthan, Agra, Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta,  Shantiniketan, and Delhi again in just a little over three weeks. Whew!
• Enchanting. Hands down, the experiences of this trip – the places seen and the people we spoke to – beat out any other travel I’ve done. We took thousands of pictures, and could have easily taken thousands more.
• Educational. Traveling through India is a fascinating experience for anyone with a curious eye – doubly so if you’re  interested in development economics. Not an hour went by where I didn’t notice some facet of life that I could relate back to an economic paper or three, from the slow push of technology into the most rural of settings to the new hybrid cultures and social norms that appear in the wake of globalization.
• Full of only-in-India moments. From turning a corner to see a cow giving birth on a narrow street in Jaisalmer (post with graphic pictures to follow in the future) to incessant begging in Ajmer to traveling on a bus-rickshaw in Calcutta, our trip was filled with times where we’d simply have to turn to each other and laugh.

One thing India wasn’t, however, was hard. Let’s put that in bold:

India, this time around, wasn’t hard.

And that fact really surprised me – so much that it’s taken over a month to write my first post on the trip as I try to figure out why traveling though India wasn’t the challenge that it was the first time.

Don’t get me wrong – India is never challenge-free, even for people who’ve lived there their entire lives. Nor was our trip without its difficult moments – the one-two-three punch I got in Jaipur of a head cold, Delhi Belly, and typical period tiredness completely kicked my ass, for instance.

And it’s not that our last trip to India was so horribly difficult that this one simply must have been easier in comparison. Our last trip to India was filled with our amazingly fun Hindu wedding in Calcutta, a mini honeymoon to the Ajanta and Ellora caves (by train!), over a week seeing the sites in Bombay while staying with Aditya’s sister, Didi, and a chance to welcome Didi’s son – the first grandchild in the immediate family – into the world.

But as great as that trip was – and it was pretty awesome by any standard you could name – it was also tough at times. Difficult. Hard.

The first trip run-down (of me)

On the first day it was the jet lag that I felt I was swimming through; the traffic of Bombay (“Oh,” I quietly thought to myself, “I knew it was going to be wild, but, um, how have we not yet hit two cars, half a dozen rickshaws, and a barnyard animal or two?”); the noise of the horns, the people, the street dogs, the call to prayer; meeting my very pregnant sister-in-law and her husband for the first time (“Didi!’ Aditya called out excitedly as we exited the car upon arrival, “Your face has gotten so fat!” “How did he not get socked one for that?” I wondered); the six waiters hovering by at our lunch table, read to jump if the water level in anyone’s glass dropped more than inch below the rim; the contrast between the restaurant, the snazzy department store, the immaculate marble-floored home and the dust and grime and litter of the street.

On the second day it was the exhaustion of traveling yet again, the traffic of Calcutta (“Oh… fewer cars, more rickshaws equals more jostling and greater speeds. Spiffy!”); the announcement that the shower head was broken, and we’d be bathing by bucket; the delicious curry and potatoes… for breakfast; the small cup of tea when I needed a big jolt of caffeine; the pleased look on my mother-in-law’s face when I said I’d try wearing a sari. the family tree that I felt I had to memorize immediately (and then promptly lost in my non-caffiniated, jet-lagged fugue); my uncertainty in navigating the social waters of new family and family friends; the anxiety of a wedding ceremony that evening.

As the trip continued, there were the three days where I showered in cold water, having failed to comprehend my lesson on the bathroom geyser; the oddness of a maid, Sunita Didi, in the house, offering to sleep in my room so that I wouldn’t be alone after Aditya left to go back to the US; trips to the market in rickshaws; the subtle differences of hospitals in India versus the US (we need passes to visit Didi and the baby in their room, and we only get two per family?!?); the guilty and sheepish looks around the room when everyone realized they’d slipped into Bengali; feeling like an unsatisfied teenager as I ransacked my suitcase once again to try to piece together an ensemble suitable for the day’s outings, only to realize that I’d forgotten a head-covering for the historic Islamic site; the thrice-daily assurances that, no, really, I do like Indian food, and I don’t mind eating it again at all…

The good outweighed the hard stuff (not bad stuff – hard stuff) so much that it barely merits more than a footnote or self-depreciating story or two (“So, it wasn’t until the third day that I exited shivering from the bathroom that Aditya realized something was amiss…”) in the travelogue. But that doesn’t mean that the hard stuff didn’t happen.

I realize that this litany of difficulties is not that remarkable – most every traveler finds India hard (although I doubt most Westerners also have to deal with being a “new” daughter-in-law with family that you’re just beginning to know & understand at the same time). But it’s still the truth of my experience, and I think it’s worth writing out, if only so that everyone can realize that you can go into a trip to India with an open mind, a flexible attitude, research out of the wazoo… and still find it hard, at times. Plus, writing it out reminds me that

India, this time around, wasn’t hard – I knew what to expect.

And that’s the real message of this post. India was so much easier for me the second time around because I knew what sort of situations to expect, what sort of cultural practices we might run into, what sort of hassles there could be, and, overall, what the experience of India is like.

Pollution, dust, litter? Bring it on – I’ve got my hand sanitizer and a bottle of water in my bottomless IKEA tote. Beggers on the street? I’ve got a few Hindi phrases to whip out. Rickshawing down the streets of Delhi? Better than a roller coaster. Muslim pilgrimage site? I’ve got a scarf. We’re rationing water in Delhi? All I need is one bucket of water… preferably heated. Grocery shopping? I know what candies and snacks I’m picking out. And yes, curry for breakfast sounds absolutely amazing.

The knowledge of what to expect ran both ways – my in-laws now have the whole American daughter-in-law thing more or less figured out. One of the best moments of the trip was when Maa pulled out a beer stein in their house in Shantiniketan, and told me it was for my (grande-sized) cups of tea. True love in big shots of caffeine.

Aditya, in his one and only blog post here, wrote a lot about managing expectations to keep the peace between spouses or other family members (like Indian parents who possibly expect you to have an arranged marriage). But, in thinking about this past trip to India, I feel that expectations – developed through experience  – are key in managing most aspects of an intercultural relationship. Having visited India – having experienced Aditya’s home-culture – I’ve learned a lot about what to expect from my Indian family and my future trips to India. A few days ago I wrote about communication challenges in intercultural marriages, and right on cue, Aditya and I had a small argument about me contradicting him in public. This is an argument we have both come to expect, since, as I wrote, communication remains our most difficult area. But with a clear expectation that we will have these sorts of disagreements – and having experienced these arguments in the past- has come an ease that I wouldn’t have expected in the earlier years of our relationship. Just like I couldn’t have imagined on that first trip that India, the second time around, would be so much easier.

Photo Credit: mckaysavage

A commenter at this site, Lurker Frequent (aka LF), has once again asked a really interesting set of related questions in the comments section of a recent post that I’d like to address as a proper post, since I have plenty to say on the topic. Here are his questions:

I am very curious to know about relationship dynamics in your Indian American Household, with regards to the cultural differences in customs in India and America.

More specifically, in India, people invite each other over and unexpectedly drop in and hang out and do things together. In the US it’s more planned, and “khatirdari” is less common in this DIY land. How does it work in your family? How do you handle all the social obligations of an Indian wife?

… the Indian bahu is “supposed” to do a bunch of stuff like cook, clean, wash, entertain the guests, manage social life etc. etc etc. It’s all voluntary though, no pressures in modern day families. How’s your “Bahurani” experience been like? Do you guys do all of that?

I think I’ll shelve the “chores” section of the question for a later date to focus on the hospitality portion of  LF‘s questions.

So what follows here are my thoughts on hospitality generally in intercultural households, the interculturalness (or lack thereof) of our household hosting , and some general tips that might be of use to others.

My Five Basic Rules of Hospitality for Our Intercultural Household:

1. Paraphrasing Emily Post: being a good host means having a sensitive awareness of the feelings of your guests. If you have that awareness, you have good hospitality, no matter which culture you’re dealing with.
2. However, I am not an Indian wife. This is not just an Indian household. Our hospitality will not be identical to the Indian version (if there is such a thing). That’s okay.
3. Likewise, Aditya is not an American husband. This is not just an American household. Our hospitality will not be identical to the American version (if there is such a thing). That’s fine.
4. While I’ll try my best to be polite and courteous to you in a manner that you’re used to,  there are also practical and ethical considerations. Also, I’m not a mind-reader.
5. If something isn’t working in our hosting routine, then Aditya and I need to discuss it. The values we care about in offering hospitality to our guests do differ – but this is only a weakness if we don’t communicate. Otherwise it’s a strength.

I think these rules are pretty clear by themselves. We’re a mixed-culture household, so the hospitality we offer is not going to be entirely Indian or American. On the American side of the ledger, we have frozen pizza in the fridge for guests dropping by during dinner, and our kitchen is generally a “help-yourself” kind of place. On the Indian side, most of our snacks & soda are imports, I always offer tea to anyone entering the house (mostly as an excuse to make some for myself), and you’re welcome to come over whenever and stay to whenever (friends have been known to come over, then mention that they’re spending the night), even if you just want to use us for our ping-pong table in the basement. (A common occurrence when we’re having a party is for guests to slip into the house unnoticed by the dogs or us, then head straight to the basement, where they’re discovered later playing ping-pong.)

American and Indian ways – that different?

However,  beyond basic customs (like offering tea or chaat to guests), I feel like it is somewhat artificial to say “this style of hospitality is American while that style is Indian. Frankly, I don’t feel like Aditya & I have a system of hospitality deeply different than what would occur if I were married to an American.  Perhaps LF‘s questions don’t give Americans enough credit in hospitality (I can’t speak to whether enough credit is given to South Asians or not).

For example, while my own family’s home didn’t operate on an “anyone’s free to drop in” manner, I do think that there are plenty of American homes that do. Consider southern hospitality, where it can be a point of pride to feed anyone who shows up around meal time. Or, to take a closer example to me, my grandparents’ household seems to have operated exactly in the “drop in whenever” manner while my father was growing up; with six children in the family, someone was always dragging a friend or three home, and the meals were made accordingly. In fact, my grandparents’ hospitality was (and is) so accepting of others that when my uncle was teaching English in Japan as part of the JET Program, he’d routinely tell Japanese acquaintances that they should stop in and visit his parents if they were ever in that part of California. Which resulted in more than one occasion of a Japanese visitor showing up on the doorstop, suitcase in hand for an overnight stay, speaking only enough English to make it clear that my uncle had sent them.

Perhaps the gene of welcoming folk into the house skips a generation, but, whatever the reason, I find that I feel the same way about guests coming to our house.  While we rarely have people come over without notice (see below), everyone in our social circle knows that they’re welcome to come over when they like. A coworker of mine, for example, more-or-less invited herself over to stay with Aditya and I during Christmas, since she won’t be able to be with her family – and this was absolutely fine with me. Some of this attitude, I suppose, might be because of Aditya’s influence – after all, he didn’t bat an eye when informed that this friend would be spending the weekend with us – but it’s also just the way I like to roll.

My easy-going attitude may also be partially due to the fact that it hasn’t been tested as hard as it seems Lucky Fatima,  Sharell of White Indian Housewife or C of American-Nepali Household. After all,  all of our South Asian friends, period:

1. have lived in the United States for at least five or six years
2. have gained their undergraduate degrees at American universities, and
3. are young (there’s no one older than 35 in our social circle here in DC)

Thus, all of our friends are pretty comfortable socializing in an “American” way (if there is such a thing). They call before coming over, and aren’t surprised that Aditya carries half of the hosting burden. Perhaps my attitude would change if I were faced with a more constant barrage of guests. Or more traditional ones. Would I feel more pressure to be a “normal Indian bahu”? Maybe. But, then again, maybe not – I’m not exactly one for compromising my values for the sake of appearances, as I discussed in my “When in Rome, Do As the Romans Do… Sometimes” post.  And things like gender equality (Aditya’s getting up to make the tea just as often as I am) and casualness (help yourself to whatever you’d like, don’t wait for me to offer it, ’cause I can be forgetful)  are things I value in my household.

General Tips to Ease Cross-Cultural Hosting

1. Remember that, as a host, you should be focused on making your guests comfortable – but there are limitations. If a guest comes over who’s afraid of dogs, we’ll put our two on leashes, and keep them away from the guest. But we aren’t going to kick the dogs outside in the winter (well, maybe the Malamute…).
2. Keep in mind that you live in an intercultural household, and that it’s okay for your hosting to incorporate traditions from both cultures. Your guests from a particular culture will probably be willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.
3. As a couple, talk about the limits you’d like to draw regarding how much you’re willing to follow any particular culture’s traditions in hosting guests.
4. If there’s a particular cultural “hospitality rule” that’s getting you frustrated or down, figure out a solution as a couple.  Consider creating a “code” you can use that won’t make a guest uncomfortable. For example, if guests coming over all the time was frustrating me, I’d probably create a “the dogs are restless with all the people around- I’m going to take them for a quick jog” code to Aditya to indicate to him that I needed more “me” time soon. (The dogs are always full of energy, so it’s not even a lie – just a convenient truth.)
5. Keep on hand the sort of things that guests coming over might appreciate to eat and drink – in our case, that means extra frozen naan, lentils, and Indian snacks, soda, and tea for the South Asians; spicy dried squid, mochi, and fine green tea for the East Asians; and frozen pizza and chips for the Americans. And extra toothbrushes (overnight guests) and ice cream for all.
6. If there’s a particular cultural hospitality tradition that you feel you must follow that you don’t particularly like (it happens), remeber that you’re still the one in control, making the choice to follow the tradition for some greater good. So grin, try to get some pleasure out of it (like your own home version of office buzzword bingo!), and know that that’s just part of being an adult.

Photo Credit: Prince Roy

If you want to help Indian children, please don’t give to child beggars.

Of all of the advice I might give to individuals traveling to India – or most of the developing world – the most important one would be

Don’t give to beggars

I realize this sounds cruel and callous. It feels cruel and callous to me, even when I know it’s the best choice – especially when I’m sitting in an air-conditioned car in India, idling at a red light, and  people who are clearly poor, clearly in need come to the window begging for a small handout. Just a few rupees, which, to an American or other Western traveler, is next to nothing. Change I probably wouldn’t bother to pickup off the ground if I saw it. Can you ignore such clear need without guilt creeping up on you?

I can’t. I feel guilty for my Western extravagance when I see the numerous beggars in India. Very guilty. But I still don’t give them any money. The reason is because I know – from a few simple economic principles – that giving to beggars is not a particularly noble deed. In fact, I’d say that giving to beggars in a poor, developing country – like India – is a bad act. It certainly doesn’t seem that way – and I don’t think givers give with bad intentions – but it’s still a problem. Let me explain…

Effective Giving – opportunity costs

When economists talk about any activity – related to money or not – we always discuss the opportunity cost of the action. The opportunity cost of an action is simply what you give up doing in order to do that action. If you spend ten minutes reading this post, that’s ten minutes that you can’t spend reading a book or another website. We live in a world constrained by scarcity – limited money, limited time, limited resources. And, of course, the amount of money you can give to charity is limited.

If you chose to give a rupee to a beggar, the opportunity cost of that act of charity is all the things you could have done with that rupee. The opportunity cost includes all of the other charitable giving you might have done with the coin – other individuals and organizations that might need the help that that rupee can bring.

I believe that everyone has a duty to help the less fortunate. But you should not just give – you should give effectively.

Giving effectively does not mean simply giving to the poorest beggars you happen to run into during a day of travel in a developing country. While I think the most effective use of your charity dollars is in giving to particular organizations (more on that in a bit), I understand the wish many people have to donate directly to individuals – but those individuals should not be the ones you see begging on the street.

Photo credit: Ahron de Leeuw

Giving to Individuals – rent exhaustion and incentives

When I’ve asked friends and relatives why they give to beggars, I normally hear responses discussing guilt over seeing the poor, a desire to help a person (especially a child or mother) they saw in need, or a feeling that it was a small thing they could do that would mean much more to the needy person.

But in their desire to help out others, they fail to realize they’re doing exactly the opposite by giving to beggars.

First, consider the incentives giving to children beggars creates – particularly the charity that rich travelers in developing countries can (and often do) give. Leaving aside discussions of mafia gangs and the deliberate crippling of children (as I’m not 100% sure this occurs, and have no information on how common it might or might not be), if you give a significant amount of money to a begging child (say $1), you’ve just given his parents (or the group he works for) a strong incentive to keep him begging, rather than in school or, at least, learning some sort of trade.

Second, there is a strong problem of rent exhaustion in begging. Rent exhaustion (or rent seeking) is an economic concept regarding the way individuals or organizations will struggle with each other in order to get a “free lunch” – with the cost of the struggle eating away much of the gain from the “free lunch”. The classic example of this in the study of political economy comes from lobbies, where competing industries spend significant amounts of time and money in order to influence favorable legislature. It’s worth paying $3 million dollars in lobbying costs, after all, if it means you get a $3.2 million dollar contract.

The same problem occurs in begging activities. A person who could earn a dollar & a half a day in manual labor or a set of small businesses (as much of the urban poor does – see Banerjee & Duflo’s excellent and accessible paper “The Economic Lives of the Poor” for more information) might give up his work if he can earn two dollars a day begging from rich foreigners. Moreover, vicious fights – or extensive bribes – might be required to keep a prime begging spot (just as with lobbies & legislature), further eroding any “free lunch” a beggar receives from strangers.

So what are you to do, if you want to give to an individual, but shouldn’t give to a beggar?

Give to individuals who busy working and aren’t expecting anything from you. I first read of this idea in Tyler Cowen’s book, Discover Your Inner Economist (highly recommended), and the economic reasoning here is completely sound. As Banerjee & Duflo’s paper makes entirely too clear, the vast majority of the poor (those living on $2 or less per day) and the extremely poor (those living on less than $1 per day) work hard, often at multiple jobs while trying to send their children to school.

By giving in this manner – to people who clearly need help, but aren’t expecting it,  you aren’t requiring the poor to spend costly time begging in order to get help. No perverse incentives (make more money begging if you keep your kids out of school) have been created, and, since the working poor have not spent any time in seeking alms, there has been no cost to them in terms of rent-seeking. If you want, you can see this strategy of giving as a reward to hard-workers, but, in reality, this is the most effective strategy to give help to individuals you meet without requiring any sacrifice from them.

However – and this a big however – giving to individuals is probably not the best way you can help the poor in a developing country. Poverty in the developing world is the result of structural problems – lack of human and physical capital, poor governance, poor institutions, etc – that your marginal contribution can’t hope to overcome. I understand the desire for a human connection in giving, but I think that’s best left for volunteer work in your own local community.  If you wish to help the poor the BEST you can in a developing country you’re traveling through, wait until you’re home, then write a check to the best charity you can find. Check-writing is not as heart-warming as handing money or gifts to individuals you’ve met, true – but charity work should not be about you, the giver.

These children live in the slum at Manek Chowk.

Photo Credit: Meanest Indian

Give Well – measured & proven results

It’s likely that, if you donate to non-profit organizations, you’re doing it wrong. Or, at least, not as right as you could be (remember opportunity costs!). If there’s one thing my graduate course in development economics taught me, it’s that it is damn hard to effectively help the poor. Many of the programs we believe will do good – such as the Grameen Foundation’s Village Phone program or agriculture assistance – don’t actually achieve much when economists go back and try to track the results of intervention. Good-sounding development projects just don’t necessarily result in good outcomes.

It is critically important that charities’ programs and projects are evaluated carefully so that we can send money to programs that we know are providing effective help to those in need. Luckily for those of us who don’t have time to search out the charities that are tracking outcomes and proving their programs effective, there’s an organization out there that is already doing this work: GiveWell

GiveWell examines charities – you can submit your favorite charity if they haven’t evaluated it yet – and asks them the tough questions about how they’re measuring their projects’ impacts. Very few charities pass their inspection – but for the ones that do, you can be certain that your donation dollars will have a true impact on the poor. After examining their site in-depth, I remain extraordinarily impressed by their thoroughness and their commitment to looking for the most effective charities in the world

Perhaps the greatest acclaim I can give them is that all of my future donations will be going to GiveWell’s top-rated charities, such as the Stop TB Partnership and Pratham, a large, India-based organization that runs a wide variety of programs aiming to improve education for children in India. If you’re looking to help the poor as best you can in the future – effective giving that focuses on those in need, not you, as the giver – then, please, donate to one of GiveWell’s top charities as well.

Photo Credit: Raveesh Vyas

One of the things I’m looking forward to on our upcoming late winter trip to India (mid-February through early March) is being able to sample the regional food in the areas we’ll be traveling through. Aditya and I will be in India for about three weeks and in that time we’ll go through Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and West Bengal – so there will be lots of different types of local delicacies to try! A friend sent me this wonderful food map she found to help me prepare for this culinary delight (and to make me salivate), and I thought I’d share it with you all:

(Click to enlarge)

I’m not sure of the originial creator of this map, so if you know, please leave a note in the comments so I can credit approrpriately.

When we left off (oh so long ago) on the story of Aditya’s and my Hindu wedding in Part Six, I mentioned we had just finished performing the Laja Homa, in which puffed rice is offered as a sacrifice to the fire.

After the Laja Homa, Aditya and I sat down again to exchange our marriage vows. Now, um, this is a bit embarrassing but, you guys? I totally let down all Americans in this part of the ceremony. I kinda sorta gave the impression to all the guests that adult, well-educated Americans (as represented by yours truly) don’t know where the heart is located. You know, the whole “dumb Americans” stereotype in living color.

I can explain. Really.

You see, when I was saying my part of the vows, at one point, the priest asked me to lean over and place my hand on Aditya’s heart while saying them. I can’t exactly remember what I was promising at the time – although at one point in the ceremony, I think I promised to bear twelve sons, which is most certainly not happening. Anyways, I leaned over, but our sitting positions – and the stiffness of my sari – made it difficult to reach all the way across to the left side of Aditya’s chest.

And our sharp-eyed priest totally noticed I wasn’t quite at the right spot. And announced to the entire crowd of guests & family members that it appeared that the bride didn’t know where the heart was located.

Let my story be a warning to all couples getting married: it is always dangerous to hire a priest with a sense of humor who likes to tease.

So the crowd broke down in laughter, Aditya grinned, and I turned red and laughed too (’cause, yeah, it was pretty funny). Then I was flustered, and, um, went for the liver. Yup. Yup, I know. *shakes head* The crowd went wild again.

On the third try, I got it more or less right, and our priest took pity on me and let the ceremony continue:

Yeah, that was my big oops of the wedding. It’s still discussed at family get-togethers. Ah, good times…

So, we exchanged vows. They were the pretty standard Hindu vows – you can read examples here – but I couldn’t tell you exactly what they were at this date. Since we had an Arya Samaj wedding, all of our vows were first translated into English, so that Aditya and I could both understand what we were promising.

After the vows, we took the traditional seven steps around the fire – the Saptapadi.  Some Hindu traditions have seven circles around the fire, rather than seven steps, and the exact symbolism behind each step also differs from one version to the next. At our wedding, the priest recited the Arya Samaj meanings (which I really like) as we took each step:

• First Step is for Isha – nourishment – for fulfillment of the material needs of their family and for prosperity.
• Second Step is for Urje – strength – to develop physical, mental and spiritual strength.
• Third Step is for Rayasposha – honest wealth – to acquire wealth by diligent and righteous means and to spend it wisely.
• Fourth Step is Mayobhav – health – to develop harmonious relationship and be happy.
• Fifth Step is for Praja – progeny – to excel in raising strong and virtuous children.
• Sixth Step is for Ritu – good luck – for togetherness in all times and compatibility.
• Seventh Step is for Sakha – friendship – to be dependable and faithful to each other and life long companionship.

(I think those translations are correct.)

And thus, Aditya and I were married in the Hindu tradition.

After that, I was given the traditional symbols of marriage. First, Adtiya applied sindoor – i.e. vermilion powder – to the part in my hair. (I’ve blogged about wearing sindoor before here). Aditya has shaky hands, but managed to not get the red powder all over my forehead.

Then I was given a golden bangle, called a loha, which married women in Bengali families wear. Traditionally they’re made of iron, but today they’re more often covered in gold or completely made of gold, like mine.

While Aditya was putting the loha on, I noticed all of the younger guests were stealthily moving from where they had been previously standing to an area closer to the mandap (raised platform) where we were. It looked… suspicious. I wasn’t sure what was up, but the grins didn’t look promising.

Apparently, at the end of a Hindu wedding, the guests throw flower petals, not rice, on the happy couple. Except that flower buds can be thrown much more effectively than flower petals, and sting on arrival. And Aditya was due for some payback from previous weddings where he had pelted the bride and groom. Aditya’s played cricket with his cousins – he knew to duck. I didn’t:

I was just the poor, innocent bystander, brutally attacked with carnations.

And that was the end of our Hindu wedding ceremony. Afterwards, we had a sumptuous dinner with our guests, then headed back home for the after-party. Where I cleaned up a bit, removed the bindis from my face (with a bit of help), and then promptly fell asleep, still jet-lagged. But, luckily, not before I witnessed this:

The End.

The author of the postcard wrote in this morning to share the missing word, and translate her words:

I’m studying Hindi, so that when I meet your parents, I can tell them I love you.

(If you enjoy the postcard, I highly recommend checking back at the PostSecret blog every Sunday for the new posting of cards. There’s also a few PostSecret books – The Secret Lives of Men and Women: A PostSecret Book“> is probably my favorite one so far. The different styles of art and the naked honesty of the post cards can be quite stunning.)

Amusingly enough, I checked this after completing my Hindi studies for the morning. Today I studied using the website Live Mocha, and I highly recommend it. I’ve only gotten through the first lesson there, but I really enjoyed it – and found the lessons comparable to the Rosetta Stone ones, except FREE.

Photo Credit: wili_hybrid

Most of my American friends live in horror of being that American tourist when traveling abroad. We’ve all heard the horror stories of the rude American traveler who behaved in a completely culturally insensitive way while traveling, working, or living abroad. The person who tromps into a Japanese house wearing his shoes. Or complains loudly about the stupidity of grocery stores being closed in Germany on a Sunday.  No one wants to be that person, right? In an effort to not be that person, friends have told me they try their darnedest to follow that age old maxim: when in Rome, do as the Romans do – i.e. follow the customs of the land and culture that you find yourself in, even if they aren’t your customs. Nothing wrong with trying to be respectful in all ways possible of other cultures, right?

Well, no – there are some things wrong with that old rule about following other culture’s customs as much as possible. My main complaint with the “when in Rome” adage is that it simplifies a topic that defies simplification. Tossing the rule out in a conversation as a simple, true fact (as happened recently in the comments section at another blog that inspired this post) strikes me as similar to slapping a bandage on what is, in fact, a thorny issue. Sometimes it’s a good idea to follow the customs and traditions of another society while you’re visiting (or living in) it. But sometimes it can be a really bad idea…

The Three Key Considerations of Cultural Customs

When you’re faced with a differing tradition, custom, or habit of a culture you’re interacting with or a country that you’re traveling through/living in, the main decision you have, of course, is whether you want to follow this different custom, stick to your own ways, or try to chart some sort of middle path. In making this decision, I think there are three main considerations to take into account:

1. Manners - Is this a simple rule of behavior that the people of this country find polite? Will behaving in my normal manner seem rude? Is this just one of those intercultural quirks that I should just follow without bothering my head about it?
2. Practical – What will happen to me if I don’t follow this custom? What about if I do? Will my life or the life of others around be easier? Better?
3. Ethics – Is this custom ethical according to my beliefs? Would I be violating my ethics to follow the custom – or would it be wrong of me to not follow it, given the particular facts of the culture/country I find myself in?

Let’s tackle those one at a time, hmmm?

Etiquette Considerations – or, did you just accidentally insult someone?

Every country has those little rules that you just gotta learn before traveling there – at least if you don’t want to be unintentionally impolite. In Germany you’re suppose to keep both hands on the table -or otherwise in sight – to be polite. Why? Because that’s the rule. End of story. In the US pointing at something with your middle finger alone is likely to be taken as an insult – in other countries pointing at all is rude.

These little rules – while occasionally difficult to remember – are easy enough to follow. If a cultural custom falls simply into this category, there’s really not much to say: just try to remember the custom, and follow the traditions of the land while you’re there. Often times these customs are the intercultural quirks I’ve blogged about previously – things that really aren’t worth worrying about. In this case, I’m all for the “go with the flow” and “when in Rome” rules of thumb. If it’s a behavior that you need to perform, just do it and roll on with your life. If it’s a cultural custom you observe others doing, smile, remember that that’s half of the fun of seeing a new place, and roll on.

Unfortunately, often you’ll be told or read that a certain behavior is “polite”, but there’s more to the story than just that. Very few people want to see you chew your food – that’s why many cultures have a rule about politely shutting your mouth while you chew.  It just doesn’t look attractive. However, many cultures also have rules about what is acceptable or “polite” dress – especially for women – and somehow, I don’t think “it just doesn’t look attractive” is the reasoning going into that rule.

Generally speaking, customs which require different behavior from different sorts of people – men vs. women, young vs. old, rich vs. poor, low caste vs. high caste – are not just your simple old rules of etiquette. There’s something deeper – often something related to status or power – going on there, and this will have practical and ethical considerations.

A good example of this is the cultural tradition throughout much of South Asia (not all, certainly!) where men and women are expected to socialize separately – women in the kitchen, typically, and men in living room or elsewhere. Often, this is presented just as the “typical” thing – and it’d just be weird or rude to behave otherwise. While I’ve never seen this behavior (and would not follow it, whether in India or elsewhere), a blogger friend of mine, Gori Wife, has two posts here and here about her experiences dealing with it. Another example which came up in the original blog post I read is the drinking of alcohol by women in mixed company, particularly when there are older generations around.

Practical Considerations – or what’s the fallout of your behavior?

In choosing whether to follow a particular custom, it’s always important to think about what the effects will be whichever way you choose. Those of us in intercultural relationships run across this by the simple fact of being in an intercultural relationship – if you don’t think your intercultural relationship affects others, you’re hiding your head in the sand.

The “fallout” can be big or small – depending on the custom you’re choosing to follow or flout and the expectations of those around you. Suppose you try to follow the South Asian custom of eating with your hands – the fallout might simply be a small grin of pleasure from your dining partners and a few drops of curry on your lap. Failing to follow the custom might only mean a short moment of embarrassment when you ask for a fork.

To return to our example of the sexes socializing separately, it’s clear that, if you’re a woman (or man) in this situation, either the choice to follow the custom or not will have significant practical impacts. Either way, your social experience – who you talk with, what you do, when you eat, even – will be different. If you choose to follow the custom, despite being from another country, you may gain social “credit” if your behavior is unexpected, but welcome. If you don’t follow the custom, you may make others uncomfortable with your rudeness, and generate gossip or ill-will. Harsh, perhaps, but it’s silly to pretend otherwise. Or it may be that, while it is expected that natives adhere to the custom, foreigners get a free pass to behave as they’re used to – it all depends on the particular group of people you’re socializing with.

How much you care about these other people think of you, of course, is also a variable to consider when thinking of the practical aspects of following a cultural custom. As I’ve said several times before, I truly believe that those who would judge you harshly for infractions of unfamiliar traditions are not worth your concern. Of course, plenty of people think differently on this matter – this is something you’ve got to decide for yourself and your particular lifestyle.

Another example of the practical considerations that foreign females (and men, to a lesser extent) in India must consider is how modestly to dress in public. You may not give two hoots about what a stranger on a street in a foreign country thinks of you – but your experience and the attention you get from those strangers will most certainly be different depending on what you wear.

Ethical Considerations – Or, is this universally wrong?

This should be straightforward, right? Don’t follow or otherwise support other countries’ customs if you find them ethically wrong. When in (ancient) Rome, don’t have slaves like the Romans did. Or, for a more modern example, don’t eat that delicacy of dog meat you were offered if you think it’s immoral to eat man’s best friend. Yes, refusing the delicacy might be rude, and it might have practical considerations when your hosts get upset at your impoliteness, but it’s better to behave ethically. After all, it’s not like any of us are cultural relativists here. (Right? Right?)

Unfortunately, most cases aren’t that clear cut. Most Americans would consider it extremely unethical for children to work in factories instead of staying in school – but what other choices do an absolutely poor family (pdf) have in a developing country with limited social services? Do you refuse to do business with a company that employees child labor on that basis while visiting a developing country, as you might in your home country? I wouldn’t think that the ethical choice in India, while I absolutely would consider it the correct choice for a U.S.-based factory.

Or, consider the socializing example again: are there moral implications for going along with a custom of gender separation in socializing that you wouldn’t follow in your own country? As a someone who strongly believes in parity between men and women, I do not believe that the people should, in any way, be required to separate on the basis of gender if they don’t want to. (If all the gals want to chit chat in the kitchen, that’s a different thing). Generally, I believe that it’s important to push for a culture in every country that tolerates human variation and individuality. In other words, I’m a cultural libertarian.  Because of my personal ethical beliefs, I don’t believe it’s generally right to follow cultural customs that require separate behavior from men and women. So I socialize with everyone at parties, and I drink alcohol when it’s available and sounds like a good idea – in any country or culture. (And I’ll gladly argue with anyone on these issues at said parties.)

Of course, practical considerations – and even etiquette – still must be balanced with ethical concerns. For instance, I still dress modestly in public in India, even though I would occasionally prefer to dress more along the standards I’m accustomed to here in the U.S. Why? Because, frankly, it’s simply not worth the hassle for me, especially given the tiny possible marginal effect I might have in changing cultural mores that require women to dress more modestly than men. Sometimes, it just ain’t worth it to try to fight the “good fight” at all times, in all places – especially when you’re experiencing a new culture.  Just as you need to balance cultures within an intercultural relationship, you need to balance the various considerations of cultural customs in a broader intercultural context.

Good Manners Across Cultures

“When in Rome, Do As the Romans Do” is a poor phrase to follow when operating in a foreign country or culture. It may help in smoothing over the simpler cultural rules of etiquette, but it fails on the bigger, deeper, and broader facets of cultural traditions or customs. So what is a good rule? I like Emily Page’s advice here:

Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter which fork you use.

It’s inevitable that you’ll make a mistake when experiencing a new culture, and do something considered rude or impolite. Indeed, even many months or years after you first become familiar with a rule of etiquette, it’s likely that you’ll be making a mistake or two. (I still blush remembering the time I used an excessively formal version of “you” eight months into my stay in German.) And if you chose to flout a cultural custom because of ethical or practical concerns, you may end up looking incredibly rude.  It’s okay.

As Emily Post reminds us, manners are, first and foremost, about consideration of others’ feelings. If you’re trying your best to be polite, to take into consideration the feelings of those around you, while also sticking to your ethical principles, then no one who has manners themselves should fault you. (And if they do, well, you’ve already heard my opinion on how much you should care.)

The biggest failing of that American tourist is not that he didn’t bother to read up on the customs of the country, nor that he doesn’t consider the practical effects of his actions, nor even that he goes around, demanding that the ethical realities of another country meet his simplistic, black & white view of right and wrong – it’s just an unwillingness to recognize the simple truth that Post points out.

Ah, Diwali. Festival of lights. A celebration of good triumphing over evil. A time to bemuse your boss and win free dessert from your local Indian buffet. …right?

As I’ve mentioned previously, I happen to work in a very diverse office – and with a recent switch in teams, I now report to a South Indian manager. He’s a great boss, but, occasionally, well, I can’t help myself – I’ll mention a Hindu tradition or a Bollywood film just to see his reaction. You see, despite the fact that he knows I’m married to an Indian, he’s always so surprised when I show any knowledge of Indian culture. Shocked, almost.

So, of course, to celebrate Diwali this year I decided to wear a sari to work.

To be more specific, a female Indian coworker and I  coerced convinced the junior staff on our team to wear Indian dress to the office on Friday. My coworker had one sari from a family wedding to wear, and I loaned out saris and kurtas to everyone else. Between the two of us, we were able to get everyone wrapped up, pinned up, and decked out in bangles before our boss arrived. The look on his face was, let us say, well worth the trouble.

I'm on the right

Everyone looked pretty great in their saris, no?

For lunch, the group went out to the closest Indian buffet, Jaipur, where we snapped the photograph above. The staff there was also quite surprised seeing their regular customers arrive in saris and kurtas – surprised & appreciative.  Despite the fact that it was a buffet lunch, they brought out a surprise dish of Indian desserts just for our group at the end of our meal:

It was clear that the kitchen had taken some time to create the dish, which featured Gajar Ka Halwa, Ras Gulla, and Gulab Jamun with a garnish of shredded coconut and cherries. Like every other Indian dessert I have had, it was delicious, if extraordinarily sweet. After lunch we all shuffled back to the office before falling into the typical post-Jaipur sugar coma.

—————————————–

For anyone wondering, on Diwali proper (i.e. Saturday), Aditya, myself, and the Indian coworker pictured above woke up crazy early to get to a local Hindu temple in time for the morning aarti. It was very quiet there – I think the rain and near-freezing temperatures kept everyone else away. Afterwards we retreated from the cold to Starbucks for breakfast, and then, in the spirit of combining American holiday consumerism with a Diwali custom, we went shopping for some new clothes. And that was how the Gori Girl household celebrated Diwali this year.

(Sunday we returned to my roots, and celebrated an American football Sunday with Vietnamese seafood hotpot and German boardgames at a friend’s house. All in all, a pretty awesome weekend.)

Aditya: “Well, it’s a Sunday…”

Me: “No, it’s some Hindu holiday… Ganesh Chaturthi, I think?”

Aditya: “I have no idea.”

Maa: “Oh, maybe. I haven’t been keeping track of the dates. Hmm.”

So – Happy Ganesh Chaturathi to the Hindus among us, Ramadan Mubarak to any Muslims out there (I sent this preemptive apology ecard to my Bangladeshi coworker), and I hope the rest of you all had a great weekend.

In other news, Aditya and I are on vacation in California, traveling with his family. It’s the first time his siblings, parents, and himself have all been together in over seven years, so there’s plenty of catching up to do. Blogging will be sporadic for the next couple of weeks, but I hope to return after Labor Day with plenty of stories (and a new blog design!).

This is Part Six of a continuing series on my Indian wedding adventure. If you’re new to Gori Girl, try checking out Part One, where the story starts.

After we started the fire (think Agni Pradipan, not Billy Joel), I fed Aditya some pre-made Laddu, which is a common Indian sweet used in pujas and other ceremonies. After this Aditya stood up and promised to provide for me for the rest of my life, so, really, I didn’t begrudge him the sweet. (Also: it was way too hot to do much but sweat beside that fire. Doesn’t look like it? Read on.)

To stay hydrated in the face of the fire (or, you know, for religious religions) we were both given some water from the Ganges to drink. From our cupped hands. This may have been the only water I drank during my entire time in India that was not personally verified by Aditya or another family member as safe for my oh-so-delicate American stomach. For the record, by the way, despite a complete lack of regard on my part, I never had the slightest stomach ache while in India.

After drinking the Ganges water – most of which ended dribbled onto my sari – the whole marriage “team” started to work to get the fire roaring. The younger priest – the one who wasn’t reciting Vedic hymns to music throughout – placed pieces of kindling into the fire. Maa, Baba, and my uncle tossed in mixtures of herbs in time to the drum beat. (Uncle Mark took a few minutes to get the beat properly.) Aditya and I spooned in oil from special spoons, held in a special manner. It was all very serious, of course. Well, except for the fact that Baba appeared to be aiming his herbal throws to cover our special spoons. And Aditya kept knocking his spoon into mine in (he says) an effort to dislodge the herbs covering his spoon – I suspect he was just being a brat. The end result, of course was predictable:

It got really hot and the fire got really high. And my flowers wilted. Which made me pout. Also, people were continuing to look at me, which will make any introvert pout. Then I remembered that it was my wedding and I got to play with fire! And life suddenly seemed better.

The majority of the wedding ceremony, as I recall, was playing with fire. As I mentioned earlier, as we fed the fire our Arya Samaj head priest recited Vedic hymns. Because the Araya Samajis believe that you should know what you’re promising, every part was first paraphrased by the priest in English (Maa & Baba hunted high & low for an English-speaking priest for me) before being recited in Sanskrit. The offerings we made were meant to symbolize our joint responsibility – along with that of our families’ – to maintain the love, duty, and dignity of the marriage.

After the fire was good and roaring, Aditya’s brother, Dada, stepped in to help us pour an offering of puffed rice into the fire. Traditionally this would be done by the brother or brother-cousin of the bride, but my brother was unable to make the trip to India.

In case you were wondering, the fire at the center of the Hindu wedding ritual is considered a god in and of itself – Lord Agni, God of Fire. Agni, for Arya Samjis, serves to dispel darkness and ignorance while brining light and knowledge.

After pouring the puffed rice (three times), we were on to the final – and most important stages of the wedding: the vows and steps around the fire. Which is where I made my largest mistake of the entire wedding…

Part Seven – the final post on my Indian Wedding – can be found here.

Aditya: So what is that story that you were telling, of when Baba came to meet you?

Baba: That was our semi-arranged marriage!

Maa: Semi? Why “semi”? Absolutely arranged!

Baba: I saw her, and then I said okay. It was not arranged. So semi.

Maa: They put an advertisement in paper, that their son is not getting married for last ten years, they’re searching for daughter-in-law.

Baba: And my in-laws had a daughter who was not being married for ten years, said, “Okay, this is a right match!”

Maa: So, when they came, they didn’t tell me… Maybe my parents knew it, but I didn’t know that they were coming. So it was Sunday, and I had lot of hair… The whole week I had to go to college, so I didn’t wash my hair properly, because in India you can’t go with, uh, hair loose, you have to tie it up. Nowadays everything is gone, but that time it was there. So Sunday is my oil massaging day. So from top to bottom I used to apply oil.

Aditya: And Maa’s hair was down to her knees almost.

Maa: So, they came at three o’clock. And I took bath at twelve o’clock, I think. And I didn’t do shampoo also. And you can just imagine…

Baba: You know, that is why I got married to her, just because of her hair. Because I could not see anything else [to judge]!

<laughter>

Maa: And in India, when some girl is to, uh, be presented to her in-laws, they put on a lot of makeup, good saris, jewelry. But I was wearing a cotton sari, normal, because I didn’t know that they were coming. And my sister-in-laws, all, my parents, couldn’t [dress me up], because I am very strict about that. What I am, I am, there’s no makeup or something. And, I used to wear a bangle on my right hand. On my left hand, I used to wear a watch, a wrist-watch. I was at home, so I didn’t wear that also. And I met him like that!

GG: So, after you both met, did you discuss anything with each other?

Baba: Oh, yeah, we had a talk, between us. But I don’t think that it was, uh, like an examination. We just discussed what I feel, what did she feel that particular day? That’s all.

Maa: And then for food, at the restaurant, I didn’t take it. Because my mother told me, don’t go with anybody in the restaurant. So he was asking, “Are you hungry?” “No,” [I said].

Baba: So I sat down, I ate.

Maa: And he ate. When we came back to our home, from [movie] picture, I was telling my mother, “Give me some food, I am very hungry!” And he says, “Why didn’t you take?!” But how could I explain to him at that time?

Baba: That was my golden era.

I cannot imagine participating in the process of an arranged marriage – not that I think that they’re necessarily bad, but I just can’t picture what it would be like. Maa & Baba’s story of their first meeting was, therefore, quite enlightening as to some of the particulars. It all strikes me as something out of a Jane Austin novel.

GG: Okay, next question!

Baba: This is off the syllabus?

GG: Yes! So, did Aditya discuss marrying me with you?

Maa: Actually, I told him, you ought to get married. If you want to stay together, you ought to get married. That I told him.

Aditya: I mean, it was a variety of things. I think it started… I mean, obviously, after graduating, I moved to California, and I was looking for housing. We talked about it. And obviously I asked before I proposed to GG.

Maa: He didn’t ask, we discussed.

Aditya: Yeah, we discussed, it was more like that.

Maa: I said, if you want to be with her, then get married. You take the responsibility.

The idea of “responsibility” being a key part of a marriage is something I’m still noodling over. I’ll admit I’ve never thought of it in exactly those terms.

GG: Did your expectations of what you expect for a daughter-in-law change after Aditya said he was marrying me?

Aditya: What I think she is asking is, would you have different expectations if she was Indian?

Baba: No. And that should be in block capitals! Because I told you, my expectations for my daughter-in-law is the same whether it is Bhabi, Punjabi, or GG, American.

Bhabi is Aditya’s sister-in-law, i.e. Baba’s other daughter-in-law, for those just tuning in.

GG: So, what would you say was something I did that impressed you early on?

Maa: Everything.

Aditya: I think they spoke the highest of your card-playing ability.

GG: Card-playing?

Maa: Yeah, card-playing…

Baba: Not card-playing ability, the way you picked up the game. You know, pick-up is more important for playing the game. If your pick up is good, whether it is cards or studies, that is a quality, and of course, which I feel did impress on the first day.

Like Aditya, I come from a family where playing cards is a key part of family bonding. Aditya’s family’s game is Twenty-Nine, while my family plays a house version of Rummy and Oh Hell. Being decent at cards in both of our families – or at least enjoying playing cards – is a pretty important trait.

Maa: Even when we came back from the cabin, you cooked for us, a nice —

Baba: No, that was afterwards, but, my point is, the first day.

Maa: But, that time, they were not even engaged. So I liked it very much.

I made a spicy spagetti with chicken sausage (since Maa & Baba don’t eat beef or pork), a simple salad, and some out-of-the-box cake for the family at Aditya’s brother’s house while they were off on a day trip – really the meal was nothing special or complicated. I think Maa might have been secretly afraid that the rumors of Americans were true, and I couldn’t cook a thing.

Aditya: What about Bear?

GG: My dad’s dog.

Maa: Oh, very sweet, very nice.

Aditya: Baba was taking pictures all evening of Bear, there were more pictures of Bear than of GG.

Maa: I liked your mother, your grandmother… And I was very much impressed by you.

Maa met my materal grandmother while I was back in the Midwest, attending college. Granmama is a French-Candian immigrant, altho she’s lived in the US for most of her life.

GG: Anything I did that surprised you, or maybe somewhat negative? Something you thought was kind of odd?

Baba: Actually, should I tell you? Yes, I’m not so critical in little things. If otherwise it is acceptable, it is okay.

Maa: Yes, everybody has some problems.

Baba: If everybody is happy, I feel that it’s good enough. I don’t see things so critical.

GG: Okay, so, now, Aditya & I are married… What is the hardest part about having a non-Bengali, or non-Indian daughter-in-law?

Maa: From my side, the only difficulty is to express myself.

Baba: The language.

Maa: The language. The hardest thing. Nothing else.

Aditya: (sarcastically) GG has been working hard on her Hindi.

I think I have a mental block against learning languages. I’m still struggling to keep a schedule of regular studying – but hearing this was a big motivator.

Baba: I don’t… Whether you are GG, or someone else, it would have not have made much of difference if that person were the same as GG. Because I don’t, uh, everybody has some shortcoming, some strong points. So if I forget about the rest of the things, only see the small shortcomings here or there, mentally I will not be happy. And I do not want to be unhappy.

GG: But is there any difficulty you see, maybe in customs I don’t know, or…

Maa: Even I don’t know a lot of customs. So I don’t care for that.

GG: Or my family doesn’t have the same expectations that an Indian family would…

Maa: How would I know, how do we know what your family expectations? We don’t know…

Baba: One thing I know, GG, that I have got my own way of looking at things. I can lead my life in that lane/line/road – whatever you want to call it, but I cannot make others follow it. Therefore, yes, often things happen even between me and Maa, where we think differently, we argue, feel bad. Maa stops talking, I stop talking, but that is for only a few hours. Because we know that this has to be there, because [we are] two persons.

Similarly, if I am very critical to anybody, it is making an unhappy relation, and no one is happy by doing so. It is better if we can enjoy each other’s company, which is good, overlook the shortcomings, the things that we don’t like. If I know that GG does not like something, I would like to avoid those things as much as possible. I have not vacuumed your bedroom, because I have felt that you would not like disturbed whatever arrangement or, uh, disarrangement…

<general laughter>

…that you have got. It is something like that, I have avoided it. But had it been my world, anybody could have done it for me and I would be happy. It is something like that. I try to avoid, don’t see things, which I feel may cause a bit of uneasiness between two persons.

GG: Is there anything that has been a positive, an unexpected thing that you’ve learned or experienced from having an American daughter-in-law?

Baba: Should I say now, one-to-one? Ready? Sure? I had the impression that Americans are generally very clean …that they keep things in order. But here, I have found…

And the truth comes out! This was the only critical thing I could get Maa & Baba to admit.

GG: It’s as much your son as me!

Aditya: GG, don’t even go there. You know, Thalith used to be our roommate, first when the three of us lived together, and then Thalith, GG, Ivan, and Claudia [lived together]. Thalith always used to make fun of us because the house was dirty and he used to blame me. But after I graduated, and he lived just with her, then he realized that what he actually saw there was her mess minus my cleaning up. You know, I visited GG twice, surprised her by arriving there before she expected me to be there. And the first day that I got there GG was sitting on the bed. And to get on the bed you could only put one step on the ground from the door. So you had to make a hop on one foot towards the bed, and then from that foot – you didn’t have space to put down the second foot – you had to hop off of that foot straight onto the bed. So everything you see is, always remember, that is GG minus my cleaning. Don’t say that it’s equally my fault.

While it is true that my college apartment room was that messy (I was working on my senior thesis!), it is complete falsehood that Aditya is a net benefit in the cleaning  department; during the same time period Aditya’s studio in California was nearly as messy. Really, we’re just messy (and busy) people.

Maa: What to say…

GG: It’s okay to say unflattering things. Whatever is on your mind.

Maa: Actually, I love you very much, all qualities, but the only thing, I can’t tolerate this much of untidiness. No, I think that, uh, you are since your childhood away from your mother, maybe that has affected you. Because only a mother can teach a daughter…

GG: My mother is also very messy.

Maa: Maybe, maybe because of that.

Maa: What you will do, please, you [GG] do the dusting and cleaning, let him do the vacuuming. Yes, do it together. That way you will enjoy it. Otherwise you’re doing it here, he’s doing it there. When Aditya told me that last time that Amy [the basement tenant] was here, that after Amy left, we’ll do the basement as the TV room or something like that. How is it possible that somebody is playing there, she’s playing here in her computer? This is not right. Whenever you’ll be at home, stay together. That is the first thing between husband and wife. You’ll see that in our house also, wherever Baba is I try to be, yes, because I don’t get to …

Baba: You see, when I want to avoid her, she’s always there! … Have you gone to church? Have you seen a dirty church?

GG: I don’t go to church.. I’ve only been a few times when I was little.

Baba: Okay, the ten times you’ve gone to church in your life, have you ever seen a dirty, stinking church?

GG: No…

Baba: Why? Cleanliness is next to godliness! And it is your house. You want that, you know, welcoming look. A house that is messy cannot be a happy house.

Point. Aditya and I really do need to stop living like we’re still in college.

GG: Okay, last two questions. Is there any advice that you would give to an American, or another Westerner who is dating an Indian, and is worried maybe that the parents won’t approve or anything like that?

Maa: Yes. There is something. Like [in] India, we are naturally very family-oriented. It is in our, uhh, in our heritage. But in Western country, people are so advanced, so educated, so independent, that sometimes, they feel, that…

Baba: They become islands.

Maa: Yes, they become islands. The space, their conception of personal space makes them very lonely, gradually. Everybody has some defects, some shortcomings – that is a girl also and a boy. Don’t look at the shortcomings. If you like somebody, if you love somebody, try to, both of, try to compromise on some points. If you can give only will you have something. Always if you – uh, not you, I mean general you – that giving away is much better than taking away.

Baba: No, actually, her question was actually if an Indian boy or a girl is dating an American boy or girl, what advice would be given to them. That is what she asked.

Maa: That is the advice! You have to give something to take something!

Baba: No, no, no… That you are talking about harmony in married life or in relationship. I would say that if they are dating an Indian boy, don’t just go by the boy. Unless he has decided to get out of the family altogether – cut off, I mean – not that [he is] in touch with them, they come and go… Otherwise, the boy should make it clear exactly how his parents or her parents would react to such a decision.

Like, you two are very nice. When you come to India, we [could have] decided no, you have to be like Indian girl, you have to put on a lot of oil, get up early in the morning, five o’clock, take a bath, go to temple, do puja, come back, then you go to the kitchen, cook food.

Maa: That type of family is still there in India.

Baba: A lot of them! The ones that – I have been reading your blog – most of the people they have got that type of problem when they go abroad, to their in-laws place. Therefore, it must be absolutely clear in mind [of the couple] what the expectations [are] at the other end. And if it is so, they should not go to India at all. Because a lot of disharmony would be created on such visits. And as far as we are concerned, as I told you, we are much more liberal, we know and we have got faith on our children, and things are different. I don’t think that one can, uh, judge parents just by seeing our family.

Maa: Even uh, Indian girls get lots of problems.

Baba: Indian girls get problems at their in-laws place because the culture, the practices are different.

GG: Would you suggest for a couple in that situation, that they just go along with the parents, or they say “no, we aren’t going to do that. She will not be getting up at five am”? Or some sort of compromise?

Baba: No, no, I would say if they’re going to live in US they should live like in US. They cannot live in US as [in] India. If you are going to live in India, live like India[ns]. You should not change your lifestyle because you are in a different country [for a short visit], you better live the style of the country [that] you live in.

GG: Anything else you want to share?

Maa: No, I told you that space is very…

Baba: Space should not make–

Maa: Make a man lonely.

Baba: No. That should not, I would say, divide a couple.

Aditya: I think it’s all about, when it comes to intercultural relationships, or really any relationship, it’s all about setting expectations. Like you should never get to the point where there is, like… In most Indian families parents are part of the married family. And you should never get to the point where those stakeholders are not on the same page.

Baba: That’s what I’m saying. And once – often courtship, like salesmanship – often the boy or the girl will tell little bit of half-truth. They will tell the facts just to impress, or hide things that maybe one [will] realize when you go to India. So that should be quite clear, how it is like at the other end. Like earlier, people used to get married, not to Americans, but a lot of people used to get married to the European girls, mainly British. And most of these people are sufficiently moneyed, but they were not like Rajas. But they used to give the impression that they were like small Rajas. And after the wedding they used to go, they used to find that things are not like what they heard during their courtship, and they had a lot of trouble during those days. The same way that I feel that one should be quite truthful, and put both sides on the right side of the picture, and then decide.

Maa: And husband and wife relationship should very, very based on honesty.

And that was the end of the interview.

I sat down with Aditya’s parents, Maa and Baba, a few nights ago with a list of eight questions to find out their views on American culture and intercultural relationships… and we ended up talking for over an hour, thus necessitating a Part One and a Part Two. Today’s portion focuses on the early days: their worries on sending their youngest son, Aditya, to a foreign country, thoughts on American culture, dating, and their first interactions with me. Technical details: I transcribed the interview from a sound recording, and have only edited (in square brackets) for clarity or in keeping with Maa & Baba’s wishes for certain things to be “off the record”. My comments and notes post-transcription are in red.

GG: What were your concerns when Aditya came to the US to study?

Maa: Whether he’ll be able to cope with everything; [I was] concerned with his studies. And we didn’t have that much of money to support him, so whether he would be able to support himself.

Baba: Firstly, the financial part. Secondly, he had never lived away from home – this was the first time he’d be living away from home. Thirdly, it was a strange country for him, the surroundings, the education system, language, food, everything was different! And I knew that he would be able to cope with the things, but I had doubted how easily he’d be able to cope up with it.

Aditya was the first member of his family to travel to the US. Maa and Baba first came to visit after his older brother, Dada, also moved to the US, about half way through Aditya’s college career.

GG: Do you remember what you guys thought of the US then? What your impressions, your ideas of it were?

Baba: Actually, as far as I am concerned, when I came to the US, I was more or less not surprised. I knew the US quite a lot – from movies, from books that I have studied, and I expected it to be more or less like this. The only thing is that I did not expect the US to be so huge as a country.

Maa: Actually, when I came for the first time, my whole concern was for Aditya.  So I was not interested in how the US was – [I] only wanted to know how he was.

GG: Did you have any worries about Aditya being at a US university, meeting Americans, maybe dating or falling in love with one of them or anything like that?

Maa: No, I didn’t have any concerns.

GG: Did you think he would date Americans when he came to the US?

Baba: No, I never thought that was an issue. If I liked someone at the right time, right age, I always said yes. Of course, I had certain reservations, and that has not happened.

*waggles eyebrows at Baba’s phrasing*

GG: What reservations?

Baba: That is off the record.

<Aditya laughs>

For the record, I still haven’t heard what the reservations were.

GG: Were you aware of his social activities when he was at the university?

Baba: Yes, he used to write, sometimes spoke to his mother… not to me. From what I could gather, I figured I had a fairly good idea of his activities. Of course, some of it was my imagination…

Maa: Nah, I knew only the portion that he used to tell us. But I [only] know half of it.

GG: So you knew that he had… (to Aditya) how many girlfriends was it?

Aditya: I told them…

Eight girlfriends his first year, I believe, (EIGHT!) and he tossed them all in two weeks or less. Shameless.

Baba: Yeah, he had many [girlfriends] in Delhi also…

Maa: Actually, we are not very much, uh, concerned with children’s girlfriends or boyfriends.

Baba: As long as you are not doing anything wrong, if your aim, your studies are going properly, I think that there is nothing wrong in having girlfriends. How you take that relation matters… Like, I had in India at one time I knew a lot of girls – and of course, my parents were also very liberal. Even today, if I meet them, if I get a chance to meet them, there’s nothing wrong in this, I always felt. Yes, if somebody has some bad intention, that is different. For that…

Maa: Nah, it is very natural. There is nothing to worry about. If I know my children, they will choose the right thing.

Baba: No, as long as a child knows what is right or wrong, there is no need for the parent to worry. And I, at least, have the confidence in my children; they can recognize right.

Maa: And in that way my impression of Aditya is very high.

Baba: That every mother has!

Maa: Nah, he’s a moralist type.

Baba: Yes, he’s a moralist type.

I suspect – but do not know one way or another for sure – that the attitude that Maa & Baba express here is pretty unusual for mainstream Indian culture. Heck, I suspect it’s pretty unusual for the majority of American parents of teenagers too. Anyways, with the basics of Maa & Baba’s views on dating established, we now changed tacks to start discussing Aditya’s relationship with me, which was more serious than those with previous girlfriends (i.e. I lasted more than two weeks).

GG: Do you remember when he told you he was dating me? Do you remember what he said?

Baba: Yes.

Maa: Yes. When you two had some difference of opinion, and I told him that this girl is a … in our language, Saraswati, it means goddess of learning – she looks like that.

Aditya: This was when we were broken up.

Baba: Maa said that you better make up!

You can read my take on first meeting Aditya’s parents here. In short, when I first met Maa, Aditya and I had downgraded our relationship to “an icy friendship” due to quarreling too much.

Aditya: By the way, the only reason that Baba and I didn’t talk over the phone while I was at the university was because Baba telephone conversations are always telegraphic.

<general laughter >

The first question he asks you is “How are you?”, and by the time you have said, “I’m good” the conversation is over and the phone has been hung up.

Maa: [He’s like that] with everybody.

Yes, yes he is.

Aditya: Yes, with everybody. When we were growing up… I mean, I don’t even know how common telephones were when they were growing up. When we were growing up, Baba used to be away, you know, and we had to do trunk calls. And in the middle of the night, it’d be super expensive, and Maa would be running down the stairs at 11:30 pm, because, you know, there’s a trunk call with Baba.

For Americans or others scratching their heads, a trunk call is the British English (and, apparently, Indian English) word for a long-distance call, especially one routed by a real, live operator.

GG: So what were your expectations for a daughter-in-law? Before you knew about me or anything – just general expectations.

Maa: I want only the good relationship and to look after my children – daughter-in-law or son-in-law. Look after my children, and a good relationship with us. Nothing else.

For the following anecdote, Bhabi is Aditya’s sister-in-law, Dada is his older brother, and Didi is his older sister.

Baba: You see, before Bhabi’s marriage [to Dada]… Bhabi was in school, Dada was in hostel, they had not met each other. They were in class 7 or 8. And she was learning some dance in Calcutta. She came to our house because Didi was in the same class – Bhabi had missed some classes, and she came to make up those missed classes. I was working away from Calcutta, and I used to come [home] during the weekends. I came… it was a duplex, our house was. I was climbing the stairs and I saw Bhabi. And when she came, I said, “Who is this girl?” And Maa said, “Didi’s dance mate.” And I said, “I would like to get a girl like that as daughter-in-law [for Dada]”… By God’s grace, that has happened. Of course it happened after…
<argument starts over how long >
Five, six years, let us say. So after that, I always expected that Aditya’s wife would be something like Bhabi. In all respects.

GG: Punjabi?

Baba: No, not Punjabi. I don’t look at Bhabi as Punjabi. See, this language or religion – I feel everything is the same. So I don’t look at a Punjabi or American or European… My thing is – “similar” means – she should be intelligent, sharing, and good in studies, plus she should be something where we are comfortable, my son is comfortable, and she should be someone who gets into a relation[ship] for lifelong.

Because there are a lot of cases I have found where people don’t – the girls or the boys – don’t think beyond certain time: four years, five years, ten years. But I always felt that my children should get a partner for the whole life. Not part time or, I would say, “live together” type. That is the type of girl I expected. She should be presentable, so that people don’t say – don’t take it – that she doesn’t fit into the family. I feel that that is a bigger thing, because I still feel family is much bigger than self. And that was what [were] my expectations, and I feel that I am quite happy on that one respect. The rest of the things, small things, would be different between individuals. Those better to not be discussed, because everyone has their own way of looking at things. But my general expectations for my daughter-in-law or son-in-law were the same. It is not that [the expectations] for daughter-in-law different [from] son-in-law.

While I suspect that Baba cares a bit more for what others think than I do, I must admit I was quite pleased with his perspective on this – I really couldn’t ask for a more considerate and reasonable set of expectations.

GG: What do you remember Aditya telling you about me before you met me? Like on the phone.

Baba: He didn’t tell me anything!

GG: Aditya, is this true?

Aditya: Because Baba’s phone calls are so short!

Baba: That has already been said. Whatever he said –

GG: But he went back to India one summer.

Baba: That is true, but Aditya is very close to – my children are all more close to – Maa for such things, for such topics. So they always spoke to her, and she only told me that much that was…

Maa: Screened!

<general laughter>

Baba: Yeah, little bit. I always got a filtered version.

GG: Okay, Maa, what do you remember Aditya telling you about me?

Maa: In 2006 when he came, he told me. And I told him it is okay, make your studies properly, and then you can do whatever you feel like, I don’t mind. And what else…?

Aditya: Nah, we talked about it when I was in Madras, right?

Maa: So long time back… That time I [hadn’t yet met] her, right? So I told [him] that I did not know what type of girl she is. I was not very keen… Hmmm… I am very scared that time, because he should complete his studies and things. Because in our [country], in India, a girl or boy’s future is very… We are very concerned about their future. All parents [are this way]. So I was a little scared that he may not—

Baba: – do well in his exams or things like that.

GG: Is there anything you wish Aditya had told, that might have helped your fears more or your concerns?

<general confusion over the meaning of the question>

Okay, before you met me, maybe you had some concerns… Was there anything that Aditya could have told you, that could have helped those concerns?

Baba: No, I don’t think with me [there were any concerns].

Maa: Yeah, I was concerned. Because he told [me] that you have some health problem. So I was concerned if it was very serious type. I don’t know anything. So I thought that health problem was very very… <worried hand gesture>.

I have a genetic blood-clotting disorder – which I only found out my freshman year while dating Aditya – which will be a lifelong concern, although it is perfectly managable with a little daily medication and awareness. At that time, however, it was a new-ish thing, and neither Aditya nor I were sure of how serious it would turn out to be. Luckily, it falls more on the side of, say, adult asthma or a severe allergy in seriousness than, for example, diabetes.

Aditya: See, part of the problem – the reason I spoke more to Maa than to Baba – [was] because I always did feel that… Baba and I had talked about things in passing, not detailed things… I always felt that Baba would be supportive, no matter what decision I took, you know? Like I always say, Sachin gets all this advice before he goes in to bat, and once he goes in to bat, it’s up to him, he has to make the decisions. And I always felt that Baba would be supportive over whatever decision I took. I was more concerned about how Maa would react. That’s why I talked more with Maa about it than with Baba.

GG: (to Maa) Does that surprise you?

Maa: No, [I’m] not surprised. But I was concerned when he said that she has some health problem – that was why I was concerned. But when I have seen you, I told him, that she is the best for you.

GG: Okay. Anything else that you thought when you met me for the first time?

Maa: I felt that you were very, um, that your approach was very nice. Your way of talking, your behavior, I liked it very much. Even I told my relations in India, “She is a nice girl.”

GG: So, on some of the blogs I read, some of the Indian parents aren’t very happy about their sons or their daughters dating an American. So people give out various advice, like “you should do this when you meet them”, or “you should do that”. For instance, one of the things that they advise is that you should dress up very nicely, maybe wear a sari when you meet the parents for the first time.

<Baba makes a wincing face>

Maa: I am also no. Even to Bhabi, I told [that it was not necessary] … You are an American girl, but even to Bhabi…

Baba: If my daughter can put on trousers, can go [out] in skirts, what is wrong with my daughter-in-law – someone else’s daughter [doing that sort of thing]. That is how I look at things.

Aditya’s parents are typically very pleased when I wear Indian-style clothing, but I have never felt any pressure – even while in India – to wear Indian clothing instead of jeans and a t-shirt.

Maa: Even to Bhabi I said that, you can wear whatever you like in my house. One thing I told her, when people from village come –

Baba: Yeah, social functions that is, it is better that you put on sari. It is not a compulsion [compulsory] to put on saris, she may put on salwar kameeze also. But [with a sari] that is easier to blend in, because everyone else will be in sari. If you come in sari you will feel a little [more] comfortable.

While I think you can fit into Indian cities just fine in Western clothes, I felt more comfortable – and slightly less conspicuous – wearing salwar kameezes or saris in more rural towns.

Maa: And, nah, one thing I told Bhabi, when people from villages, remote villages – we have got relations there – so when they will come it is better to wear saris. Because they will come for half an hour, for one hour. They will see that this girl is settled in [well] with this family, and their impression is good for the daughter-in-law.

Baba: Because I feel, that people should talk good about our, my family, and of course my daughter-in-law is part of it.

Maa: Even my daughter follows the same thing, it is not [just] for my daughter-in-law.

Aditya: Did you have any concerns, that, you know, other people, people who would be visiting from remote villages… Did you have any concerns that they would see the relationship as a bad thing, and would think less of the family?

Baba: Actually, in our family and among our relations, I have got the impression that generally I do right things. Therefore, in my house, if something happens – what I have accepted – generally the general impression is that that is right. So I never had any doubt that if I am comfortable, and if my daughter-in-law is comfortable with me, that others would have anything to say. So that advantage I have. In my family or my relations, I have a different, I would say, position. And it puts my daughter-in-law in a little elevated position.

Maa: In our family nobody told anything. Even neighbors… Well, I’m not really sure, I’ve never had any concerns [about what they say].

Baba: I have the one advantage that often, when things go wrong, and two parties speak, and to one party I have said okay, the other party, they also accept it. So that way, I know that if I have accepted something nobody would say or make a remark that would be negative.

Maa: Everybody says that, “If he agrees, than it is okay.”

Baba: I knew that my children will not make a mistake or take a wrong position knowingly. And if even they have taken a wrong position knowingly, I would scold them in private, but I would stand by them.

GG: Baba, do you want to say something about the first time you met me? I came with Bear [my father’s golden lab]…

Baba: Yeah, what I remember, is that I had my own expectations. And I feel that I was quite happy that you met most of those.

Maa: But not all…

Baba: Hmmm, but, mostly. Because one this is that you were very easy-going, you were not stiff, you didn’t want to show off, that is what impressed me most.  Generally what happens is that, I feel, courtship is a process of selling.

GG: To Aditya or to you?

Baba: No, anybody. Why? You see, when it is not marriage, it is courtship… I am meeting somebody for two or three hours. I put on my best dress, my best perfume, comb my hair thrice, twice shave. That is because I want to create an impression. But in married life, what we find, early in the morning before brushing your teeth you meet your husband. So that is a completely different [thing]. Before you get into that relation,  you are trying to make an impression – like packaging of any consumer goods… The packaging is good, you accept it, only after opening do you know, uh-oh, mistake, mistake. <Baba shakes his finger>

<general laughter>

Okay. Therefore, generally, when somebody comes on such thing, my impression is that they try to impress. If elders are present in India that happens. Like when I went to meet Maa, the whole family was looking at me [to see] what I [would] do.

Maa: But, you know…

Baba: That is different! We will talk to you afterwards. You will get your chance, okay!

<general laughter>

Anything that is possible! The meals that the would-be bride has not cooked, they are produced as if she has cooked. The handiwork that she has not done, they will try to [show it off]. And if she has done, they will come running, “She has done it!” They will make her sit…

Maa: Earlier…

Baba: Okay, nowadays they don’t do it, but something like it still goes on. Therefore, I always say, that salesmanship part of it I wanted to eliminate. After that, the person I can meet, he or she is the right person. When you came, you came like a girl next door, you were very easy-going, you didn’t have the hesitation for the first time, meeting a foreigner, [meeting] Aditya’s father, and when you have got all those horrible pictures of Indian in-laws…

<general laughter>

Yet, after that, the way you came and reacted was quite good.

I wish I had arrived like the girl next door – instead, I arrived a bit sweaty from the mile & a half walk from my dad’s house to Dada’s place, where Maa and Baba were staying. But Bear got a nice long walk out of it, and I got bonus points for bringing the dog along.

GG: And so what expectation didn’t I meet? Maa said that I didn’t meet all the expectations.

Baba: No, that is what Maa has said. I have not said it as of yet.

Maa: That I will say after the interview. Off record!

I ended up badgering them into telling at least one expectation I failed to meet “on record” – but that will have to wait for the next part of the interview!

This past month, though, Bagel Monday has diminished in significance, and glorious 20 Ounces of Ginger Tea Everyday (With Biscuits!) has replaced it as my main morning motivator.

I love it when my in-laws are staying with us.

Note that I didn’t say visiting us – that would imply that Aditya’s parents are house guests while they’re here, while, as Baba says, it’s their home too. Granted, our daily life changes some when Maa and Baba are here in Washington DC, the morning tea being just one example, but the changes are more minor than many people who hear my in-laws are in-town would expect. Since we’re coming to the close of Maa & Baba’s second extended stay out here (they were here last year in the late summer, and will be visiting once more this year), I thought that it’d be good time to write about the “typical day” in our household while Aditya’s parents are here.

A regular ol’ day

As previously mentioned, when I wake up in the morning, there is always (magically!) a beer stein’s worth of ginger tea waiting for me. Aditya’s and my cell alarms both go off at seven am, because we like to pretend we’ll get up and do something worthwhile, like go running with the dogs. Instead, we watch the dogs pretend that they’re  WWF fighters until Maa knocks on the door around seven thirty letting us know that the tea is ready. I’m not altogether sure when Maa & Baba wake up, although I’ve heard rumors of unholy risings at 0′butt thirty.

Aditya and I will stumble across the hall to the other bedroom, where our tea is waiting on a tray Maa & Baba’s bed, along with biscuits to nibble on – typically we have some semi-bland Indian cookies, like Parle-Gs, although today we had the all-American Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookies I baked on Sunday (secret tip: always put in half a teaspoon extra vanilla). While sipping our morning tea we discuss the day’s plans, the state of Indian cricket, and recent news, including what Baba has already read on BBCnews.com that morning. Well, Aditya and his parents talk – about 50/50 in English and Bengali – and I attempt to gather my wits. I think today mostly consisted of Aditya trying to explain why this video and the phrase “the world is literlly her oyster” are so funny.

We’ll chat until a little after eight, then Aditya and I will hurry to get ready for the work day. Last summer Maa and Baba traveled into DC once or twice a week to visit the various Smithsonians – which meant that bathroom real estate was a prime commodity in the mornings-, but this time they’ve hung around at home the majority of the time. By a quarter to nine Aditya is out the door to face the horror that is I-66 during rush hour, and I follow a half an hour or so later, after a quick walk & “tennis ball session” with the pups.

What happens at the house while Aditya and I are at work is largely a mystery to me, something that I piece together from various clues after returning home. The house often looks much cleaner than when I left. Dishes for dinner are already cooked (which makes it somewhat difficult to learn new Indian recipes from Maa). A newspaper will be on the table, despite the fact that we don’t have a subscription. The Burn Notice dvd that arrived the night before from Netflix will inevitably be ready to go out again (Maa has developed an addiction to that show that borders on the level of my CoffyBite addiction).

Aditya and I get off work sometime between six and seven thirty and are met at the door by more chai & chatting. Often this will transition to a game of Twenty Nine, which is pretty much my favorite partner-based card game ever.  Yesterday we played a cutthroat game until ten or so before finally stopping to heat up dinner, and I learned a new Bengali cuss word, courtesy of Baba after I dealt him yet another amazingly awful hand.

Dinner is normally some combination of lentils, rice, and one or two chicken/fish/prawns/vegetable Indian dishes, prepared by Maa. It’s always amazing, altho a bit richer than I’m used to – I’ve gained 6 pounds in the past month. By eleven Maa & Baba retire to bed, while Aditya and I hang out, catch some TV, and likely work a bit on our laptops until midnight. And at some point in there the dogs get a long walk or a jog if the weather is cool and my willpower & injured leg are feeling up to it (the lack of jogging may also have something to do with those 6 pounds…).

I feel pretty bad that we’ve been working such long hours, but there’s not much we can do about it. While we haven’t been able to take days off during the week this summer for day trips, we’ve been going out to eat at unique ethnic restaurants in the evenings. Ethiopian from DC’s famous U Street has been the favorite so far. Weekends have also been pretty chill, with a focus on running various errands and recovering from the week, although we did get into DC to check out the Hope Diamond at the Natural History Museum & the fireworks over the Fourth of July weekend.

Maa and Baba leave for California on Thursday, so you can expect some more regular blogging from then on. Last night, after our marathon Twenty Nine session, they sat down for an interview on their take on intercultural relationships, which I’ll be posting as soon as I can transcribe it.  I also plan on writing some more on their time here, and the lessons I’ve learned from having them stay.

Me? Oh, well, I don’t have a faith. And, no, I’m not interested in getting one either.

That was my  polite non-answer when asked about my religious beliefs by two Christians who stopped by Aditya’s and my doorstop to proselytize last weekend. And it was as true, as far as it goes – I’m not one much for simple faith in any context. When discussing my religious beliefs with friends & family, I’m most likely to to describe myself simply as an atheist. But when I’m feeling a little mischievous – or argumentative – I’ll sometimes put in that I’m an atheist – and a Hindu.

Yeah, it’s a bit of a complicated situation; I blame Aditya for it completely.  Like many other things in my life, religion is something that has become more complicated since we set off on our intercultural marriage adventure.

My religious past

Growing up, I’d describe my family as nominal Christians, like so many other Americans. We’d occasionally go to church, we’d celebrate Christmas and Easter with both secular and religious iconography & stories, and one summer I went to a day Bible camp at the urging of my (more religious) grandparents.

I never really “got” religion. When I went to church while my grandparents were visiting it was because after Sunday School they served doughnuts! And juice! At five I was junk-food deprived. I did try to understand & believe in what I heard in church and from family members – I distinctly remember trying to fit the Christian story of creation together with my understanding of evolution when I was six:

Maybe the kids of Adam and Eve interbred with the evolved humans, and people who are particularly stupid or do bad things like murder and steal are that way because they have more monkey genes!

Moral theory, eugenics and faith-based science in one sentence from a six year old! (There are family members who are surprised that I’ve managed to grow up into a reasonably sane adult.) To compound things further, when I was ten I stumbled onto both Dostoevsky and philosophy, and, well, early exposure to that sort of thing is bound to screw a kid up. In my case, Ivan Karamazov’s presentation of the problem of the evil rocked my world view, and ultimately led me to disbelieve in an omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent god:

Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature- that baby beating its breast with its fist, for instance- and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions?

Since then I’ve read significantly on religion, ethics, and the philosophy of religion, but nothing I’ve read has given me  such a strong punch to the gut – and nothing has changed my mind on the nonexistence of the Abrahamic God. That, along with strong leanings towards secular Humanism and a scientific mindset were all of my “religious” beliefs when I met Aditya.

Hinduism & Aditya

Aditya is very up front about his religious beliefs. While I wouldn’t call my husband a “spiritual person”, many of his actions and thoughts seem to flow from his religious background and beliefs – like many Hindus I know.

He’ll be writing his own post on the topic of religion and our relationship, so I won’t attempt to explain his religious beliefs myself – suffice it to say, he calls himself an atheistic Hindu – although pantheistic Hindu might be more accurate.  Prior to meeting him, I had very little knowledge of Hinduism, besides the fact that it talked about reincarnation. I did know it had something to do with reincarnation, and lots of gods. Speaking of, here’s a Fun Reincarnation Anecdote: as a barbaric, bloodthirsty child I used to go out after it rained to get rid of the snails in our garden. My mom initially objected to my use of a salt shaker as the weapon of choice, but desisted when I appealed to her vague hippie leanings that the snails were probably just people who had been very bad in past lives, and were getting what was coming to ‘em. That Russian literature, it screws a person up, I’m telling you.

Anyways, when Aditya and I first became a serious couple one of my first actions was to audit a Hinduism course, as described in this post – although I admit part of my motivation  was to end the association I had between Hinduism and evil snails. Each new aspect of Hinduism that I discovered through the class led to hours of discussion with Aditya as I learned about the specific practices he and his family followed (none of it included snails).

After these discussions I never worried that religion would be a source of friction in our relationship because our belief sets, while somewhat different, are mutually respectable and give us similar Weltanschauungs (worldviews). I think both of these – respect of the other’s beliefs, and similar mindsets, if not similar beliefs – are key to a successful relationship. I know that I could never have a serious romantic relationship with a Christian or moral relativist simply because those beliefs are antithetic to mine – and given my fascination with philosophy of religion and metaethics we’d never quit arguing about it. And as Aditya will attest, I am a classically-trained s.o.b. in a philosophical argument.

It also helped that I find many of the religious texts of Hinduism – particularly the Gita and the Upanishads – incredibly meaningful as philosophy, albeit not presented in the analytical framework I’m most familiar with. And while I don’t hold with the superstitions of any religion, including Hinduism, I certainly don’t think that the rituals and traditions of Hinduism are bunk, as I discussed in this blog post on intercultural acceptance. Rather, for me, ritual and tradition are the containers within which substance is stored – they create meaning in the same way as performative speech.

Becoming a Hindu?

While I incorporated some Hindu beliefs and rituals in my daily life and thoughts since studying the religion  in college, I have only been somewhat comfortable calling myself a Hindu since having an Arya Samaj wedding a year & a half ago. Until that point I would have said that I agree with some Hindu philosophy (I use “some” as a modifier since the heterogeneity of Hinduism means that no one can coherently accept all parts of Hindu philosophy). So why the change?

Well, as a wife of a Hindu man, a daughter in a Hindu family, and a eventual mother of Hindu kids, I am now not just a believer in some Hindu thought , but also a participant in Hindu culture and family life. And for me, personally, that makes the difference between being a Hindu and believing in some parts of Hinduism. It’s an odd distinction to many Westerners, I think, who are use to the straightforward conversion processes in Abrahamic religions, which have relatively clearer doctrines of faith than most religions developed in Asia, which can often be atheistic in nature.

Hinduism’s mark can be seen in our household – if you look closely – but day-to-day life isn’t much different than what you would expect in your typical nonreligious Western home.  There’s a shelf of religious texts above my shelf of ethics & philosophy books. One flat surface in the house plays host to a Nataraja, a Buddha, incense, and a growing collection of Ganishas – but also has Indian knicknacks and the occasional tea mug. Setting up a better puja area is on the long to-do list…

But, really, that’s about it. We don’t go to Hindu temple regularly, despite the fact that there’s two temples within ten miles (I wasn’t joking when I wrote that we now live in the Desi suburbs of DC). We don’t follow many common rituals – and there’s certainly no daily household pujas happening here! Right or wrong, I do sometimes feel that this lack of outwardly trappings of Hinduism makes my claim on Hinduism less “real”, at least to others. This is a relatively recent phenomenon – when I was simply a humanist atheist I never questioned whether my identity in that group was real or not. I suspect part of the issue is simply the way Aditya and I are settling into life and looking for a community; I’ve even been considering hitting up the local Unitarian Universalists to see if we’d fit in there, with our atheistic notions and statues of gods. The two, after all, are an odd combination to most people.

In the end though, I feel extremely comfortable with my philosophical and religious beliefs. Hinduism was an unexpected addition to my philosophy, but I have no doubt that I’m much richer for it  (Aditya was unexpected too – so help me, as a preteen I had a grand plan of studying math at CalTech, getting an MBA in Switzerland, and marrying an Austrian). And while it’d be pure hubris to say I’ve got this whole religion thing figured out by my mid-twenties, I do think I’ve developed a good structure on which to grow my understanding in the future. And, hey, I’ve always got my Russian literature to fall back on.

(Not Leo Tolstoy though – he’s a religious fruitcake.)