We recently moved to Columbus, Indiana, USA. I have lived in the
country before but my son has not. So my apprehensions were more around him and not
so much around how I would adjust to a new place. I was worried about him
getting used to the cold, the food, the accent, the car seat and the
loneliness. But as it turns out all those are manageable and he has taken to
his new surroundings quite well. It’s the things I didn't think about
that are turning out to be a challenge.
Over the weekend we met some great Indian families who live around
here. One of the couples has a lovely daughter called Ananya. The mother
introduced her to all of us in Hindi and the child said "Namaste" in
a very slightly accented Hindi- all very unusual and obviously a result of a
lot of hard work on the part of the parents. I was taken aback for a moment and
had to remind myself to reply politely and in Hindi. On the one hand I was
super impressed at the mother but on the other hand it filled me with puzzlement.
I had no action plan worked out to keep my son bilingual! The boy stopped using
Hindi back in Mumbai itself and given our tendency to speak English at home, it
seems quite an impossible goal. Besides I have never really put that down on my
list of things to do. I was left wondering if that made me a "bad"
immigrant and a "bad Indian". Should I not be worrying about how my
child will absorb the culture I grew up in and how he will stay connected to
his roots?
Its Monday morning, and I am still confused. Not so much about how
to achieve the goal of an “Indian” child but whether that is important to me. I
moved here because I knew it was the best thing for my husband’s career and the
kind of education Kabir can get here would be very hard to come by in India. I
never really thought how that would impact his sense of culture, language and
a sense of belonging. Frankly I felt, until the weekend that is, he would grow up like
kids around him and as long as we gave him the right values, he should be fine.
And maybe that still holds true and he will be just fine. But meeting Ananya
has made me think that very often there are things that we just don’t think
about when making the big decisions in life. The everyday practicalities have a
way of working themselves out, but some big questions take time to unfold. So I
guess I will just wait and watch in the absence of any clear answer from my
heart and hope that I can ultimately see the light on what is right by him.
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