Ghosts of Christmas (and other times) past

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I’m always a bit hesitant to write what might be viewed as a “personal” entry on these pages. I used to have my own personal blog for those types of musings but decided to give it up because of the pressures of a full time job and this blog. I also don’t want to be presumptuous and assume that the vast majority of SM readers care about my life (as opposed to my writings highlighting something of interest or importance to the South Asian American community). That being said, today is a holiday (when SM readership plummets for obvious reasons), and so I figured I’d get away with some personal blogging. Since many of you seemed to enjoy my previous entry about my arduous toils in my basement, I thought I would serve up one more entry based on the booty recovered from the nine tons of refuse we removed from down there over the last three days.

First off, I know some of you don’t believe me when I say I’m a Grinch. Do these pictures finally convince you? I could tell even at a young age that this new-fangled Santa Claus was an imposter:

Leave this one alone. He’s bad to the bone. (Age 1)

And Frosty? Please. The only large snowball I care to associate with is a snow cone with watermelon syrup:

Where is Frosty’s left hand?

Digging some more I found these pictures in an old, overflowing brown suitcase with a broken zipper…at the bottom of a stack of boxes. I am guessing that they are the final pictures that my dad took at his home before embarking for America with a few dollars in his pocket (literally) and admission secured at the University of Cincinatti’s Graduate School.

No Britney Spears posters on the walls?

“Is it to late to change my mind?” (1966)

Next, I found this old student i.d. card in a small envelope in a box full of junk mail from the 70s. My dad will not thank me for this one. You can see he has let his hair begin to grow out to fit in more with the 60s culture in the U.S.:

Among the heaps of old pictures, I found nearly 500 “biodata” type shots my dad had taken of himself posing in various locations. Most of the backgrounds appeared warm and sunny and a disproportionate amount of them featured large cars. Again, I haven’t talked to him about any of these (interpreting these pictures for myself is actually much more fun) but my guess is that when you leave India to come to the States you want to convince your family back home that you are happy, doing well, and living the American dream (the latter would best explain posing with all those cars and the glamor shots). Your family in India will thus feel less apprehension about the fate of their child in America.

I was also desperately searching for pictures of my mom from Uganda. I think I may have found a few but I don’t want to post them here attributing them to the wrong location if I am incorrect. I did find two of her that I really liked though. Again, looking through the pictures I have this strong sense that many were taken to convince relatives back home that life in America was ok and they need not be overly concerned. From the perspective of my mom, she also had to convince her mom and siblings (her father died when she was young) that married life was ok and that she wasn’t sad or lonely.

Was this picture (taken in Chicago) the first time my mom played in snow?

Of all the things I hoped to recover from my basement (old pictures, cherished toys, home movies) there was one item I was searching for with more desperation than all the others. It was the one item that my mom pleaded with me to find before she left for India last week (and she has been pleading about this for years). “Abhi, please find my pharmacy school diploma.” My mom was never a pharmacist here in the U.S. The diploma from a school in Ahmedabad didn’t transfer, and she would have had to have gotten re-accredited or something. For a woman new to the States, who had to support her new husband who was in grad school, dreams of her own career died. She took a number of odd jobs when she first got here (including making cassette tapes). For most of her career she worked in department stores (my mom dresses me, which is why I’m such a good dresser). She was once the top sales associate in the nation for her large department store chain. Still, my mom is really smart and that diploma was proof of that, proof one can hold. She had to give up her own dreams for her husband and kids as many of our moms might have had to. I really wanted to find it for her but it just wasn’t there. I talked to her yesterday and tried to convince her to go back to that school and talk to the dean. Maybe they still have a record of it. I will keep pushing here and keep SM readers posted.

As I continued to sift through stuff I discovered the little books that my parents used in their (ultimately failed) attempt to teach me Gujarati when I was a kid:

I’m going to save these so they can try again when I have kids someday.

I also found the record/book I played incessantly as a child. This, of course, helps explain why I am such a sci-fi/fantasy fan. I heard Bilbo battle Smaug hundreds of times (often right before bed):

And finally, I found this picture. It must have been taken at our house in Chicago when I was 1 or 2. I was a precocious child and enjoyed the company of tall blondes back then. I remember clearly that this woman had an Easy-Bake oven in her basement. Which might also explain why I love to cook.

71 thoughts on “Ghosts of Christmas (and other times) past”

  1. Nice! You use the camera to trick Santa into look away from you as you proceed to kick him in the nuts.

  2. What a great post – and how many of us can imagine our own parents going through the same feelings and experiences as they left the desh. 🙂 And it has to be said, Abhi, your mom is stunning in that pink sari.

  4. Wow, those pictures of your dad leaving remind me of my own departure. The crowd of family around the train (I boarded the airplane from elsewhere), the room that one is fond of. I keep all my ID cards as mementos. My college requires one to “surrender” ID card while leaving. I pretended to have lost it and paid the replacement fee so I could keep mine. As for the Britney poster, I believe this is because that’s yo dad’s room at home rather than in a hostel. In the latter, I believe the tradition of celebrity women being up on walls is an old one. Can’t say the same for beefcake on women’s hostel walls because residential institutions for women were quite rare back in the day.

    I keep insisting every now and then that we DBDs are more like your (ABD) generation (we are different in our foreign-ness, not our age) and wish to be viewed as such (just like all other Americans of the same generation view us) rather than as being like your parents. Yet in this aspect of leaving one’s country for another, and it’s special trials and thrills, I feel a kinship with Yo Dad and all immigrants, no matter how many generations removed from me, that I don’t share with anyone who lives in his/her country of birth.

  5. Dude, my parents went through a lot of the same stuff…which is why the Namesake (film) resonated with me. And your photographs are a lot like so many we have in old albums at home…it’s amazing what our parents went through and experienced…they were very gutsy people. Actually the documentary that Amarjeet highlighted, about the Suri family in the U.K. is also along the same lines. I salute that brave generation.

  6. I was a precocious child and enjoyed the company of tall blondes back then.

    😀

    Did you perhaps mean to say “even back then”?

    My college requires one to “surrender” ID card while leaving. I pretended to have lost it and paid the replacement fee so I could keep mine.

    Kurma, were we separated at birth or something?

  7. Yet in this aspect of leaving one’s country for another, and it’s special trials and thrills, I feel a kinship with Yo Dad and all immigrants, no matter how many generations removed from me, that I don’t share with anyone who lives in his/her country of birth.

    Kurma, you’re right, but just for the sake of discussion I’m going to throw a few things out there… I think there are some big differences between our parents (the first wave of 1960s/1970s DBDs) and the current crop of DBDs (1990s to present). Our parents, although often English-medium educated, were generally still very rooted in their regional identity and language…as well as their natal culture. Westernisation was present to varying degrees, but except for a few people from wealthy backgrounds in Delhi/Bombay, there was still a very strong, traditional, conservative desi imprint, which often was still the defining factor in most people’s lives. People like my parents, despite being urbane and educated, still had very limited exposure to American or British culture or media before they left India. When they came to these shores, they found a country with very little Indian presence and very little to remind them of home.

    Jump ahead 25 or 30 years…the cultural and social landscape in India (at least for educated middle class folks) had changed DRAMATICALLY. The young generation is often not only English-medium educated, but dreams in English, thinks in English, breathes in English. Although still rooted in their peer groups and their environment, their milieau has changed trmemdously from what it was a generation earlier. Many of the cultural trappings our parents grew up with have been diluted or left behind. Social attitudes are different. Westernisation is much stronger. Regional identities are weaker, and fluency in mothertongues has decreased. More than that, the West pervades daily life via television, movies, and mass media in general, which is now much more a part of people’s lives than before. When you guys came here, there was already a large desi presence, and in the big cities at least a large desi cultural infrastructure in place. Our parents (many of whom are your aunts and uncles) had done a lot of the leg work to (inadvertently) make your adjustment here easier. You guys can also communicate with home much easier.

    Anyway, not trying to minimise what DBDs today go through, or the exploitation in the workforce that exists (which our parents didn’t face) or the grad school hell that so many experience today, or any of the experiences that you guys have or continue to have…I guess what I’m saying is that back in the day, a very different DBD left a very different India and came to a very different America than is the case today.

  8. Dude, you’re from Glendale Heights (saw it written on the Santa photo)? My family lived in that massively-Indian town for 27 years. What a small world (or maybe not, given the number of Indians there—there’s an Indian store in every strip mall and Bollywood at the local theater).

    I have to agree, though, that those Indians who came in the 1960s and 70s really laid the groundwork for all those who followed (brothers, sisters, cousins, second cousins, etc.). When my dad came to the US in 1970, it was a big decision, and not lightly taken. Today, I have a number of 20-something second and third cousins immigrating for IT jobs, and they do it without a thought; and their arranged wives, too, actively were seeking NRIs to wed, so they could leave India. It’s like their birthright to leave India and it’s almost expected that any educated Indian will leave. I keep hearing about “reverse brain drain” but I am certain that India still is losing more people to the English-speaking West than it is gaining back.

  9. 7 · Amitabh said

    .I guess what I’m saying is that back in the day, a very different DBD left a very different India and came to a very different America than is the case today.

    Amitabh – As always, you have summed it up beautifully. Though there are a lot of differences between the DBDs who came to US in the 60s-70s and the ones who came later, there are a lot of common things too. Adjusting to a life in a small college town in the ‘corn country’ is a huge undertaking in itself. Add to that the burden of graduate school, loan repayment, sending money to parents, seemingly ‘racist’ remarks, occasional scorns etc, and you get the whole picture. As you had already pointed out, it’s much easier to communicate with ones parents (cheap intl. phone rates, email, chat); a far cry from those AT&T trunk dialing in the 70s.

  10. Abhi, I totally had that Hobbit recording when I was a kid. Wore it out.

    “When you hear this sound, turn the page!”

  12. I keep hearing about “reverse brain drain” but I am certain that India still is losing more people to the English-speaking West than it is gaining back.

    Still I wonder if this “brain drain” is a net loss for India. The NRIs send back an awful lot of money. The Patel community in Gujarat, for example, is flushed w/ NRI money. Also NRIs often convince there American employers to make investments back in India. So much of the outsourcing in the USA is carried out by Indian-American consultants.

  13. I love this post. I’m much younger than many of the posters here, and my family’s presence in the U.S. is too–a few distant relatives were the first ones to immigrate in the 70s, but they didn’t really create a network; the ones who did immigrated in the late 70s/early 80s. But even now I have many cousins who are moving to the U.S. as well, with the help of my father and with a network present for them when they get here, and I’d imagine it’s a very different experience than even the one my father went through when he was a grad student in the South in the 80s.

  14. I keep hearing about “reverse brain drain” but I am certain that India still is losing more people to the English-speaking West than it is gaining back. Still I wonder if this “brain drain” is a net loss for India. The NRIs send back an awful lot of money. The Patel community in Gujarat, for example, is flushed w/ NRI money. Also NRIs often convince there American employers to make investments back in India. So much of the outsourcing in the USA is carried out by Indian-American consultants.

    Brain drain implies that India had a use for the people who were leaving. It certainly did not have a use for the engineers who left 60s-80s given the catastrophic economic policies of that time. Most of the people I know of who graduated from an IIT or REC back then and stayed in India (and weren’t the sons of industrialists) went into bureacracy, where the idealists were beaten into early dotage and the greasy thrived, as jobs within their field of study were few and far between (maybe some defense labs, BHEL, ISRO). So I will say there was no real brain drain going on, just a mismatched government investment policy (i.e. why train technocrats when you are doing your damned best to kill industry ?). A much stronger case can be made about the deleterious effects of the departure of Indian doctors

  15. Wow! Abhi , what a great post. I love that bit of “cellotape” still stuck to your Dad’s picture (the one in the family living room).

    On the topic of recent v/s older DBS, i still think America is what you do with it. Ironically, given the spread of Indians, it is so much easier to find a community in the US. On the other hand, this convenience robs us of the necessity to go out and explore this country and its people.

    Back to the pumpkin pie.

  17. Ironically, while our parents were arguably ‘more desi’ in certain cultural parameters than today’s DBDs are, the young ABD children of recent DBDs are growing up in a much more “Indian” environment (right here in America) than we earlier ABDs did. In NJ, kids grow up now with places like Edison/Iselin, lots of Bollywood, bhangra, temples/mosques/gurdwaras/Indian churches, Hindi/Punjabi/Gujarati classes, Indian dance and music lessons, desi food everywhere, and most of all large desi social circles/cliques. They conceptualise their desi identity very differently than we, who grew up in relative isolation, do. I’ll be interested to see what movies/books/music etc. get produced by this generation when they grow up.

    The situation in the UK of course is different.

  18. Abhi this post is so lovely. My parents just got back from India a few weeks ago and had brought photos that had been thrown out by our relatives (long story) — it always is so interesting to hear their stories and perspectives through pictures and their own narration.

    Amitabh, I often wonder about the comment you made — what experiences bring people together or distinguish their immigration experiences? I see this within my parents (my mom came as a child, my dad as a grad student), and among my grandparents (my nanas came in the 60s in the brain drain, my dadi in the mid-80s through family reunification).

  20. Ironically, while our parents were arguably ‘more desi’ in certain cultural parameters than today’s DBDs are, the young ABD children of recent DBDs are growing up in a much more “Indian” environment (right here in America) than we earlier ABDs did. In NJ, kids grow up now with places like Edison/Iselin, lots of Bollywood, bhangra, temples/mosques/gurdwaras/Indian churches, Hindi/Punjabi/Gujarati classes, Indian dance and music lessons, desi food everywhere, and most of all large desi social circles/cliques. They conceptualise their desi identity very differently than we, who grew up in relative isolation, do. I’ll be interested to see what movies/books/music etc. get produced by this generation when they grow up.

    I think what makes the biggest difference simply is that they have large desi social circles. It’s less awkward to interact with other desis when you haven’t grown up as such a conspicuous minority and there are all these expectations about each other, IMO. Also, at least once you get to high school/college, I don’t think desis are very different from their non-desi peers, they just want to get drunk and get laid. 🙂

  21. what a great post, abhi! i love discovering old pics….when my dad first migrated to texas, he PERMED his hair, grew chops, and bought aviators!

    and you’re right, a lot of our parents came to the US with literally a handful of dollars, and it’s quite amazing what they had to endure.

    • i can relate to the gujarati book. i’ve found many copies of “learn hindi in 30 days” – spine intact – in the attic.

    (one more thing…i think you look more like your mum. very sweet.)

    happy holidays…i take my national boards tomorrow! yikes! back to the books!

  22. Ref: Amitabh in #7

    I think the main difference is the ease of communication now. For instance, we sometimes just leave a skype video call on while we go about doing our work so its practically like a little window to the other side of the world. Its amusing – there was once a bird that flew in through a window and I had to shout out from here to bring it to attention.

    Contrast this with say, the 1970s or 80s or even the 90s. And you’ll realize how fundamentally different things are.

    PS: I wonder how long it’ll be before you’ll start seeing people who physically commute between continents on a daily basis, etc.?(like say live in X and go to Y for work daily) Probably not in some centuries…. lets hope we’ll be alive by then (the chance of which, is definitely something quite significant for anyone with a life expectancy of a few decades left at this point, imho)

  23. (the chance of which, is definitely something quite significant for anyone with a life expectancy of a few decades left at this point, imho)

    potential unforseen understanding of biological systems that could put an end to death due to aging?

  26. Thank you for this lovely post! My mom had to go through a very similar experience when she moved to America with my dad after getting married.

  27. [Deleted by Admin] sorry, this has nothing to do with abhi’s post –the pics are wonderful by the way–it is nice of you to share these very personal pics that paint such a lovely story

  28. i have gone out on a couple of “arranged” dates with) that many ABDs think they are “better” than DBDs, especially when it comes to dating–could someone expound on why they think so?

    A post about Christmas and past memories is not the place for a discussion about ABD/DBD dating. Thanks.

  30. to rajni the monkey : my comment wasnt about “dating”–merely citing the instance in which I have come across ABDs —the “differences” (percieved) between ABDs and DBDs pervades many of the posts on this blog— most of the comments about about christmas and past memories makes mention of the “differences” between ABDs and DBDs!!!! so, your narrow interpretation of my comment and your choice to only mention one line of my comment to make it sound like it is about dating is unfortunate.

  31. Abhi, what a lovely post. Your mother looks so beautiful and so very young. Looking at the pictures of your Dad’s journey reminds me of the aching heart with which I left my loved ones, even though we are generations apart. Your observation of pics being taken to reassure parents back home is so very right. I have a ‘look I am so happy’ sort of blog where I post ‘happy’ pics for the benefit of my parents.

  32. 21 · meerkat said

    and you’re right, a lot of our parents came to the US with literally a handful of dollars, and it’s quite amazing what they had to endure.

    Most of the grad students who come to US today also come with a handful of dollars. They rely solely on the stipend that their TA/RA positions provides them.

  35. The little girl at the railway station holding your dad’s hand…was she a close relative? I often heard from my cousins who were close to my parents before they left India how much they missed my parents. The separation of families was hard for people all around in the seventies, even those who stayed in India.

  36. I just loved this post and am go glad that you decided to write it. There are so many similarities between your parents’ background and experiences and that of others who came around that time. I also can relate to your interpretation of the some of the pictures of your mother – very attractive woman – and how it was probably intended to offer comfort to her parents and other relatives that all was well.

    One needs to keep in mind that another of the changes that has occurred is the ease and cost of telecommunications. I have vivid memories of the occasional call to India one made in those days at considerable cost – when half the time was spent asking the person on at the other end if he/she could hear what was being said! One also had to should at the top of one’s voice because of the poor quality of the connection!

    I would encourage you and others to scan these older pictures or save them in some digitized format because they do deteriorate over time. I did that with decades old pictures in our old family albums. We are currently spending three months in Kerala – getting a break from the winter in the US – and I am surprised at the number of relatives who say with obvious delight that they enjoyed going through old family pictures that were posted on our family website.

  37. I just recently saw pics of my mum and my younger brother when he was about 1 years old as we were comparing pictures of him to his son who is now 1 and looks just like him! Your mums pics here reminded me of how young our parents were when they came to the west and yes your mum looks so beautiful and i admire her courage in moving countries to be with her family.

    I admire anyone who is willing to experience a new country , leaving behind friends , family.

    you also look like a cheeky little boy in all your pics…the best one is the one with santa. classic! lol

  38. Is it just me or does Abhi look like Little Shahrukh Khan in the 2nd pic? Ergo, Frosty’s left hand.

  40. HOLY CRAP Abhi! That second picture of your mom in the snow looks almost exactly like a picture of my mom in the snow, also probably for the first time. This is particularly strange since your mother doesn’t look anything like my mother. (Of course they’re both pretty, but in different ways.) My sister and I were both flabbergasted. I guess it’s the sun glasses and the angle. I will try to find the picture and send you a scan.

    And HOLY CRAP, Abhi, I had the same recording/book of the hobbit as a child too! But the recording was lost during one of our many moves, but I had the book for a long time. Then my fourth grade teacher read us the Hobbit out loud in class, and I was hooked.

    These are awesome. I hope you find that diploma. Merry Christmas!

  41. A post about Christmas and past memories is not the place for a discussion about ABD/DBD dating. Thanks.

    This is an unfair policy. After all, Abhi, didn’t you just do the same in this post? Dating Yo Dad with that dashing 1968-69 ID photo, and yourself with that bowl haircut?

  42. Thanx for the wonderful post, Abhi. Your mother looks so sweet in the photo. You look very spiffy in the pic with Santa, matching socks an’ all.

  44. Abhi, is it THE Glendale Heights, a suburb of Chicago? My wife and I rented an apartment there in the late seventies, probably around the same time that you were sitting in Santa’s lap. I still remember its name – Somerset, renowned for the tiniest 1-bedroom apartment ever built.

    The black-and-white pictures of your parents were very reminiscent of my own life, including the obligatory “Look Ma, me playing in the snow” picture sent to parents back home. Snow to us early immigrants was such an aspirational product, associated in our Third World sepia imagination with rich Bollywood stars who frolicked in the Gulmarg scenes and sang those great melodies that still moves us so deeply.

    I noticed in the color photo showing your Mom in a sari, there is water in the background. It could be Lake Michigan, in one of the parks around Lake Shore Drive. A question on the photo of your Dad surrounded by family – was it taken at a train station when he was leaving for America? The tradition of hordes of relatives coming to the train station is pretty much dead, perhaps because leaving for America is no longer such a big deal.

    You did this post as a filler in a slow news week, but what an appropriate post for this time of the year. Keep up the good work.

  46. Sorry about misspelling my own handle. Just found out that the i key sticks badly on this computer.

  47. 44 · Floridan said

    A question on the photo of your Dad surrounded by family – was it taken at a train station when he was leaving for America?

    I can see the train (windows) in the background.

  48. Another pleasure I get from posting family and travel pictures and making them viewable over the internets, is having my parents, who are too aged to travel, to view pictures of their siblings and families in different continents. And vice-versa.

    And hopefully, i can work the series in reverse chrono, using all those pictures that lie somewehere in my parents Godrejs.

  49. Great post! Those pics of your Dad reminded me of old pics I have of my Dad when he was leaving for this country, surrounded by family members, with a flower mala around his neck. Now I feel like digging those out and looking at them.

  50. Great post, Abhi. I’m in the midst of a similar cleaning at the ‘rents house and have unearthed my own set of buried treasure.