Being Home: Observations From My First Week
Before I left for home, I had so many inhibitions which were primarily my assumptions about what things would be like when I was home. However, I did promise myself that I would try to practice the skill of awareness which would allow me to read situations & people without the bias of being….me.
Family structures
Its the first time I was able to see the archetypal family structure of India from the outside, without participating in it. I read people from the lens of an outsider and it gave me quite a few insights about how most families function. There’s a bollywood movie I recently watched which had a phrase in it “Naapi badalne wale ka karz” which translates into “Debt of the person who changed your nappies” and that is at the very core of smooth functioning of families. Parents in India go above and beyond to provide for their children but it comes with conditions. Conditions are usually in the form of subtle (sometimes aggressive) expectations which need to be fulfilled in order for the “debt” to be paid back. An example of this (which I saw in my own family) would be being arranged to marry somebody by the parents. You might be subverted into marrying someone who is rated well by the family on things that might not matter to you such as the girl’s ability to handle household work and kindness towards all the elders. In some cases, this might work but in others, this leads to unquestionably living by the decisions made by a generation that’s mostly driven by tradition, less so by rational means of decision making (no generalization intended). The expectations can vary — from wanting you to dream the same dreams they did to fulfilling family relationships in the same way they did. While this isn’t good or bad, it does leave little room for curiosity and questioning. Most of these decisions are made out to be good since they’re made by adults of the family. When you combine strong traditions with a hierarchical structure of decision making, it’s a recipe for an oppressed generation that loses the chance to fully understand themselves and constantly cajoles themselves into believing the decisions made FOR THEM were right.
Indian dads
My dad (like a lot others) has had a habit of waking up to Indian news which sensationalizes global catastrophes akin to Indian drama which makes it addictive in nature. He (meant to be a microcosm of the entire dad population in India) talks politics all day, complains about the public infrastructure and the masses and continues to count all the things in life (past mistakes, current affairs, household politics) that lead to “tension” which is a buzzword here. Everybody seems to be trapped in a vicious cycle of counting how many things are wrong about the country and their lives, not realizing that leads to a chronic perspective of seeing all that’s wrong with the world leading to feeling chronically stressed. Maybe a bollywood Joe Dispenza is needed? I tried making a breakthrough by making my dad watch Youtube videos around the concepts of our psychology, experiences, mind-body connection in Hindi and it has surprisingly worked well. My dad for the brief moment, was truly aware when he watched a video about how humans should view mistakes made in life as learning opportunities for that’s what they’re there for. He reflected back to his own hardships and for the very first time, instead of using them as bait for his “tension” in the present moment and how kids couldn’t understand how much “tension” adults have, he instead said “These mistakes are meant to teach me something so I don’t repeat them again. I know I have weaknesses and I’m becoming aware of them”. Now that’s not something you hear often from Indian parents so it was my EUREKA! moment.
Consumerism
Poverty is a state we all grow alongside ever since we were young kids. We are habitual to seeing people beg in the streets (in fact that’s a nation-wide business among the poor now allegedly), people missing a few limbs here and there, people in tatters on the scorching streets of Delhi, you name it, we’ve seen it. Alongside the poorest and the wealthiest, there’s a new class emerging, the middle class. The rising middle class of India (of which I’m a part of) is the class that got a chance to participate in building wealth rather than acquiring it from a previous generation. This is the class that didn’t grow up with a silver spoon but had to work tooth & nail to deserve even a fraction of the spoon. Recognizing this opportunity, we had quite a few e-commerce players come in the market and before you knew it, it’s all too common to have someone from Flipkart or Amazon ringing your doorbell every second day. Consumerism is rife in the country.
Smartphones
Smartphones have spread like wildfire in the country. They’re super affordable and cut through the fabric of inequality in the country, allowing every citizen to afford a smartphone (no matter their income — this is huge!). I’ve seen my mom and dad use their phones first thing in the morning, endlessly scrolling, while sitting right beside each other. I’ve seen our domestic help sneak out ever so often to text. I’ve seen my younger brother wake up to reels and sleep to Snapchat. I’ve seen my mother’s sister scroll through e-commerce sites day and night. I’ve really had to make it a point with all the adults around me to have a conversation with their phones tucked away and it hasn’t been easy. Some of them don’t realize they’ve become addicted to these little devils in their pockets but when you live in a country where whatever elders do/say is right, there isn’t much room to tell them otherwise. As I saw my Maasi (my mother’s sister) close the door behind her as she said goodnight to me, I saw her phone glued to her palm with an ad covering the screen and thought to myself “Finally she gets to spend time with her beloved — her smartphone!”
