Meet The Parents

When I first went to India back in 2004, my plane was delayed for more than 5 hours. Navin and his father had to wait for me till 3 in the morning  before I emerged out of the Bombay airport. The first thing I did was to apologize to Uncle Suresh because I felt so bad that they had been waiting for me for so long.  Instead of being cross, or making some sort of disgruntled face, he gave me a huge embrace, kissed my forehead and said “bless you, my child!” I was stunned. That had to be the warmest greeting I’ve ever had from anyone. I was just Navin’s friend, an outsider really...not a member of the family in any sense of the word.    

with Sreela's Mom

If we reverse the situation and have say….my dad doing that to Navin,giving him a hug and blesses him with a kiss on his forehead, pigs will fly in the sky, and Matt Damon would leave his fitness guru wife for yours truly:)
          
I observed that in Indian relational culture there exists a close relationship between parents, children, and friends of these children. It's considered as perfectly normal for friends of children to visit parents even when the kids are not around. Friends casually drop by to say hi to friends' parents, and parents often invite these friends over for a meal, again minus the children. Foreign friends are treated to the best meals and hospitality imaginable.    

Calcutta is an amazing city laden with rich colonial history. The Victoria monument in its grandeur is a stark reminder of the sheer greed that the colonists displayed without consideration for the local people's well-being. It was also built on opium money, leading to Edward Said's comment about how the monument should be named The 'Opium' monument instead.           

The Victoria Monument

More than the sight-seeing and wonderful shopping  trips that Sreela and I made, it’s the moments when I found myself sitting on Mrs. Sarkar’s bed  sharing some tea and Mari biscuits, while sharing stories about life, love and the universe (as Liene would say:))  that blew my mind away. Meeting Fugu's parents was quite a treat as well! For the whole evening, Fugu's dad kept on trying to make Sreela nominate his prawn curry as the best dish served during dinner, outdoing that of his wife's culinary accomplishments:)           

I think about my parents and how they relate to my  close and/or childhood friends. It's a much more formal relationship they have with them. They’d be interested in hearing how my friends are doing, but they’ll never visit them or have them over for dinner when I’m not around.  They view my friends as belonging to this distinct, non-familial private world that I have as an individual.  My mom would say it’s a Chinese thing, when you xiang nei (face inward) rather than xiang wai (focus outward), where your family forms the innermost important group of people in your life, while others belong outside that tight knit circle. This philosophy is manifested in the architecture of ancient Chinese houses, where tall , fort-like walls surround the whole house to prevent outsiders from seeing within, while simultaneously confining household secrets within those walls…no airing dirty laundry here!     

Ancient Chinese House with Tall Walls

For me, the Indian boundary between close friends of one's children and the above mentioned inner circle is blurred....when one is a good friend of one's child, then one is almost automatically considered as that person's child as well. And of course there’s the great fun of hearing your friends’ parents reveal embarrassing things about you, or embarrass you with their honest to goodness requests…like how Sudhir’s mom wondered out loud when Sudhir and Radhika are going to give her a granddaughter, and how that would complete her already happy life.    

I arrived in Singapore early this morning. I’ll be here for a few days accompanying my parents for their medical check-up, as well as visiting some cousins who settled in this city-state. In less than 2 weeks, it’ll be my turn to play host as Navin, Anya, Klara and Christina head to Indonesia for a 10 day visit to Jakarta, Jogjakarta and Bali.

Fugu's parents, grandmother with Sreela