Eleven days after I gave birth to Star I had to take Mary Jane to the vet for her yearly check up. Heaven knows why I scheduled this appointment or why I kept it, but I did. It was the first time I had ventured out of the house without Star in tow. I remember putting my cat carrier under the seat and waiting for my turn with the doctor. I remember looking around at the other cat owners and thinking, "Not a single one of these people knows that I am a new mom. No one knows that I can still tell my daughter's birth story word for word, pain for pain, and joy for joy." There I sat feeling like my body was a miracle and that my world was turned inside out, but for those looking at me all they saw was a badly dressed lady with a jiggly belly and sagging breasts.
This past weekend my family went to Atlanta and attended the AKKA conference. AKKA is a conference for Kannada speakers all over North America. Every other year on Labor Day Weekend, Kannadigas flock into a major city to be hosted by that city's Kannada Kootu (chapter). Heaven only knows why we thought it would be a good idea to pack up again after just 2 weeks of being home and lug it all down to Atlanta the weekend before school starts, but we did.
The weirdness started the moment we entered the hotel lobby. We all bucked the system and showed up in western clothes. We had spent the night with my sister and family so we weren't quite in the Indian mindset yet. I stood with our bags and the girls while Marvel went to give his folks a call. I look over and this Indian guy, probably 25years old or so, with a long ponytail is unabashedly staring at me. I look at him and smile. He smiles and keeps staring. Oh! My brain clicks in- he is the real deal straight from India. Might be an artist, might be someone newly arrived and trying to keep the ties to Karnataka alive, or might just be an Indian-American who didn't get the message that we don't stare here in this country. Marvel returns, man stares, in-laws join us, man stares, we walk away, I turn around and the man is still staring!
At the conference center there are more stares, although these are the American variety done on the sly or quickly ended when I tear them out of their trance with a friendly "hello". There are also the completely uncomfortable, pretend we don't see you, passes with the other white people at the conference. I know we don't know each other but the least we can do is smile and say hello or even offer up the meaningless compliment on each others' clothing as we watch our children run around the lobby. And then there are the unassuming Aunties who corner me and complain about their "white daughter-in-law" who doesn't attempt to incorporate any Indian culture into her granddaughters' lives at all, followed by a torrent of compliments based on what she assumes of me from our 20 minute one-way conversation.
But do you know what had me rolling my eyes and acting like a petulant teenager? The folks that innocently asked, "What do you think about all this? Do you like Indian culture? Is it overwhelming?" Just like I was sitting back in that vet's office, my world was turned inside out and no one could tell. I was overcome with emotion and no one knew. It took me 2 days to stop scanning the crowds for one of my friends' faces. It took me 2 days to remember that this was not India. I was not home. I was in some strange middle place where people looked like incredibly over-dressed Indians, but acted like Americans and still treated me like an outsider. I wanted to plant a tattoo on my forehead that read, "I lived in Mysore for 9 months, not took a trip there for 2 weeks. This one weekend doesn't count as Indian culture. I saw a man clean his bottom in a pothole on the street with rain water. You can't overwhelm me. And I can't sum up what I think about all this in one, nice, neat package without crying for a place that I didn't want to leave."
This past weekend my family went to Atlanta and attended the AKKA conference. AKKA is a conference for Kannada speakers all over North America. Every other year on Labor Day Weekend, Kannadigas flock into a major city to be hosted by that city's Kannada Kootu (chapter). Heaven only knows why we thought it would be a good idea to pack up again after just 2 weeks of being home and lug it all down to Atlanta the weekend before school starts, but we did.
The weirdness started the moment we entered the hotel lobby. We all bucked the system and showed up in western clothes. We had spent the night with my sister and family so we weren't quite in the Indian mindset yet. I stood with our bags and the girls while Marvel went to give his folks a call. I look over and this Indian guy, probably 25years old or so, with a long ponytail is unabashedly staring at me. I look at him and smile. He smiles and keeps staring. Oh! My brain clicks in- he is the real deal straight from India. Might be an artist, might be someone newly arrived and trying to keep the ties to Karnataka alive, or might just be an Indian-American who didn't get the message that we don't stare here in this country. Marvel returns, man stares, in-laws join us, man stares, we walk away, I turn around and the man is still staring!
At the conference center there are more stares, although these are the American variety done on the sly or quickly ended when I tear them out of their trance with a friendly "hello". There are also the completely uncomfortable, pretend we don't see you, passes with the other white people at the conference. I know we don't know each other but the least we can do is smile and say hello or even offer up the meaningless compliment on each others' clothing as we watch our children run around the lobby. And then there are the unassuming Aunties who corner me and complain about their "white daughter-in-law" who doesn't attempt to incorporate any Indian culture into her granddaughters' lives at all, followed by a torrent of compliments based on what she assumes of me from our 20 minute one-way conversation.
But do you know what had me rolling my eyes and acting like a petulant teenager? The folks that innocently asked, "What do you think about all this? Do you like Indian culture? Is it overwhelming?" Just like I was sitting back in that vet's office, my world was turned inside out and no one could tell. I was overcome with emotion and no one knew. It took me 2 days to stop scanning the crowds for one of my friends' faces. It took me 2 days to remember that this was not India. I was not home. I was in some strange middle place where people looked like incredibly over-dressed Indians, but acted like Americans and still treated me like an outsider. I wanted to plant a tattoo on my forehead that read, "I lived in Mysore for 9 months, not took a trip there for 2 weeks. This one weekend doesn't count as Indian culture. I saw a man clean his bottom in a pothole on the street with rain water. You can't overwhelm me. And I can't sum up what I think about all this in one, nice, neat package without crying for a place that I didn't want to leave."
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