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The American Within - Neerja Vasishta Neerja Vasishta is an Indian born in the United States. She was on a Rotary Fellowship to India from August 2001-May 2002, studying at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. During her time in India, she was able to reconnect with family, make new friends, and travel; she has written about her impressions in previous issues of SAWF. Neerja will be starting her Masters in City and Regional Planning at Cornell University in August 2002 and plans to work on development in India.

This year as I live in India for the first time, I am often reminded of how differently we perceive ourselves as well as each other. Here I am: a student, a family member, a traveler, an Indian, and a citizen of the United States. Every day, I am in different situations in which I may feel no shifting of roles—I am just me. But then someone will make a casual comment or ask a question that jarringly makes me realize that to them, I am someone else; that for them, I play a different role. The people around me have usually decided who I am, just as I have decided who they are.

For almost all of my 24 years, I have lived in the United States. My parents emigrated there from Northern India more than thirty years ago, and as years passed, I felt increasingly more disconnected from where my parents were from. The strangeness of having full Indian blood, yet not feeling Indian is somewhat like wearing beautiful, yet very uncomfortable shoes all the time. At times when you are sitting down or when you remove them, you may relax and even feel comfortable. But eventually it is time to leave, and you have to put your shoes back on. Others may see your shoes as absolutely lovely, but somehow I could never truly appreciate the compliment. This may be as close a way as any to explain why I decided to spend a year here in India. But even the most complicated decision has to be put into concise sentences for others, however, and I learned to do this in a variety of ways. Most people listen to what I say and, in turn condense it; invariably the phrase will include the words “search,” and “roots,” two words I have come to really dislike.

When I have vacation from classes, or just feel like escaping New Delhi sometimes, I take a trip to other parts of India. Many times I see Westerners touring around the country, and many times I wonder if they are American. Sometimes I intentionally sit close to the tourists and listen to their accents, just to see. India seems to attract more Europeans and Canadians; I rarely come across American tourists here. It seems that Americans like to travel in Europe or Mexico, but India is rarely even considered as an option. Even at my university campus, I have only met one American, and she is like me, an Indian girl feeling American, yet knowing also that she is Indian.

I have seen some Americans here though, and I act strangely around them. I’ll glance at them, wondering what city they are from. Sum them up: trendy, granola, hippy, academics, too much money and nothing to do? What? Since here in India staring is not exactly an uncommon thing, I do not hesitate to spend more time assessing the people than I would had I been sitting in a restaurant at home in the US. And I know that to them, I am just another Indian girl sitting quietly with Indian clothes, drinking Indian tea, with an Indian group. Sometimes I think it is funny; I may have gone to the same university with them, maybe we have lived in neighboring cities, or even have similar jobs. I may have been the Indian friend that they had once; that they played tennis with or even went out with for a while. And for some reason, sometimes I want to say this. To approach the person and say this--that I am as American as you. And though I may feel that way sometimes, it is obviously not true. If I am American, I am many times an invisible one. And though I only really realized it while sitting in India surrounded by people of my own blood, it oftentimes feels just as true when I am in the United States. People always want to know where I’m “really” from.

Growing up, I rarely felt barriers between others and myself. If I didn’t get along with someone, it was due to a personality conflict; we just didn’t “click”. Perhaps as a result of my optimism, I made many friends and was able to trust many people. I saw the good in most of the people who surrounded me, and never decided we were different. When I’d meet certain people of color, their cynicism turned me off. It seemed they were looking for negative aspects of every interaction, of the internships and summer programs we were involved in—there was always some conspiracy against us whenever they disapproved of something. I saw little benefit of their attitude, yet at the same time I could not help but admire their observant ways of looking at the world and I saw how once you re-evaluated a situation, you could not help but question it.

I wonder sometimes now though: despite the ease with which I was able to fit in with people I grew up with, I wonder if I would have been even more at home had I been raised in India. What would my life have been like had I grown up there? I’d have only Indian friends and most likely would have had rare occasion to even see, much less interact with anyone from the U.S. I know I would have been a completely different person. I would have had less opportunity, in the conventional sense of the word, available to me. Opportunities such as lack of pressure as to which direction in school I choose to take, the opportunity to spend more time playing and less studying, the opportunity to grow up in an clean environment where I felt safe and comfortable, and not uneasy simply for being a girl instead of a boy.

But it is easy to say that I missed out on a lot of important opportunities by growing up in America as well. I have a large extended family that I have only met on three or four occasions in my life. I have seen my grandmother four or five times in twenty-four years. I don’t speak Hindi, and only now am learning about Indian culture.

Going to the movies makes me realize sometimes how much of a barrier there is between India and me. On the screen are Indian women in the lovely colorful suits, saris, and lenghas that I always have admired. There is the distinctive percussion that drives each song into a frenzy as dancers spin into their dizzying dance routines. At times the dialogue and interaction between friends and family even reminds me of my own experiences.

But at the same time, a huge gap exists between the characters and scenes and myself. Though I realized that most Indians viewers don’t exactly identify with the fantastic plots either, I do know that what is out of reach for me are things taken for granted by them

I see Kajol and Sha Rah Kahn exchanging words in Hindi a mile a minute. Shiro shiries, or couplets are recited with feeling. And I just can’t understand. Too fast, too much, too Indian. I’ll identify a word, but it is undoubtedly used in a different manner and context; one I would never even think of and would have remained ignorant had no one been sitting next to me, whispering an English translation into my ear. And so the banter, however intelligent or however contrived it may be, is sadly lost on me. The feeling that some aspects of culture are almost unattainable regardless of fluency does not escape me, either.

Dialogue isn’t the only barrier. In the film, I see problems that arise because of how the movie depicts the “NRI Life.” The NRI Life, as if it were one glamorous ideal of every Indian. Many times the Indian goes abroad, wears fashionable clothes, or if a woman, hardly any at all, drives an expensive car, and lives in a chic apartment. The dream and image portrayed focuses only on material goods and image. I hope Indians don’t truly think Europe and the U.S. is this way—I certainly did not recognize the scenes and situations. Since this fantastic aura of the NRI emerges, a whole other set of preconceptions is assigned to them—to me; the film industry perpetuates this fantasy.

This creation is not only limited to image however; codes of behavior are also dictated. The NRI woman wearing scant clothing meets an Indian boy and quickly corrects her misguided actions of the past. Maybe she starts to dress in Indian clothing, becomes more religious, and the like. The ideal NRI is very rich and successful, respected by westerners, yet still at core a “good” Indian. Successful and beautiful NRI women are especially admired by westerners, but would never dare to “cross over” since they are unswervingly loyal to their Indian men and are really good Indian girls.

At this point, my friends would pat me on the shoulder and say: “Hey, it’s just a movie!” But like many popular movies, it essentializes and simplifies situations in life to serve as easy truths for people to accept, especially if they haven’t been exposed to the reality of the situation. Just as countries like India have been incorrectly presented to the west for hundreds of years, the NRI is a generalized abstract idea incorrectly presented to Indians.

One side of me makes me brush aside this image and say to myself: Most people don’t really believe all that nonsense. But I can’t deny that people here oftentimes ask me why it is that I have come to India. Didn’t my parents work hard and sacrifice in order to immigrate to the United States and make a living? Didn’t they do this to provide their children with unlimited opportunity, and shouldn’t I be taking more advantage of this? Many Indian students work for years and spend a lot of money trying to find a chance to get to the states. Why buy a ticket and come all the way back only to struggle with Hindi and explain to relatives why at 24 I wasn’t married yet? To explain my way of life that seems totally foreign to them? One’s own blood and culture of upbringing don’t always mix. And many Indians in America live in a limbo between two cultures, a balance constantly shifting. I’ve realized though that the best thing to do is to accept both cultures and not to measure yourself to either. Not to ever have to ask yourself: “Am I Indian enough?” Instead we must be proud to be a part of a very diverse, talented, emotionally rich community of NRIs, Indian-Americans, South Asians, or whatever label strikes your fancy at that particular moment—we know who we are anyway.

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