Coming to America – Part 1

Coming to America – Part 1

About three months ago I started two books with, published some 40 years apart, with essentially, the same story line. Both focus on young Indians coming to the US, leaving family and the comforts of home behind. There are the early days of penny-pinching and needing help from friends and strangers, to better times working in academia. There are the familiar themes of finding their place in a new country, the thrill of making their own choices, the inevitable homesickness and, in both, the ‘do-I-stay-or-go-back’ decisions. That the ‘immigrant experience’ is [still] a favorite theme of Indian/Indian-American authors was not surprising; that both were so difficult to read, was.

Janmabhumi matribhumi – one’s birthplace, fatherland, motherland.

Before Jhumpa Lahiri’s Namesake, there was Bani Basu’s The Continents Between, originally published in Bangla in 1981 (or 1987^*) as Janmabhumi Matribhumi;the English translation by Debali Mookerjea Leonard came out in 2024.

^*The publisher shows the original publication date in Bengali as 1981; in her note, the translator writes Janmabhumi Matribhumi was originally published in 1987.

Basu’s story of a family from Calcutta settled in the US is told by the parents, Sudeep and Kamalika, the children, Babu and Moni and “with intervention by an omniscient third-person narrator.” Each chapter is presented by a family member or the narrator. A family tree of Sudeep’s extended family, which plays plays a large role in the second half of the book, is provided but I stopped consulting it by then – most often, nicknames or familial titles are used and, after a point, it didn’t matter to this reader who was talking or thinking or reminiscing.

In 1981, the Mukherjees have been in the US for 15 years, mostly in Houston, but now in Brooklyn, NY. Their story starts on a blustery spring day, Moni’s birthday. Sudeep is agonizing over his daughter turning ‘unlucky’ 13.

On this momentous day, the occurrence of a blizzard troubles my ancient, oriental superstitiousness. I read in one of Huxley’s books that Man always imagines himself as the center of the universe, but he is insignificant. Nothing happens because of him, nevertheless, he stubbornly persists in believing otherwise…I’ve stepped into Huxley’s compulsive psychological trap, reading drama into nature. Nature isn’t staging some absurd theater for me. Nature’s performances are, in and of themselves, quite absurd.

Nature isn’t the only absurd one.

Sudeep’s wife asks why he is focused on the unlucky number 13. He wonders why she doesn’t get how significant ‘13’ is, when, within his daughter ‘the first seed of life is erupting.

Her body has long been preparing for this critical event. Her entire endocrine system is working frantically. Like the pulsing current of a river hurtling towards the sea, life is spreading to every part of her being. A revolution in body chemistry!

Sudeep goes on about how his daughter will ‘transcend’ her childhood, go on to ecstasy and adventures— Kamalika stops him, asking if other Indian fathers in their circle also have such ‘bizarre” obsessions about their daughters.

Nine pages into the book and I needed a break.

Kamalika adapts to life – be it restrictions and curses when living with her in-laws or sharing an apartment with an Indian acquaintance in Houston. She gave Indian classical music lessons to the children of local Indian families there and took up gardening after guidance from an American neighbor, who asked a lot of questions about their lives and Mahatma Gandhi, and made cheese pastries.

Kamalika likes ordinary Americans. Many have impressive degrees and hold prestigious jobs, but they are straightforward and keep to their circles of interest; they enjoy watching soap operas and eschew complications.

There are some Americans Kamalika may not like. Her son only makes friends with Black Americans. The day Babu comes home with a black woman she wonders, “What if this Black woman with kinky hair was their son’s steady date?” Kamalika thinks Sudeep is hiding something from her, that he is secretly planning to move back to India. She doesn’t want to go back.

Moni is testing her boundaries and her parents’ patience. Her father is sure she’ll succumb to peer pressure. She can’t understand how, she’s not allowed to things like school dances because, “at these formal events, Whites prefer Whites and Blacks other Blacks.”

Babu was seven when his parents ‘kidnapped’ him and brought him to the US – he went back to India often to see the grandmother. Babu and his first White friend are on an “America-discovery” road trip when his mother asks him to come home for his sister’s birthday party. The road trip has helped Babu overcome his ‘disgust’ for America. He has even stronger feelings about the Indian diaspora,

Remnants of the homeland in these small diasporic communities linger in the trunks of women’s sarees, sometimes in men’s nightwear and in the migrants’ physiognomy. After the next generation, there will be those who are ‘neither home nor away but in the in-between’, and they’ll be fated to live an obscure life clipped of identity. Bengali immigrants attempt to keep alive their fading cultural practices by worshipping a Durga drawn in batik…and through singing Rabindra Sangeet during annual meets.

But future generations won’t accept these practices ripped from their roots. We have much to learn from the Chinese. Wherever they go, they set up Chinatowns. On the other hand, we seem to have mastered the easy mantra of assimilation – ‘fused into one body’. We lack the skills to keep our distinctiveness shining.

Mastered assimilation? And, those ‘future’ generations of immigrants are why there still are scores of annual meets of the Indian diaspora.

Kamalika’s suspicion is correct, Sudeep is planning to return to India. After a short conversation, she doesn’t object. A year later they leave for Calcutta with Moni. There, the story shifts to family politics – who isn’t speaking to whom, property disputes, greedy relatives hoarding money and jewels. Sudeep is surprised to see all this; Kamalika basically says “I told you so.”

Moni finds Calcutta fascinating, horrific, noisy and colorful. She is appalled by a dead woman lying in the street. “Instead of rotting and bloating up in a New York apartment, this woman died on the street” explains her father. She doesn’t understand comments men make and is not happy when she’s told not to go out alone “especially in pants or mini skirts.” At school, she doesn’t get why her classmates won’t call her by her given name, Aratrika – they can actually pronounce it correctly, unlike Americans.

So this is India! Like beggars, they’re rushing to get their share of the perversions that have tormented America. As if it’s some new fashion. Trying to be more American than Americans. Marking their Americannness through their clothing, speech and tastes. Over there, within our tiny Indian community, we endeavoured to preserve an unspoiled India…But here? They’re trying their level best to forget that they live in Calcutta, which is in India, and that that their native language is Bangla…It’s for this that I traveled so far, withstood so much, and abandoned the land of my birth!

Kamalika is working as a professor and is a favorite of students; soon she may once again sing on the radio. Sudeep takes credit for his wife’s contentment – would she have been so admired in New York? Kamalika tires of her in-laws’ family politics. Sudeep wants her to ask his father to move in with them, she won’t – she doesn’t want a man who smokes and spits living with them. What if his spittle lands on their neighbor below?

Babu returns to Calcutta for a visit; he spends most of time at his grandfather’s house, his childhood home. It’s changed, of course,

A house is like a river. Without the ebb and flow of its beloved inhabitants, it too stagnates, languishes. I believe that’s what has happened to this house. It made mistakes…they halted the ebb and flow.

The last few chapters move fast – unlike the previous 12. There is an all-out rebellion by students at the college, protesting the “CIA” principal (Sudeep). Moni’s high school exam results are uncharacteristically low; a few months later, she announces she’s going back to the US for college. She thinks Kamalika and Babu will go with her. Babu says he’s staying in India to change India’s corrupt educational system; Kamalika has adapted again, she wants to stay in her home and with ‘kinfolk.’ Besides, Moni will be back after she graduates. The book ends with Moni vowing to herself she’ll visit but will not return. In a lengthy, silent soliloquy Moni describes fall in her homeland, the leaves changing, a Thanksgiving feast when “people will gather around roasted turkey. Yam, broccoli, sweet potato, Brussels sprout…” (What? No mashed potatoes?). After the Thanksgiving feast, Moni will hike across the US, north to south, east to west, with Liberty at her side.

In my country, no one snatches away citizens’ freedom, the human longing to live the life they choose.

Famous last words…

It took weeks and weeks to finish this book – I’d read a few pages and just could not go on, for so many reasons.

The format didn’t work for me – focusing on one character per chapter is fine, but, a new voice for each chapter, including that omniscient narrator, interrupted the flow. And, I didn’t care to be inside the head of these characters.

Then, there’s the language – the translation from Bangla to English seems very literal, or, maybe the English is a formal style from years ago. From the first few pages, I found myself thinking…huh? Some examples:

When Moni calls her father “Bobs” (I assume an Americanized ‘Baba’):

“Please, Moni.’ Sudeep reproved her.”

Now, given this is narrated in Sudeep’s voice, maybe he doesn’t ‘scold’, but ‘reproves’?

Even her Calcutta classmates hanging out in a joint – when Moni lectures them about their Bengali-speaking skills, her friend says

“You slighted them, now they’re trying to get back at you.”

Slighted?

And, the use of ‘depleting’ for aging, to deny oneself comfort – more than one character uses the word so maybe this is the closest English translation of Bengali word:

“…perhaps I’m depleting.” says Sudeep, to explain his blunt tone;

“…you’ll be only to happy to deplete yourself.” says Moni, when her mother chooses to stay in India with relatives.

Maybe this is an English that’s no longer used? But, I have other books, written by Indians, in English, from the ‘80s…

Maybe I’m the one who is depleting.

As for the characters, the son seemed the most thoughtful, respectful, insightful, especially in India – he was a bit scary when ranting against Whites and America. In Calcutta, he wants his female relatives to be free from controlling men like his grandfather; he can’t understand how an ill aunt is not cared for properly by her adult children, perhaps as punishment for how she treated them decades ago.

Least appealing was Sudeep – full of himself, taking credit for shaping and molding his wife – he taught her to cook, he made sure she was comfortable, he was self-sufficient, he ensured his daughter would come to no harm, he was a brilliant scientist, but had been denied tenure for years, because he was Indian; in Calcutta, he feels misunderstood – he’s only trying to right all the wrongs, at work and in his family.

Lastly, the ‘big, bad, evil America’ theme was annoying. Nothing mentioned was implausible – in the 1970s, maybe less so in the 1980s, Indians did send their children to India so they weren’t corrupted by drugged up, fast-food-eating, disobedient, and (gasp) independent-thinking American kids. Of course there was/is racism in the workplace, against and by Indians. Sudeep and other Asians sue a medical center in Houston and manage to get it blacklisted. Really? It was so simple? What grated most were the ‘throwaways’ – their closest friend is a physician who just happens to be one of President Nixon’s doctors? American college students only drink Coke and eat donuts (I thought it was hamburgers and fries). Babu, while sitting on a beach just happens to meet a girl who is running away from home because her parents have AIDS, a disease they think they caught while at a yoga camp run by Indians. Maybe because this is an early Indian-immigrant-experience work, nuance is lacking. In the end, I didn’t see what the above added to the central theme of…belonging.

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^*The publisher shows the original publication date in Bengali as 1981; in her note, the translator writes Janmabhumi Matribhumi was originally published in 1987.