The Colors of Desi
BY: LAVINA MELWANI
Feb 23, USA (LITTLE INDIA) — Genetics is their football and they are out to smash all stereotypes. Races meet and merge in their faces. Long Indian eyelashes cover eyes of pristine blue; glowing ebony skin mixes with Caucasian features. Think Halle Berry, think Tiger Woods, think Saira Mohan, think Lisa Ray, Sarita Chowdhury.
These are the faces of the future, faces where cultures and races blend, where different essences combine to create a new fragrance haunting but you’re never quite sure of what it is. Musk? Attar? Tuberoses? Or a mix of all?
Welcome to the brave new world of children of intercultural unions, families that defy the old rules - hopscotching over national borders, criss-crossing cultures and a babble of languages to create a new race, a new reality. It’s almost as if the great showman in the sky, sitting in his director’s chair and bored with the same old, same old, is experimenting and bringing some pizzazz to the leela or celestial play.
Biracial
marriages, barred by law in 16 states just 40
years ago, are now commonplace in America and
the 2000 Census recorded more than 6.8 million
multiracial Americans. What will surprise Indian
Americans, however, is that they at the front
of the ranks. According to the 2000 US census,
220,000 Indians — almost 12 percent of
the total Indian population of 1.9 million —
identified themselves as multiracial, i.e. they
listed themselves as Indian and one other racial
group, which is five times the national average
of 2.4 percent. Nationwide, almost 2.5 percent
of all Whites, 4.8 percent of Blacks and 14
percent of Asians identified themselvesas multiracial.
Almost 40,000 of the biracial Indians identified
themselves with one other Asian category and
another 120,000 with Whites. The rest were mostly
African American or Hispanic Asian Indian Americans.
Tellingly, interracial marriages are especially
high among Indians who were born in this country
or grew up here (i.e. came to the United States
before age 13). Almost a third of this group
is married to non-Indians — a rate that
is three times that compared to their parents’
group, most of whom were married before they
migrated or returned to India to be hitched.
For many Indians national identity serves as
both talisman and sword. Most come to America
with the assumption that life in this new world
will resemble that in the old world —
only dollar-enhanced — and that their
identity as Indians is indelible, written in
stone.
But in the vast melting pot that is America,
their children are finding partners in the workplace
and in college. Ten years ago, the prospect
might have scared most Indians. An acquaintance
recalls a Gujarati friend who averted his eyes
while announcing his daughter’s marriage
to a Caucasian. It was as if he were in mourning.
Increasingly, Indian parents are resigning themselves
to the shift. Some parents are even happy that
their child has found a soulmate, even if outside
the community, while others fret, although most
come around atleast when the cute grandchildren
arrives.
 |
| Prema Murthy: “I think my
parents did a great job raising us with
both cultures — through the foods
we ate at home, having a range of family
friends from both cultures and especially
taking us to India and the Philippines throughout
our childhood to be with our relatives there
and to see how and where they grew up. I
don't think I would do much different.” |
Saira Mohan, the beautiful supermodel, whose
father is Indian and mother French-Irish-Canadian,
has been splashed across the cover of Newsweek
as “The Perfect Face.” An intriguing
blend of ethnicities, hers is the face of a
global world, where cultural and geographical
boundaries are blurred. She says about her own
cultural mix, “Although I’m not
completely clear on what ethnicity that makes
me, I love who I am inside.”
According to Backstage magazine, talent agents,
casting directors, and talent management firms
are now receiving requests for actors who are
"ethnically ambiguous," of "mixed
ethnicity," or have a "global look,"
especially for commercials, films, and television
shows. There is a new interest and openness
to going beyond labels.
That was surely not happening when California-based
film-maker David Rathod was growing up in the
early 1950s. Son of an Indian father and a Caucasian
mother, he was three when the family moved to
India and 7 when his parents divorced. His mother
and sister returned to America and he lived
with his father in India, who went on to remarry
an Indian woman. At the age of 14, Rathod came
to Chicago to live with his mother and sister.
It was a big culture shock for the Bombay native.
“When I came to America, I was almost
entirely Indian. We lived in this upper middle
class suburb of Chicago and my school was 99
percent Caucasian. At that time in 1966, India
was very, very far away. There were no Indian
restaurants anywhere; there were certainly no
Indians where I lived. Phone calls were very
difficult. So it was a big separation; all my
friends were left behind. Being so young, I
didn’t realize the consequences of leaving
and I thought I’d be back, but that didn’t
happen.”
Once or twice he recalls racist insults being
hurled at him in school, but looking back through
the prism of passing years, Rathod feels they
were random remarks by feel-tough kids. When
he arrived in America he had a strong Indian
accent, had impeccable manners around elders
and even stood up in class to answer the teacher,
until she told him not to.
“I remember very vividly I was very embarrassed
by that, because as a teenager you don’t
want to be the focus of attention,” he
says. “I had to shake off those Indian
things so that I could become a regular American,
which I obviously am. What I missed was friends,
the climate and the food, definitely. But as
teenagers, you kind of roll with it and move
on to your next thing.”
His father Kantilal Rathod was a film-director
in Bombay of new wave films and when David was
in college he re-connected with him because
of his own interest in making movies. In the
1970s he rediscovered his Indian roots, became
close to his Indian family and even married
a white American who was very much into India
and spoke Hindi. “My interracial background has really
defined me — it’s made me what I am now,” says Rathod,
who brings his Indian sensibilities to the mainstream
work that he does with films.
 |
| David Rathod: “Today a biracial
child wouldn’t have such a hard time.
In California it’s almost a badge
of honor or something. I think kids of any
mixed race are accepted quite nicely.” |
Today Rathod himself is the father of two children,
Sonali, 16 and Kamran, 11. How do his kids see
themselves? “They look totally American
— they are only one quarter Indian. But
they are definitely interested in India and
it’s a part of their awareness. It’s
interesting how India has become big. Today
a biracial child wouldn’t have such a
hard time. In California it’s almost a
badge of honor or something. I think kids of
any mixed race are accepted quite nicely.”
Even his real name — Devendra —
is considered hip now, thanks to the emergence
of an alternative rock star Devendra Banhart
who has nothing to do with India. Laughs Rathod,
“When I meet Americans in their 20’s
and tell them my name is Devendra, a light goes
on! They say, ‘That’s cool!’
It’s funny. I’m 53 and my name has
come back, in a different way — but in
a meaningful way — to a small section
of America.”
Yes, life is surely easier for children growing
up in intercultural households today. As America
celebrates its multicultural identity, it is
hard to imagine that anti-miscegenation laws
barring interracial marriages were on the books
in a third of states until as recently as 1967,
when they were overturned by the U.S. Supreme
Court, which ruled: "Marriage is one of
the 'basic civil rights of man,' fundamental
to our very existence and survival.... To deny
this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable
a basis as the racial classifications embodied
in these statutes, classifications so directly
subversive of the principle of equality at the
heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely
to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty
without due process of law." Indeed, Alabama
did not repeal its law barring interracial marriage
until 2000.
It should come as no surprise that Indians have
difficulty warming to inter-racial marriages.
Prema Murthy, an artist in New York, of Indian
and Filipino heritage, says: “Well, there's
always some kind of generation gap between parents
and their kids, but we also had to deal with
a culture gap as well. In retrospect, I think
it was hard for my parents to, on one hand,
want us to assimilate into Western culture,
but then also keep a certain sense of values
that each of my parents brought with them from
their countries, like studying, being spiritual,
having a close-knit family. I think dealing
with this was the source of a lot of my rebellion
growing up, but now as an adult, I am thankful
that they instilled a set of core values that
transcend whatever culture you grow up in.”
Would she do anything differently when she had
her own children? She says, “I think my
parents did a great job raising us with both
cultures — through the foods we ate at
home, having a range of family friends from
both cultures and especially taking us to India
and the Philippines throughout our childhood
to be with our relatives there and to see how
and where they grew up. I don't think I would
do much different.”
Rohi Mirza Pandya and Rehana Mirza sisters,
two New York based filmmakers whose heritage
is Filipino and Pakistani. Says Rehana Mirza:
“Being half Pakistani and half Filipina
did pose its challenges growing up, but I think
that would have happened to me anyways as I
grew up in a suburb where people of color in
my school can be counted on one hand. I didn't
really think much about it during high school
and college, but in my twenties and now my thirties
I have embraced both sides and being a ‘desipina’.”
 |
| Maria Benjamin: “I remember
one of my aunties giving me a beautiful
salwar kameez to wear to a party and it
was only years later that one of my cousins
told me that they all felt sorry for me,
because I looked so unfashionable. It didn't
even cross my mind that there was a fashion
code!” |
Since their mother converted to Islam, religion
did not become an issue, and being Asian, both
couple held similar values and beliefs. The
best part of being bicultural? Says Mirza: “Family
is the best part of both cultures and can also
be the most difficult as with any family.”
Identity, however, does become an issue: Mirza
recalls: that she had to fill the box about
race on her SAT with “other.” She
says, “It's interesting to come from a
place where I'm an other. I remember I asked
the teacher about what box to put in and he
looked so surprised that I was not even sure
about my own race. He shrugged his shoulders
as if it didn't really matter and said ‘I
guess, just put down Asian.’
“I feel that kind of attitude happens
a lot with people. They just want to know something
simple, they want to reaffirm what they think
they already know. I remember I had to fill
out a police report and the officer asked me
what race I was, to put on the report. I told
him half Pakistani and half Filipino. He looked
terribly confused and asked if it was all right
if he just put down Indian.
“That's why I struggle so hard to maintain
my own sense of identity. Everyone else will
always be making judgments that don’t
necessarily reflect what's on the inside. I
accept both of my cultures. Most people are
looking to eliminate one in order to engage
with just one of my halves.”
Pandya recalls the language barriers in the
family, noting that everyone was surprised that
English was the only language spoken in the
household: “ I would always laugh at them
and say how else would my parents be able to
understand one another? It was always a humorous
picture to imagine my Dad speaking in Urdu and
my Mom answering in Tagalog.”
Humor aside, Rehana says the hardest part was
explaining to people that she is much more than
meets the eye: “
I feel sad if I only claim
my father's heritage just because it's what
I look most like. It almost feels like I’m
wiping out or putting a shadow on what my mom
gave me, which is important as well.”
What would she do differently with her own children?
She says: “I think I would let them know
it's important to embrace what feels natural
to you, and always know that who you are is
what you choose to be, not what others make
of you.”
What others make of them is perhaps the single
biggest issue inter-racial children grapple
with. The concept is almost utopian —
the erasing of manmade borders — but the
world is still small-minded and prejudiced,
the old world struggling to remain static and
stationary, afraid of movement and change.
Erika Surat Anderson, a California-based filmmaker
who is of Danish and Indian origin, has made
films about the identity struggles, including
None of the Above and Turbans. She recalls the
pain she would feel when looking at her white
exterior people would fail to recognize just
how Indian she felt on the inside. Her brother
Pyare, on the other hand, was dark and had a
very hard time in school. He changed his name
to Peter, but people still saw an Indian boy
with a name like Anderson.
Anna Roy is married to a Caucasian, and has
a son who’s 10 months old. Does she think
color and race will become an issue? She says,
“I don’t think color and race will
ever not be an issue, at least not in my lifetime.”
But she knows there is a special joy in being
biracial as these children can define themselves
in any way they choose, without any cultural
or social baggage attached to them.
 |
Nisha Kutty, a noted Indian fashion
and beauty photographer, mother of a biracial
child, four-year-old Surya, with her African
American husband Al-Khadir Richman: “In
India, we have so many different complexions
and features within the community that it’s
all encompassing. Over here there’s
a huge, huge gap between Indians and African
Americans. Here Surya would obviously associate
herself with black people more, and disassociate
herself with Indians more.”
|
The roulette wheel of DNA spins to its own music
and can create challenges as siblings end up
looking so different. Ameena Meer, the author
of Bombay Talkie has been married twice, both
times to British men. Now divorced, she lives
with her three daughters, Sasha Iman Douglas,
12, Zarina Elizabeth Nares, 10, and Jahanara
Nathalie Nares, 6.
“All my daughters have very Indian features,”
she says. “but two have dark hair and
brown eyes and the middle one is blond and blue-eyed.
When she was smaller she used to say I didn’t
love her as much and that was why I made her
blond. And, of course, her older sister took
immediate advantage of the insecurity to tell
her she was adopted!”
Once upstate at a Sam’s Club, Ameena left
her in the shopping cart in front of a woman
handing out samples of frozen samosas. When
she returned, blond 5 year-old Zarina was chatting
away with an American trucker-type guy. He was
saying, “Whoo-hoo, those samosas are spicy!
Aren’t they too spicy, little girl?”
And Zarina replied haughtily, “I come
from India and these aren’t spicy at all.
They don’t even taste like real samosas!”
“On United Nations day, the kids in the
International School get to wear their national
dress and carry their flag and my kids always
make these very complicated flags, one side
Indian, one side Union Jack and added to the
top is an American flag, too,” recalls
Meer. “Sasha varies between wearing desi
stuff and Western, but my little blond is always
sparkling in gota and sequins. Her complaint
is that if there is a Muslim or Indian area
of discussion in class, the teachers never think
to include her amongst the desis or the Muslims.
She often comes home feeling quite dejected,
saying, ‘Nobody believes that I’m
Indian. The teachers never pick me to answer
questions.’”
 |
Photos from Nisha Kutty’s
biracial project. “Apparently if you’re
half black, you are just black in this country
— they don’t consider your other
ethnicity. There’s nothing like being
half black — you are black.”
|
In this saga of pigmentation, America is not
color-blind. Nisha Kutty, a noted Indian fashion
and beauty photographer, has heard all the stories
since she’s involved in a biracial project,
photographing women and their biracial children,
primarily white mothers and their children with
black men. “People can never believe it’s
their child,” she says. “There are
kids who have white moms and black dads and
look just completely black. Apparently if you’re
half black, you are just black in this country
— they don’t consider your other
ethnicity. There’s nothing like being
half black — you are black.”
Kutty became interested in the biracial project
because she herself is the mother of a biracial
child, four-year-old Surya, with her African
American husband Al-Khadir Richman. “It
was just interesting for me visually, just apart
from all the sociological aspects of it,”
says Kutty, who lives in Fort Greene in Brooklyn,
where she says everyone seems to be of mixed
ethnicity — half white or half black or
other mixtures of something mixed with black.
America is still so much about race –
even though it likes to think it’s not
– so will she face any special challenges
bringing up Surya? Without blinking an eyelid,
Kutty says, “Yes, definitely I will. I
think if I had married someone white the whole
story would have been different.”
She feels the challenge might have been less
if Surya grew up in India than it is here. “In
India, we have so many different complexions
and features within the community that it’s
all encompassing,” she says. “Over
here there’s a huge, huge gap between
Indians and African Americans. Here Surya would
obviously associate herself with black people
more, and disassociate herself with Indians
more.”
Children of mixed heritage seem to sometimes
go through more of an identity crisis during
their teenage years when they are already facing
angst and raging hormones. Geeta, is the mother
of Simon, a 16 year old who is part Columbian
(both requested their real names not be used).
Although Geeta was divorced when Simon was just
five and he was brought up completely by the
Indian side of his family, she feels he is now
rejecting his Indianness and putting down the
culture, the odors of the spices and the constant
pressure to study.
Yet ask Simon, who looks more Hispanic than
Indian, and he says he respects both his ethnicities,
but is frustrated because he can’t communicate
with the Hispanic side of the family and his
many friends who speak Spanish. In family gatherings
he feels left out of conversations, since his
father’s side doesn’t speak any
English. Now in school he’s studying Spanish
and is trying to balance both his ethnicities.
 |
Prachi Patankar: “Many
people are surprised when they find out
I have a white mother. Not that I have an
issue with it, but I often wonder what goes
through people’s minds and whether
there’s something left unsaid or unstated
in the reaction of people. But sometimes
I feel it would be nice if my mom were kind
of acknowledged. It’s not something
that hurts me or anything – and I
like the fact that I’m mixed and people
are surprised.”
|
Prachi Patankar’s story is quite the opposite.
The daughter of a Scandinavian sociologist and
an Indian activist father, Prachi grew up in
Kasegaon, near Bombay, a hotbed of activism
where her grandparents were freedom fighters
and her parents have always lived and been involved
with issues like the rights of women, tribals
and the building of dams.
No one would suspect Patankar is part white
because she looks completely Indian. “Many
people are surprised when they find out I have
a white mother,” says Patankar, who is
currently a student at New York University,
and a political activist herself. “Not
that I have an issue with it, but I often wonder
what goes through people’s minds and whether
there’s something left unsaid or unstated
in the reaction of people. But sometimes I feel
it would be nice if my mom were kind of acknowledged.
It’s not something that hurts me or anything
– and I like the fact that I’m mixed
and people are surprised.”
Growing up in India, she found that people who
knew she had a white mother always had different
expectations of her than of an Indian girl.
They were surprised that she spoke fluent Marathi,
went to a Marathi medium school, and wore Indian
clothes. Patankar had a harder time adjusting
when she lived with her Scandinavian relatives
in Minnesota for two years. She says, “Even
after coming here I still view myself as someone
who’s from India and who’s Indian.
The white and Indian issue is not a big deal
in terms of being a problem of identity.”
Maria Benjamin’s father is from Pakistan
and her mother from Canada, who met when they
were both training as nurses at Bangour Village
Hospital outside Edinburgh in Scotland. Since
her father is also Christian, religion has never
been an issue for the children and the couple
still live with their six children in Scotland.
Maria, who is an artist and has now moved to
London, says, “There was no real extended
family to accentuate the cultural differences.
My dad had to learn how to cook, as he preferred
curry to my mum’s cooking. I love my dad's
curry, but I realized his limitations when I
met his sisters and they cooked for me. But
no one beats his specialty breakfast; a thick
paratha with a fried egg on top.”
Growing up in Scotland, color was an issue for
the family and she feels things could have been
very different if they had been brought up somewhere
like London, where many different cultures live
in such close proximity that mixing becomes
a natural and accepted part of life. “In
Scotland, in the small towns we grew up in there
was a lot of racism. We moved to Edinburgh in
1984 where the racism was not so rife.”
The best part about being of mixed race, she
says, is that people can’t quite place
her: “People have asked me if I'm Spanish,
Italian, Mexican, South American, Aborigine,
the list goes on, but no one ever thinks I'm
Scottish till I open my mouth! I get a bit sick
of having to explain my background when people
probe my mismatching looks and accent, especially
in the country I call home. To have people probe
and doubt my sincerity when I tell them I am
Scottish can be upsetting, because I feel there
is a suggestion that I’m hiding something.”
Since neither of her parents pushed their cultures
on her, she views herself as Scottish. “It's
growing up in the countryside, appreciating
nature, a particular type of understated humor,”
she says. “The love of my Pakistani heritage
seems more touristy to me. I haven't got a clue
about the subtleties. I remember one of my aunties
giving me a beautiful salwar kameez to wear
to a party and it was only years later that
one of my cousins told me that they all felt
sorry for me, because I looked so unfashionable.
It didn't even cross my mind that there was
a fashion code!”
 |
Anna Roy is married to a Caucasian,
and has a son who’s 10 months old:
“I don’t think color and race
will ever not be an issue, at least not
in my lifetime.”
|
As intercultural marriages grow, biracial children
are part explorer, part philosopher, part negotiator,
treading where no one has gone before and putting
into action what are platitudes for most people
— peace, harmony and oneness within diversity.
As Saira Mohan says, “We are all human
at the end of the day and we all have the same
emotions. We come from the same place, regardless
of culture, religion, color, skin, whatever.
So those are the things I focus on and those
are the things I like to build upon.”
Ask David Rathod whom he sees when he looks
in the mirror and he responds: “I have
to say I see just me. But there are many times
I see myself as Indian American, and there are
times when I see myself as just Indian. And
at times I’m just American and I think
that is a growing story for children of interracial
marriages.”
Ask Rehana Mirza the same question, and she
says, “When I look in the mirror, I see
someone who has been made stronger by misidentification.
I have had to struggle to see myself for who
I am. I started to realize that bi-culturalism
is a culture all of its own, so in some ways,
I have four cultures to live with. Those of
my parents, that of my surrounding community,
and that which I embrace for myself.”
THE HIERARCHY OF CULTURES
 |
| Ameena Meer: “All my daughters
have very Indian features. But two have
dark hair and brown eyes and the middle
one is blond and blue-eyed. When she was
smaller she used to say I didn’t love
her as much and that was why I made her
blond. And, of course, her older sister
took immediate advantage of the insecurity
to tell her she was adopted!” |
Writer Ameena Meer has found some challenges
in bringing up her three daughters, Sasha, Zarina
and Jahanara, who are of mixed Indo-British
heritage, and compares it to her own growing
up as an Indian child in America.
“I’d say the hardest challenge in
bringing up cross-cultural kids is figuring
out how to avoid the hierarchy of cultures or
religions. I remember my mother saying to me,
‘You can’t dress like that’
or ‘You can’t do that because you
are an Indian girl, not an American girl.’
But the underlying message is that it is somehow
better, or more moral or refined, to be an Indian
or Pakistani rather than an American, and that
we were being held to higher standards.
“In the case of kids with mixed parentage,
one wants to avoid saying that one group is
somehow better than the other, because that
creates an internal culture clash. As the sole
parent of Indian background, I am the person
who should be teaching them to speak Hindi,
should be cooking desi food at home and keeping
that part of their culture active. So I’ve
been a bit sloppy. My kids speak better Spanish
or French than they do Hindi. And they eat more
quesadillas than dosas!”
A LONG WAY FROM KERALA
 |
| Shannon Thomas: “Another
challenge that we expect is the difference
in heritage between Ryan and Anna. As they
grow, we are going to have to explain why
they look so different, yet are siblings.” |
Rony Thomas, who is originally from Kerala,
and his Caucasian wife Shannon live in Baton
Rouge, La., and have a newborn son, Ryan. Says
Shannon, “Our son is still very young,
and so I am sure many challenges are still to
come as he grows. One small challenge I can
see for the future is that Rony would like for
Ryan to learn Malayalam, his mother tongue,
but since I do not speak it we are afraid that
it will also be difficult for Ryan to learn.
Rony talks to Ryan in Malayalam all the time,
and though I want to know what he is telling
him, I am so happy that they have that cultural
.
“It is unfortunate that Ryan will not
be able to spend as much time with his dad’s
family as we would like, as they are on the
other side of the world, so it will be more
of a challenge to keep close relationships with
his family there. My older daughter Anna, Ryan’s
half-sister, is also excited to learn all about
her brother’s culture, and wants to go
to India so badly.
“Another challenge that we expect is the
difference in heritage between Ryan and Anna.
As they grow, we are going to have to explain
why they look so different, yet are siblings.”
SAIRA MOHAN: EMBRACING TWO CULTURES
 |
| Saira Mohan, the supermodel, whose
father is Indian and mother French-Irish-Canadian,
is an intriguing blend of ethnicities, hers
is the face of a global world, where cultural
and geographical boundaries are blurred:
“Although I’m not completely
clear on what ethnicity that makes me, I
love who I am inside.” |
Saira Mohan, herself of French-Canadian heritage,
married to a Caucasian, Christopher Cooper,
is the mother of Roman, who mixes even more
heritages within his cute little body. Asked
if gender played any part in which culture the
children of intercultural marriages follow,
Mohan says: “Culture can be influenced
by both mother and father given the closeness
of the family. Mothers generally set the stage
for tradition and culture since it is they who
spend the majority of their time nurturing and
teaching the children.
“My own mother is a religious Christian
and devoted celebrator of Christmas and Easter.
My father is a devoted Hindu and enjoys celebrating
Diwali, Rakhi, and Christmas. I was brought
up with all holidays and celebrations that were
shared with me through my parents. One tradition
never overshadowed the other and my curiosity
for both religions flourished.
“Depending on how involved each parent
is with their child, the child can be influenced
and taught so much about culture that they will
eventually create their own sense of an evolved
culture, which is exactly what I've done, because
I was raised with two vastly different traditions.”
As a new mother herself, how does she deal with
issues of religion and culture in bringing up
Roman? “It is my duty as a mother to allow
Roman the opportunity to experience life on
his terms, not mine,” she says. “His
Dad and I will guide him in life. But knowing
this, I also must be honest with my own limitations
and realize that I don't have all the answers
to give. He must find his own way through whatever
questions life brings to him.
“We share with Roman the joyous celebrations
of Christmas, the festive lights of Diwali,
and look forward to taking him hunting for Easter
eggs when the time rolls around – no pun
intended!”
MARRIED TO INDIA
 |
| Amy and Srinivasa Regati: “75
percent of the meals we eat here at home
are Indian. I cook idli, dosa (not gits),
but actually homemade just as my mother-in-law
has showed me. I also make the chutneys
myself. We do not eat non-veg on Saturdays
out of respect for my husband’s religion.” |
Meet Britteny, Bradley, Brijesh and Bhavika.
They are the children of Amy and Srinivasa Regati,
who hails from Andhra Pradesh. The family lives
in Warrenton, Va., and Amy has recently published
a book Married to India and has an Internet
group going with other Americans married to
Indians.
Amy, who has formed an almost Indian connection
to her in-laws in India, says, “75 percent
of the meals we eat here at home are Indian.
I cook idli, dosa (not gits), but actually homemade
just as my mother-in-law has showed me. I also
make the chutneys myself. We do not eat non-veg
on Saturdays out of respect for my husband’s
religion.
Srinivasa is Hindu and Amy is Christian, and
they have found a middle way. “We belong
to our local temple here in Northern Virginia,
the Rajdhani Mandir in Chantilly as well as
Warrenton United Methodist Church here in our
hometown,” she says. “Some people
would disagree with our decision to intertwine
the religions, but both Srinu and I feel that
because we fell in love does not mean that love
should change who we were before we met. Love
should make us stronger in those beliefs and
help us see things through at all costs.
“I believe this to hold true and see that
it does when our children can see Lord Srinivas,
Ganesha, or Laxmi and fold their hands and say
Om, yet at the same time they can be seated
at the dinner table at Christmas and say Amen!
This sets my conscience at ease knowing that
our kids will be educated from the ignorance
of most and be diverse, unlike some.”
