Hello! My name is …

I was reading through my blog, doing some cleaning up, checking that posts were categorized, tagged, waxed and shined when I realized that I didn’t really introduce myself in this blog, I just signed up, set it up and followed an overwhelming urge to put into words what I was feeling at that moment in time.

So this is the “who am I” post.

I am an Indian living in South Africa but my folks were born and brought up in India so I suppose you could call me a first generation Indian South African.  My parents are very proud of their Indian heritage and they made sure we understood that by drilling it into us (me and my sister FF) from a young age.  My mom made sure we both learned our mother tongue in addition to the three other official languages we had to study in school.  My dad made sure he cultivated in us a love for mathematics and all things science.  The perfect Indian family.

Until I became old enough to start thinking.  I was a headstrong, rebellious child and my sister, while not as outwardly rebellious, was able to bring my parents to her point of view.  Always.  I run through the proverbial china shop with horns and hooves flying, she calmly navigates her way through the aisles.  I speak and react at the same time, she listens and persuades. It is a very good skill - one that I do not have the patience to hone.  I blame astrology - I am a Tauren.

Growing up, every Indian tradition was questioned and a “Because that’s how it is done!” answer just did not sit well with either of us and we promptly added said tradition to the “I will be ignoring this from now on!” box.  I am very sure this didn’t quite fit in with my parents’ idea of parenthood and sometimes I am amazed that my parents actually survived this daily onslaught!

Over the years, my parents realized that they had drilled the idea of right and wrong into our heads so hard that it permeated from our skin and that all these new experiences that we were going through, that was so different to what they had experienced when they were growing up is not necessarily bad.  They finally realized that they needed to trust in their belief that they brought us up well and more importantly that we were individuals with our own ideas about how to live our lives.  Might I just add that this is a HUGE deal for Indian parents.  A HUGE DEAL!  Even I didn’t realize how much of a deal this was until …

I had to tell them that I was in a 4 year long relationship with a white Jewish guy.

I can’t begin to explain the tension I went through when I made the decision to finally tell them. “Shitting bricks” was a very real phrase for me that day.  It was a real ‘fight or flight’ moment.  My brain formed the thoughts, my mouth spoke the words and my heart pumped blood to all the important appendages (mainly legs) in preparation for “flight”. I was petrified.

My father looked at me with an expression that I could not read and my bladder screamed “OH MY GOD I CAN”T TAKE THIS TENSION, I NEED TO RELAX”.   Then he said “All I want to say is that, if you are happy then we are happy”.  To give you an idea of how shocking a response that was…it’s like President Bush one day standing up in front of the entire world saying “We made a mistake, we should never have invaded Eye-raq” and then following that up with “and we will be more than happy to pay reparations to all the people that lost a loved one because of our mistake”.  Impossible to imagine right?  Well that’s what this was.  Impossible to imagine.  My sister, mom and I sat there for a full minute with our jaws on the ground in absolute shock.

It was a defining moment in my life.

So I am an Indian girl in love with a Jewish white boy - I am sure you can work out his nick on this blog now *wink*.  I can’t imagine the experiences my children are going to be presented with - can you imagine having Indian & Jewish grandparents, both very proud of who they are?  I see lots of interesting, complicated and hilarious incidents to unfold in our future and I am looking forward to every moment!