Same, Yet Different!

India is truly a sub-continent, teeming with a lot of languages, customs, traditions, religions, and cultural practices. One begins to realize the enormity of this truth only when we live far away from our homeland, where the diaspora that speaks one's own language is few and far between in a foreign land. As long as I lived in my hometown of Madurai, in my home state of Tamilnadu in India, I simply took for granted the joys and nuances of everyday life. When I moved to California, I still didn't miss my state that much because Silicon Valley was swarming with Tamil engineers whom I could bump into on the streets on any given day. Life here in Vancouver, British Columbia, is different though, and it is very rare that I run into a Tamil-speaking person from Tamilnadu, though there are a lot of Sri Lankan Tamils here. Consequently, most of the Indians I know here are East Indian (as the Punjabis are called here), and though my heart sings with joy at the sight of an Indian face, I realize we have nothing in common at all in terms of language, traditions, religion, culture, etc., etc.

Other than the common bond that we're Indian, everything else about these friends is Greek and Latin to me, if you'll excuse the cliche. Take for instance the occasion when we were invited to Bob and Raji's house for the kirtan ceremony (religious rites to name a newborn child) of their first grandchild, Athena. The husband and I had no clue what the Sikh rites entailed, or what to expect there, and the first major faux pas of ours was to enter the house with our heads uncovered. The reaction of several Sikh folks there, total strangers to us, was as if they'd stepped on live coals. They immediately rushed to our sides, politely ushered us out of the hallowed hall, and while I was instructed to pull the palloo of my sari over my head, the husband had his covered by a piece of red cloth that was dutifully provided to him. I had no clue about the goings on there, but however managed to observe and follow. The next dumb thing I did was that there were some golden coloured rectangular objects stacked at one end of the reception area, and I saw two women go over and take one each. I told the husband that perhaps I should do the same, thinking that probably it was a book of prayers or something of that sort. I promptly went over and took one, when Raji sauntered over to me, and said, "Olivia, please have a picture of our grandchild as well," and handed me the same. The box, I discovered, did not contain a book of prayers, but laddoos that the hostess was giving away to the guests, thanking them for attending the ceremony. I shouldn't have gone and taken one myself, I realized with a great deal of embarrassment!

Anyways, last weekend we had another invite to attend a Thanksgiving ceremony at the Nanak Niwas Gurdwara in Richmond. Friends Malwinder and Avneet had bought a new house and this was an occasion to celebrate that. The husband and I knew what to expect this time round. I wore a chiffon sari for the occasion (knowing very well that I needed that palloo to cover my head), but little did I know that it would be a herculean task to make that stay on my head as long as I was there. I really hate it when I have to leave my husband and go over to the women's side, particularly when every one of those women is a total stranger to me. Go over I did, and there was this huge mound up front that was covered in a shiny, pink, sequined cloth. There was a bearded, turbaned gentleman with a duster-like object in his hand that he was fanning the mound with. By his side were three Sikh gentlemen singing in Punjabi, and I became lost in the magnetism of their deep voice, though I had no idea what they were singing about. Folks who came into the hall went up to the mound, respectfully knelt down and touched their foreheads to the ground. I was trying to figure out what could be under that pink cloth, and was wondering why they couldn't openly display it, whatever that object might be.

Lost in thought, I happened to glance over to the men's side and found the husband frantically gesticulating something to me. It took me a while to discover that he was trying to tell me about the palloo that had slipped off my head ...the horror! To make the long story short, I completely lost interest in the proceedings thereafter and was focusing valiantly on keeping that piece of chiffon on my head. The husband went up to the mound , genuflected, and touched his forehead to the ground like the others he'd seen, but I prudently stayed behind, not wanting to risk my palloo slipping off at the holiest of places and scandalizing the entire Sikh population there! We came out of the hall and on the opposite wall was this huge portrait of a Sikh gentleman, a religious leader, I presumed. "Is that Chatrapathi Shivaji?" went the husband. I shushed him into silence lest anyone hear him air his ignorance, and as soon as we left the hall, we both burst into laughter. Indians we all are, the same, yet different!