It is going to be almost 22 years since my older cousin passed. This week more than anything, have been thinking about some conversations we had when I first came to the USA.
The week I came here, my room mate and me went to stay with him for three days to get a crash course on living in the USA, student life in the USA, literally a crash course..
As a kid, did not get to spend too much time with him except the occasional one hour visits every few years but we had a special wavelength to communicate. A few weeks after we were settling in, he picked us up and took us to Allentown from Philadelphia and we were having a fun time.
I was up early. He came down in his pyjamas and goes "Murali, paal vaanga poren da.. let's go!". It was me, Ganesh(his cousin) and my cousin with him still driving in pyjamas. I was meekly asking "you are coming dressed like that ? " and he goes "it is a local grocery store. just because I have to go drive to the place doesnt mean I have to wear my pants".. and the lessons continued!
On the way back home we are having a conversation and suddenly he goes "I want you to settle down here. I know you want to go back, but I don't think you are going to go back".
Told him "as soon as I finish my Ph.D. I am going back to be a professor in India" and he gave me his all knowing laugh. He said "my advice to you if you want to stay on that? don't get a drivers license here".
He said "you should get your parents here also someday!" and I laughed. This was like picking doorknobs for a castle in the clouds. . .
We go back into the house and he says "give me a few minutes. I am going to give you something!"
After a few minutes he comes back and hands me a very worn out book and says "this is yours now. I cherished this book. Want you to have it. Read it and it might change your mind!"
It says Mali, Vandy 1979.. He got his Ph.D. from Vanderbilt and I am guessing Vandy stands for Vanderbilt. Mali, aka Balan came to the US in 1977. Do not know the history behind this book. Don't know who gave him that book or if he bought it. It was already 10+ years old at that point. (corrected the age of that book.. got it wrong first time)
Read that book that same weekend. While it made me appreciate the US of A in a different way, my mind was still not changed at that point. That book has travelled with me over the years and I am going to make Jr. and the little one read it someday.
Recently there was an interesting discussion at a Navarathri party. It was the theroy that the USA belonging to the whites settlers who first came to this country. It was an Indian guy who was not a citizen mentioning this and he was comparing the USA to a large company and he said that the latest employees of the company cannot except the same treatment as the founders and early employees. He was being sympathetic to some of his colleagues who genuinely felt that this was their advantage and put forward that analogy.
I found that interesting because my view of the USA is not that of an established company. If you say that about countries that have had an ancient culture and civilization and a predominantly homogenized population maybe.. like India, China, Egypt, you might have a point. The United States is like a startup. There are guys who came in with the seed (idea and money) and as the company grew, they went from Series A to B to C to.. In every round there are new investors (blood sweat and tears) and stake holders (folks buying into our economy), new folks come in to make a contribution to the company that are vital to moving it forward. Before you know it, it takes a village to make this company go on its course. The European folks who came there were series A, the Black folks series B, the Asians series C...if you want to think about it that way.. and there are new waves of folks who will come and continue to make this country better. On a timescale of few hundred years, the USA is a startup and it is an evolving startup at that. Sure the series A stock holders get a better deal, but as new investors come in, there are new board members, new VP's, go ask any guy who has been part of a startup as it matures!
After that discussion, I was thinking "maybe I should go give this book to a bunch of folks". Did come home to read some pages of that book and was thinking about my brother again. May not have had quantity time with the dude, but defiintely had quality time. As I sit here typing this, it feels like he is right next to me grinning..
He is probably laughing at my drivers license, shaking his head and going "Told you so!"
