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Living in multiple worlds

Two days after the national election. Yes, this is when I wrote this column. No, the column was not triggered by the gloom and uncertainty that are the dominant mood in the US at this moment. There is no clear-cut presidential winner. Both George W Bush and Albert Gore's fate is in a state of limbo. I'd hate to be in either's shoes.

Everybody knew it was going to be a very close race, but nobody expected the unprecedented complications that have come to attend upon Election 2000. These kinks apparently will take another two weeks to be resolved before the country knows who its next president will be.

What an ironic thing in the Internet Age where speed defines our daily lives! Are we so "over-technologized" that the old ways of hand counting and casting the ballot are beginning to look good? The present climate certainly suggests this. Oh, how many mistakes the high priests in the media made (some papers even printed "Bush Wins") in their eagerness to report the 'news' first (oh, again that speed factor!).

In New York City many people could not vote because the machines did not work, and in one county names of many registered voters could not be located. Oh, where is our American T N Seshan when we need one?

Returning to living in a limbo, Bush and Gore are actually living in two worlds. One, a world full of promise and the presidency, another a world of humiliation and defeat. Living in two worlds, which can translate to limbo in reality, like in na ghar kaa na ghaat kaa, is something many immigrants can relate to. No matter how one gets to the shores of America, either accidentally like in my case (more on this another time) or through tireless efforts with real dreams of making America their home.

For many immigrants, coming to America is like going away to a prosperous place for a while until one made enough money, and then returning home, wherever home may be. Of course, while this is the ultimate dream, for most of them, only half the dream gets fulfilled: coming to America and making a good living. For some, even this half turns out to be a huge disappointment because the life they expected to live and the life they live are like day and night, like rain and sunshine, as America is not necessarily the paradise that many dream it to be.

It takes many years to reconcile oneself to whatever fraction of their dream they may have achieved. Very often, yes, this fraction does get bigger and bigger, except for one. That tiny bit (yes, by now this part shrinks to a tiny bit), which is returning home, home being wherever, never happening. And finally America itself becomes home with all other aspirations fully eclipsed.

However, there is just one reality that does not change. Which is, in the case of many Indian immigrants, their extended family is still in India just like for other groups in their respective "home" countries.

Personally, I did not think that my mental makeup would allow me to live in two worlds, so as soon as I could, I "imported" my natal family, that is my parents and my only sibling, to these shores. They were all young enough to start a new life, and they did, and without too much problem because of their backgrounds.

Much as I hated to amputate India from my set of physical affiliations, at least I had less stress in my life now, not having to deal with two worlds. Soon, however, I realized that I had concluded too soon, because my husband still takes that annual trip to visit his parents in India.

Initially, I was able to deal with this separation somewhat, but as years passed it became harder and harder. I began complaining to my husband that I wanted him to be mine exclusively just the way he was before we were married. Ours was a two-and-a-half-year courtship. He assured me he was, and of course he is, but the fact remains that while I have made that final decision to live in only one world, my spiritual other half, the soul mate I married, still has affiliations to that "other" place. My complaint is almost like a wife's jealousy of her husband's mistress.

For my husband too, I am sure it's really not an easy situation to be in. I am even convinced that he carries a certain amount of guilt for not being close to his parents and being there for them during their sicknesses even if these health issues are occasional and minor. He feels extraordinary gratitude towards his sister, his only sibling, who is indeed in close physical proximity to his parents.

We Indian-Americans do not sit around and talk about many of these issues. But many of us women are beginning to feel that while we have made America our home, have stayed focused on our kids, their physical, emotional and intellectual growth, many times our husbands have not been able to let go of the "other" world.

A close friend tells me that her husband even feels guilty that while he has made such a good life for himself in this country his siblings stayed behind. In his mind they would have been better off here.

Life can be extremely stressful if one gets obsessed with life's "might-have-beens". So I see that even marriages that are working out beautifully in other ways, when it comes to one spouse having to live in two worlds while the other one has decided to live only in one, one detects some ugly seams in these otherwise seamless and blissful unions.

One feels helpless, angry, bitter, oh, so many other emotions, which in fact leaves one quite exhausted.

While one may tend to attribute these stresses to living in two worlds, one is also tempted to look beyond because many of us, at least many of us womenfolk, feeling stressed out by being forced to lead a schizophrenic life for a long time, stopped doing this. Moreover, parts of New York can actually pass for Indian locales quite easily. So returning to reasons beyond our schizophrenic lives, why perhaps Indian men and women have adjusted differently, one has to realize that a woman always had to choose. At least in the Indian system, once a woman got married, she usually merged with her husband's family bidding adieu to her natal family almost in every respect. The man never had to go through these big motions, certainly never had to bid farewell to his natal family. So one sees the same parallel in the lives of immigrants.

For the wife, ending one chapter and beginning another seems to come naturally, while for the man, there is simply only one never-ending chapter where members of his natal family still continue to be part of the primary cast of characters. America is an add-on, India is still home, a wife is an add-on, parents are still family.

So maybe this tension between husbands and wives is age-old and has nothing to do with being immigrants living in two worlds.

A few weeks back I was a guest at a Trinidadian friend's private function. When I saw the gathering and the goings-on, I said to myself, "My goodness, here I am complaining about living in two worlds, these people are living in three worlds. Gosh! how stressful it must be!" Their religious zeal seems to be oh so from the Old World, with new layers added in the Caribbean and of course now taking on even newer shades.

Living in multiple worlds can be exciting, yet can be quite exhausting, too. I'm sure Gore feels good being the V-P as well as possibly the next president, and Bush, a governor and possibly the next president. But I bet they both wish the torture gets over soon, and that they can have just one identity, not two.

Rohini Balakrishnan Ramanathan