Buffalo

 In an earlier post, I talked a little about gratitude. In relation to existence in the host country.  Particularly, in the context of children born of immigrant parents. How about immigrants ourselves? How do we feel? Do we feel grateful for the life in this country? Do swells of tender emotions tap our rib cages when we ruminate about our transplanted lives? 

A simple and untainted "yes" is hard to muster for myself. It may have been the case just a few years ago.  But the ugly underbelly of bigotry pervading a substantial chunk of this society that we have witnessed in the past few years makes this question more nuanced. It provokes thoughts.  But not a plain and reflexive emotional assent. 

A quest for answer, takes me, personally, to an evening in Ukhubari, Luintel, Gorkha. 

It must have been an autumn dusk. Harvest over, autumn heralds a brief period of freedom for cattle. At least at our household. With no corns or soybeans or barley or wheat at risk, we grant our cattle a release from the leash. To roam about in the terraced fields, grazing the stumps of harvested produce, grass and weeds on the sides, perhaps starting to change colors, tree offshoots with still green leaves accessible through some stretching. It is hours-long endeavor. You need to let the cattle take their time. To explore the field, graze at their own pace, feel satiated, before you can convince them to return back to the shed confines (goth, we call it) and likely stay leashed. 

The success of this grazing affair hinges on manifold variables. How hungry is the cattle when you embarked on this effort. Is the temperature outside pleasant. Is the grass plentiful. Perhaps the taste of the foliage. Does it feel tired. Has it had enough time to gallivant and explore. Does it feel full. But, I think, most importantly, who the person is shepherding them. 

A skilled person herding these cattle is endowed with an intuitive ability to sense the variables, have patience until the timing is right, and then exert their authority. The cattle follows their master, without dissent. It is a smooth business without much of drama. It is as graceful as the slow descent of sun behind the hills, effortlessly extinguishing the cacophony of village life into stillness of the night. To be dotted with decibels borne of crickets, cicadas, crying babies, coughing adults.  

Graceful, it was not, my evening with the water buffalo. I decided that it was time to go home, grazing was over. But she declared that she was not ready. A tussle ensued. Thirteen-year-old me, sensing defiance from a mere buffalo, decided to firm up on my assertion. She, I surmise, might have felt belittled by a child. A skinny, little boy barely pubertal trying to dictate the terms of my freedom? She must have felt incensed by the insolence of a puny boy trying to act authoritative. I will teach you a lesson, you bitty imposter of a master, she must have thought. She ran away. I chased after her. I must have had a stick with me. I must have given her good rounds of beatings. She was in no mood to comply. She was getting farther away from home, not closer. Darkness of the village night was descending upon us. I could be chasing her all night. She might get into the forest. She might fall off a cliff in the darkness and die. Our prized source of milk, calves. Crown jewel of possession and property. 

I do not precisely recall how she ultimately returned home. My aunt or sister or grandmother might have joined me or taken over from me. It might very easily have been a banal affair thereafter. But I remember a distinct sense of helplessness and failure while I was haplessly struggling to get the buffalo home. A sharp awareness that this commotion had everything to do with my weakness. Village kids of my exact age would do this without a sweat. Their body language, sounds would make it clear that they meant business. The cattle would comply. I was keenly aware that our buffalo was acting out of internalization that I was not worthy of respecting as a master.  

In days like this, a deep sense of helplessness would drown my conscience. In a village with perhaps less than a hundred household, everyone known to each other, nearest road hours of trek away, and the only source of awareness of a larger world the sounds emanating from a transistor radio, the moments of isolation felt profound and hopelessness grimmer. Deficient prowess to thrive in this village was evident in everything I did- climbing trees, falling the offshoots with sickles, sharpening the sickles, swinging a hoe and tilling the land, throwing rock at birds and striking them, clearing out weeds, carrying the gagri (water pot), milking the buffalo, carrying hay to feed the cattle. Probability of my skills and agility improving was meager. Was there an escape from this failure? 

A series of life events later, here I am, in an entirely different part of the world. Perhaps it is a product of an assortment of factors- endowed privileges, accidents, luck, hard work. Claiming it as my own deed or achievement is largely meaningless. Regardless, that sense of deficiency, pervasive in my despair over the buffalo's resistance is no longer the dominant sentiment. I seem to possess certain skills that had a place in the world. These skills are valued and put to everyday use. There is a vocation, whole profession in fact, that demands of this skill. In my good days, when I have succeeded in summoning the goodness, I even savor joy in my daily work. 

We have found a mutually beneficial arrangement for my presence in this country. How the mechanics of individual's life functions to reach their productive milieu is perhaps a complex question. But as I scan my own life events, it feels as if what appeared as entropy of an individual existence is actually a constant sorting, striving to achieve a more productive and amicable state. In that sense, it does not feel terribly unnatural why we uproot our existence in the country of our birth and settle in a new country. And  voluntarily subject ourselves to lifelong adjustments in many manners.  In a space where we nurture a sense of worth.   

That is perhaps where I locate my gratitude. To the space afforded to cultivate a conviction of merit, if I were to ascribe that emotion in my relationship to the host country. In fact, a profound gratitude, incomparable to any other societal relationship. Something that brings out the better in you, values you. But, it is a mistake to place too much emphasis on gratitude. This relationship is inherently transactional. It is contingent upon the mutual fulfillments. And if indeed, the terms of transactions are severed, I suspect, gratitude is a fizzling force. 

Dev

 In an episode of Aziz Ansari's Netflix show, Master of None (Season 1; Episode 2), Ansari's Indian American character, Dev, strolls with his Korean American friend Brian along New York streets, navigating Asian folks doing Tai Chi in an inner street. They have just come out after having tea with Dev's dad and his friend Dr. Ramaswami who arrived from India the same day. During the tea conversation, Dr. Ramaswami discloses that Dev's father was working at a zipper factory at Dev's age. For two years, he worked at a zipper factory to earn enough money for medical school costs. Dev appears touched by that revelation about his father's past and fiddles with that information through the stroll with his pal. Brian tells of his own parent's hardship. "Isn't that the gist of every immigrant story, that it was hard?" says Dev. And he persists, "It's pretty crazy. All of us first generation kids, we have these amazing lives. And it's all 'cause our parents made these crazy sacrifices."

This banter, in my mind, highlights some of the pervasive and dominant narratives involving immigrants and immigrant kids. One is that, immigrants come to this country searching for a better life, escaping hardships in their countries. Implicit in this is a story of struggle back home. Some form of heroic struggle to escape that hardship. And then genuine interminable hard work in this country to nurture a better life for themselves and their families. Another one is that it is a privilege to be living in this country for all forms of mightiest reasons you can conjure. Dominant economy, superpower, melting pot of myriad cultures, most innovative, most free....choose your inebriety. 

While there may be some truths in each of these narratives, I suspect it is oversimplification at best. Even if we were to look at just this specific conversation and context, these artists have made a significant leap to come up with this dramatized conversation for an entertainment medium. In reality, Dev's father is more likely to be a brahmin from a relatively well to do family, perhaps living in a city, or a landlord in a village with a dominant social status. He was very likely sent to a private school with much more rigorous didactics and resources than dilapidated public schools that majority of others went to. That very likely gave him an edge to compete in exams to secure position at a reputed high school. And that, in turn, prepared him well to ace the medical school entrance exam and secure full scholarship. He likely had relatives or acquaintances who were living in America or had traveled or studied in America to guide him through the process of immigration. 

Someone securing medical school spot by working at a zipper factory that very likely pays sub-substinence pay even by Indian living standards? Fantastical, in my mind. But, I surmise, these are precisely the types of stories that motivate many kind-hearted individuals to be open about welcoming strangers to their country. And the distinct contrast in material prosperity that exists between these countries makes it easier for someone in America to assume that everyday life is a struggle for the whole masses of lives populating these resource-poor countries. Ordinary affairs of daily living can be interpreted as unendurable struggle. The narrative needs, therefore, can be easily fed and satiated with a variety of these fantastic and often embellished examples. 

Dev's pride about this country and gratitude for existence in this segment of the world is a more complicated matter for me to discern. American children of immigrants are in many ways equally foreign entities for immigrants. But we also likely have a very distinct set of relationship with this segment of American population. Being an immigrant father of two children born in this country, there is almost a reflex trepidation for matters that may adversely affect this group. But very little understanding of their internal lives. And many questions. When Dev bloviates about "amazing lives," I dearly hope that it is what he feels in quietude. Not a learned response to justifying his existence at this place. While as an immigrant I do not have much qualms in identifying myself as foreign, and no real issue with others treating me as a foreign individual, as long as it is not borne of malice, I see no moral justification for any form of identification as a foreign entity for children born in this country, whatever the circumstances. Gratitude should not be a contingency for their citizenship. One's relationship to their nation of birth, I suspect, is not neat, rather complicated. And one should be entitled to a full assortment of emotions. Gratitude is the best among those, and if indeed that is what Dev feels, this immigrant father of two America born children is truly hopeful!