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A cultural potpourri

So along with figuring out my transactions, we get chatting about, y’know, life. He tells me he is ‘talking’ to a Brahmin girl in South Africa’. Says she like him is a divorcee, and they are now waiting for the astrologers to give them the verdict on whether their stars are aligned, only then will he consider going to Durban to meet his possible future wife.

He recommends I watch an Indian film called ‘Dirty Picture’. Okay I say, how do you translate that into Hindi? Hmmm, he considers, comes up with ‘gandi’ then pauses to think and says I have no idea what picture is in Hindi.

A few days later I read about this Indian diplomat who was sued by her Indian maid for what the American judge called slavery. Oh pish, said another IND-AM, in India my folks had live-in maids who stayed up as long as we did, washed dishes after our late night parties and there was never an issue.

In Britain, a young millionaire is being sued by his parents for some 10 million pounds, because he did not follow the traditional Punjabi custom of sharing his business with his family. The parents were also saddened when he wanted them to move out of the mansion they lived in, in a fancy part of London. Millionaire son said he was never raised in a religious environment and had no idea he was bound in duty to share his booty with the family.

It’s an exquisite sweet spicy pot pourri of people, especially because here in America, most of us are from somewhere else. Yep, most of us are immigrants. It’s the history of this country that is made up of the immigrants, Irish, Dutch, Scot, British, German, Latino, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Polish, African, Arab et al. Pure Native Americans are a rare find, they too have married and moved into the mix.

Now the Smithsonian Institute is going to work to raise funds to have a perpetual exhibition and chronicle of the contribution of Indian Americans to the country. (Call me bad, but they sure know where to source the few million dollars in funds needed to initiate this project, don’t you think?) In America, the Patels are synonymous with super bucks, bless their enterprising energy.

The influences flow through the very fabric of the country, like traffic on the interstates. As a newish American, it’s overwhelming, delightful and sometimes frustrating. A turn of phrase for one lot can be questionably close to insulting to another bunch.

So life in the lap of the land of luxury limos and Lady Gaga moves to its own beat.

There is the slow moan of the homeless, like the bodyboards the Myrtle Beach homeless who were being kicked off unused land they’d pitched their tarps on said: “The Homeless are also Human”. There is the loud squeal of the jobless who can’t find a way to feed their families. The quiet resignation of old lonely people waiting to make the move to their Maker. The clanking of prisoners, millions of prisoners, put away for extraordinary numbers of years. The howling of those on deathrow.

Ah but don’t let me depress you. I expect if you listen carefully you will hear the beat in every part of this world we live in where all our religions taught us a common lesson, to love our neighbours’. And look what we did with that lesson – we discarded it. Be well friends.

Pinky Daniels is a freelance writer based in South Carolina