There are a lot of firms around this place, the well known ones - Satyam (erstwhile), Alcatel Lucent and then a good number of pharma firms. NJ is the pharma hub. Novartis is just a few miles away and employs a lot of indians.
At the Marriott, english breakfast is served everyday. During breakfast everyday, I definitely make it a point to note what the other people are doing. And with respect to the Desi and ABCD crowd, I wanted to validate whether the Desi junta did go through some cultural adjustment training before they landed here and whether the ABCD junta still have some of their original indian roots. So here is the scoop.
There is one ABCD family - 3 to 4 children. I see them almost everyday. They first have their breakfast and then they start packing. The volume they pack is perhaps double the quantity they have for breakfast. Each one of them would carry a huge tray full of food - apples, banana, yogurt, milk cartons, just about everything you can find on the table. Then today evening I noticed them again. In the evening, Marriott serves snacks. Fortunately, we reached on time for some snacks. This family was again loading some 5-7 plates of snacks. I am surprised that the "if given free, i will drink phenyl" attitude is still around. So this is one side.
The other thing I noticed is about the indian mother with kindergarden kids. I dont know if this can be generalised to all indian mothers who come to the US but this was way too funny.
One guy landed here a few weeks back from India. His wife and kid joined him like a week later. One morning, I saw them at the breakfast table. The guy had his breakfast and left to the office. The mom was having breakfast and the kid was sitting on a baby chair. I think the kid was getting a bit uncomfortable. So, he tried getting out of the chair. The mom was chatting with her husband's colleague. When she noticed the kid, she raised her voice "Aman! What are you doing?". The child looked a bit perplexed. He didnt utter a word. Few minutes passed. Again he started moving. The mom goes "Aman! What are you doing? Why cant you sit in one place?" and all that "cant you keep quiet" type speech.
I was like. What the hell. A week back, you were probably talking to the kid in Hindi, or Gujarati or definitely an indian language. And all of a sudden, you switch to English? Are you out of your mind.
I am sure the kid had a mind to say this - "WHAT ARE YOU DOING? Talking to me in a completely unknown language. Are you out of your mind?"
God save these people.
4 comments:
Who said mother's talk in mother tongue with toddlers, while in India ?
I happened to meet one couple at a tamil restaurant here in Bangalore. The woman spoke only in english with her 2 year old kid, while she spoke in tamil with her husband.
Idhellam nera kodumai !!!
I like the name "Aman", reminds me of SRK from kal ho naa ho..and also this seems like a scene right out of a Karan Johar movie :) Also, I do talk to V in english many times :P
@balaji - this is the impact of westernisation for kids
@anu - well.. considering that you've spent almost a third of your life in the US; you get a discount.
Talk about packing phew! i noticed it during our initial 1 month of hotel stay too - folks from EU visiting this holy land manage to almost grab the whole day's needs, so, mind you, this isn't just a desi thing! On English to kids, i will reserve my verdict after i see S in a few years to come ;-) I think the mom's just teaching the kid to "live like a roman in Rome"
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