India - My Life within and without

I celebrated Diwali alone today despite the fact I had choices and chances to celebrate with people I know well, and despite I hate celebrating festivals alone. I just wanted to be alone.


It was my 4rth Diwali in the US, and 2nd alone without my ex. No, I didn't miss HIM and I'm happy about it. I refused to celebrate with others cos I didn't feel like being with anyone. I was stressed due to various reasons and loneliness was easy way out. I went to Gurudwara and came back in few minutes cos I wanted to.



Well, I have just now confessed some truth to myself. The truth is weird and it made me cry. Oh man, too much of truth. I'm scared of losing my culture, my religion and my existence of being Punjabi Indian female.


At my parents place we used to celebrate Diwali in a certain way, which was 50% typical way and rest 50% made up due to needs and usage. So basically, I got 50% of 'real' way of celebrating which got reduced when I started celebrating festivals on my own. I, obviously, added my flavor into it and today I didn't even celebrate 25% of the way I used to celebrate. I had enough money with God's grace for Diwali and enough time too, but I just didn't!

I slept in my bed until 4PM, escaping the truth that I need to do few things in order to celebrate festival. My biggest fear is that what if I lose the cultural effect of celebrations? What if I won't be able to pass the beautiful Indian heritage to my kids? I guess I needed a break to think and act with peace.


Then why am I so worried about it? I guess, I'm worried because I'm a very adaptable person and I have pretty much adapted American culture in last 6 years (few I lived here and few were due to my ex husband, who is born and raised in America). The way I work, eat, cook, live and do pretty much anything in life is more American than Indian. Reason? Its easy way to do things once you live and work in this country. I was never a typical Indian girl back home so it was easy to gel in to this world once I understood it.


Today while reading "the gori wife life" blog I figured out that why was I so lousy and scared of my own festivals. Few days ago my status message was "diwali kaiku aali re baba" which means why is Diwali coming!!! I don't want to face that I already have lost parts of my culture and heritage and in coming years I might loose more if I won't start saving it. The basic problem is no matter how hard I try I will lose bits and parts of my culture due to over exposure of this culture.


When I first met my ex-in-law family, I was surprised to see the double standard life even with their sons. I noticed that they chose to be like that as they weren't sure how to introduce their kids to Indian culture and also if kids will accept their culture or not. I often thought that may be they were somewhere ashamed of their heritage, or may be not....can't say!


Then I noticed many first and second generations from South Asian behaving same way especially who were less educated/less exposed to western culture before they moved here. Make sense, I guess. That time I decided not to lose my culture's best part and give that beautiful gift to my kids. I haven't lost much and hope when I will give birth to my kiddos and when I raise my kids, I still have those beautiful parts of my culture embedded in me. Amen!!!


Life is strange. Somewhere I want to be a gypsy and somewhere I want to hold on to my roots tightly!