Sunday, July 16, 2000		Life Ties

Grow wherever life puts you down
By Taru Bahl

A UKRAINIAN mother, an Indian father and two children from the union. A long-distance marriage which not only survives but nurtures each member into a warm, intelligent and humane individual. The daughter decides to move to India five-and-a-half years ago to be with her professor father who happens to be ailing at the time. She celebrates her 26th birthday recently and invites us to what turns to be a memorable evening in more ways than one.

There is a photographer friend of hers who obligingly takes pictures. Everyone is received with a big hug, a namaste and two pecks on the cheeks — the hug and namaste Indian, the light kisses Russian. Another friend of hers has lent his brand new roof-top restaurant for the bash, allowing her the option of ordering half dishes (Indian) from his hotel and the other half made by her (Russian). She is wearing a saree for the first time but it looks as if she has lived in it forever.

Her efforts at intermingling with people are effortless. Though it is an intimate gathering of just friends, colleagues and family, the crowd is motley. There is the gynaecologist who brought her into the world, her foster-sister who is her father’s best friend’s daughter, an artist, relatives from the father’s side, nieces and nephews, her own Iranian and Chinese friends, her new colleagues and people like me who fall in the "spouse" category, who she is meeting for the first time. Yet the warmth and love that flows from this exuberant girl, connects her to the 60-odd guests creating a homogeneity and familiarity rarely experienced.

She recites Punjabi couplets, speaks Hindi, and is eagerly learning all the time. According to her former teacher (now a dear friend) who taught her psychology at the University, "She was a highly insecure and unsure girl when she had joined. Everything was new and unfamiliar. In the midst of her confusion and problems with the language, culture and environment, this girl was sure of only two things: one to make India her home by being a good Indian and, two, to continue to excel and be an achiever. She determinedly set about overcoming every little obstacle and ended up being one of the brightest, most talented and involved students we have ever had. She has today metamorphosed into this charming young woman who is a heady Indo-Russian mix."

During the informal sit- down dinner, she yielded the mike and told her gathering about the Russian tradition of the birthday girl speaking of each one of her guests following which they could, if they so wished, speak of the birthday girl too! What followed were straight-from-the-heart outpourings which were neither too mushy nor too ‘speechy’. She narrated incidents, parts of conversations and anecdotes which had, in the last five years, brought her closer to these people and had made her feel so much a part of them. It wasn’t a rehearsed exercise nor was it an attempt at PR. It was a genuine way of acknowledging the role played by each one of them, in significant and insignificant ways, in contributing towards making her what she was today. She also wanted them to know that none of it had gone unappreciated.

What set this party apart was its unpretentiousness. Her bear hugs were real, her smile lit up her eyes and face. She went a step beyond, making everyone feel comfortable. She made them feel that they mattered. When she spoke to people who she was meeting for the first time (having taken special care to know their first names before hand), one could sense her eagerness to know the person across. It was not just an attempt at striking a polite (and insipid) conversation.

Although the other half of her family is still in Russia, she and her father have created their own little world here. Of course, the entire family makes an attempt at being together. But the larger reality is that five years ago she took the critical decision of moving to another country. A country she had only read of, heard about and occasionally visited. There was always the option that in case she wasn’t happy she could always go back for good. This, she says, she never considered even once. She has taken up a job as a HR manager because she feels she is best when she is with people and has decided to settle down in Chandigarh ‘forever’. Looking at her, one is reminded of the wise adage, "Grow wherever life puts you down."

Since she combines intellect with compassion and good looks, the transition from an uncertain apprehensive ‘foreigner’ to a sensitive exuberant and evolved individual appears to have been simpler. But what to my mind seems to have been the clincher was her openness, a trusting temperament and an attitude which accepted change as a fact of life.

Once the decision to move to India was taken, she didn’t waste her time in ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’. She just set about getting adjusted and giving a direction to her life as soon as possible. Being an open person, she was more receptive to the sounds, sights and influences of her new environment and allowed them to soak into her persona.

There must have been things which she didn’t like and which she found difficult to accept. Just the way there must have been things her friends found strange in her. But she kept learning, fine-tuning herself and adapting to the demands and pressures of the moment. Nowhere did she try and suppress the person she was. If she was friendly, enthusiastic and frank, she let herself be. Being a psychology student she knows that if she tried to be a carbon copy of what her Indian friends are she would be doing a grave injustice to herself.

Although the need to be accepted and loved by one and all was all-encompassing in the initial years, she held her ground without crushing her personality. Today, she has imbibed the best of the Indian traditions and customs. Combined with that is her Russian upbringing where both parents had a very strong influence in her life. The inner happiness, coupled with the sense of achievement that she feels today, is finding its way in her work place where as a Human Resource person she is sensitive to the needs of others. A rare example of a happy, well adjusted, inter racial, long-distance family.