Where It Begins

Sickening and cloying as they may seem, loving families should be written about too.

Too often have I suffered watching the stereotype of the Strict Desi Parent. Narrow-minded. Wooden. Unable, apparently, to say “I love you.”

Well, witness the boom of the SPICE trades in India—influencers, stand-up comics, fashion designers, chefs, poets—and their parents, right behind them, watching on with pride and fond amusement.

This new India has emerged (literally, lol) from a new kind of Indian parent. And my first post is dedicated to them, the ones who are to blame for us freaks.

I grew up in a flat on Juhu Beach in Mumbai, so near the sea that the pounding monsoon tides would splash into our windows. I lived here with my mother, nani-nana, my masi, and my minx of a younger sister.

My dad lived and worked in Varanasi, in a haveli with my dada-dadi and his family, though we’d visit each other frequently and holiday together.

Holiday in Himachal: me, masi, nana, nani, mom, my sister; dad taking the photo.

Every day, the women in my family set off to work at the business they ran together: providing after-school tuitions to city students. They were teacher-entrepreneurs, managing both their lessons and the day-to-day handling of the business.

They’d return from work at 8 p.m. and, over dinner, narrate their students’ shenanigans, or scheme about how to save tax. They’d read books that made them laugh, or watch T.V. that made them laugh, and go to bed. Rinse, and repeat.

This was the backdrop against which my childhood unfolded.

And when I look at it now, I see how ideally these conditions nurtured a kook such as me.

1. Socially aloof = Creatively free

My family spent their day with bright, unruly, grimy teenagers, and didn’t concern themselves with anyone beyond that.

There was never any talk of “important friends” or “valuable contacts”—we never had them.

There are, of course, the guessable disadvantages of being so socially aloof.

But the one advantage was that it let all of us fly our freak flag high.

Want to be a writer? Cool. Want to attend a wedding wearing a necklace the wrong way around? Fun! Want to leap before you look? Here, I’ll give you a push.

Log kya kahenge tends to be irrelevant when log hain hi nahin.

As a teenager, I rued that my family wasn’t very “connected” or “business-minded.” As an adult, I still rue it sometimes, but I’m more often relieved.

2. Standing Out > Being the Best

My mother comes across as a stern and intimidating woman: she is a science teacher, sharp-witted, and doesn’t tolerate fools.

But within her, I believe, is a soft calling for the stage—a calling she prudently refused herself, but volubly encouraged in her daughters.

Consider this:

In school, tasked with one of those ‘DIY Science Projects,’ I built a tiny oven from styrofoam and tin-foil that could—Elon Musk, move over—melt cheese on Monaco-biscuit canapés. . . when left in the sun for eight hours.

My mother came home from work and considered my tiny oven and cheesy grin. She must have known how unimpressive it all was.

To me, says she: “You know what this needs? It needs a presentation that will stand out.”

While other students would drone on about the science behind their projects, my mom helped me write a script as “Jane Bond,” international spy, trying to safeguard a “super-secret oven” that ran on solar power.

When I left for school the next day, oven tucked under my arm, she told me, beaming with satisfaction, “You might not be the best. But you will stand out.”

My mother, the enabler

3. Like breeds like

I’m a writer because I’m a reader, and I’m a reader because everyone in my family reads.

Not in the way you might expect.

We had no Pinterest-y bookshelves.

And nothing award-winning: no Murakamis or Dickens or Didions.

Instead, we had tottering, dusty piles of Regency-era romances (Georgette Heyer!), animal comedies (Gerard Durrell, James Herriott), and pulpy murder mysteries (Agatha Christie, Edgar Wallace).

My mother had a stack of fat, hard-bound comic books: Phantom, Dot, Lotta, Mandrake, Richie Rich, Dennis the Menace, colours fading, jokes good as ever.

The only reason my family read was for fun. They would re-read the same novel a dozen times, rather than risk a dreary Pulitzer.

After dinner, they’d be draped on sofas, books in hand, chuckling and reading aloud snippets of dialogue. And I’d watch with anticipation, waiting for the day I, too, could participate in this clearly pleasurable and rib-tickling sport.

(You may have noticed one thing: no Indian books on their list.

While my nani read Hindi and Gujarati stories that made her red in the face with laughter, we hadn’t found as many English-Indian writers that wrote purely for fun and frivolity.

I’ll leave this topic here for now, but it would come to largely shape my writing ambitions—more on that later.)

Until then,

Sukriti.

SPICE Traders: Was your family the strict, unforgiving type? Or the supportive, affectionate type that never seems to make it into stories? 😉