Erik Mama

I promised to talk about the importance of family in India, and today seems a pretty fitting day to do so. As I have mentioned, thus far my host family has consisted of parents, younger brother(s), and three grandparents all living in my apartment, but this morning I awoke to find my paternal grandparents packed and ready to leave. I was told that they were going to live with Rajesh Rajput, their other son and my host father’s brother. I cannot remember the city’s name but it is several hours south of Pune in a much more rural area. They invited me to come visit them sometime, and I greatly look forward to this both to see them again and to experience a whole different side of India. Thinking about it, all I have encountered here are big cities. I landed in Mumbai (largest city in India) and have spent all but several hours of driving in Pune (3-4 million). I think it will be a good experience to get a break from urban India for a while and witness an alternative lifestyle here. Plus, I am a small city kid through and through and I will enjoy being somewhere that is more like good old Northfield. 

Anyway, family is kind of a big deal in India. I experienced this firsthand when I first arrived in Pune and awoke each morning to new relatives in the living room. Because Niraj left soon after I got here, my entire family came from all over India to say goodbye before he started his exchange. I met so many people in less than a week that I could not keep them all straight and I am still attempting to form a mental family tree.

To see how important family is here, you simply have to look at the layout of my apartment. Once you walk in the door, you enter the living room. This room is filled with places for people to sit and can comfortably hold 20 seated people. There is a couch, two armchairs, and two pieces almost like daybeds which can seat at least five apiece. All this sitting space is necessary, because relatives come here ALL THE TIME. I don’t believe I have gone three days here without some cousin or aunt visiting my family. Some of them I have gotten to know fairly well and I enjoy their company and above average English.

The most confusing differences in family here are the different names you call relatives. For example, I mentioned in my post on Raksha Bandhan that the terms ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ can refer to either siblings or cousins. This complicates my attempts to map out my family when everyone is everyone else’s brother or sister. The other difference can be quite entertaining. My first day in Pune, my host father called me from my room to come see my ‘mama’. I assumed that they had skyped my mom and she wanted to say hello, so I was very surprised to find no laptop in sight and a short Indian man with an enormous smile standing in the living room. “This is your mama” my host dad told me. Confused, I shook his hand and looked quizzically at my host father for an explanation. He clarified that in India, your mother’s brother is called your ‘mama’.

A few weeks following this strange encounter, I found out that I have a niece of sorts (and she is adorable!). My cousin’s baby, Tia, came over for the afternoon with her grandmother (my mother’s sister). She was playing with Tia and kept repeating “Erik mama,” then pointing over at me. I smiled back, and Tia, being shy, would hide behind her grandma and sneak peeks over at me while I wasn’t looking. When I met Tia’s mother at my family’s pooja, I found out that Tia had told her that she had a new, fair-skinned mama that she was excited to see. I always look forward to seeing Tia and always smile at her, because this year, I am a very proud mama.