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In February, as I watched my “ex-hometown” team, the Kansas City Chiefs win their second NFL Super Bowl in 4 years, I celebrated loudly with my family and friends – friends meaning other “Desi” friends who had all migrated to the United States around the time I had. The decade long stay in Kansas united us and has left us all with a feeling of nostalgia. We are from different parts of India and we were celebrating our own stories in Kansas City as much as we celebrated that victory.
Lets take a timewalk.
We Desis, as first generation migrants, often just change our geography. Once the formalities of moving to the new homeland is complete, we just use our redoubtable skills to “get things done” at work and quietly become indispensable. To quote the famous line from the broadway hit Hamiltion “Immigrants get the job done”. Our English skills, whether rudimentary or advanced help us to navigate the systems of our adopted homeland. Yes – I used “English skills” deliberately. No matter what the local language is, English is the language of business – worldwide.
In these circumstances fits our double life. Outside of work, we Desis tend to live in our self imposed “Virtual Desi Ghettos” attending weekend Desi parties, celebrating festivities and even looking up to other Desis when we’re in need of emotional support and we all need our friendly Desi grocer and the fancy local Desi restaurant.
Now, I am not your “typical Desi” – or so I thought. Growing up in Bangalore, learning from Anglo-Indian teachers, I felt I was a bit more skilled in the ways of the west. I would go to “rock shows” and searching dingy corners of the city to get the lyrics books of the latest billboard hits of the 80s in my growing years. So, I assumed that I’d fit in easily into the western culture.
But after I immigrated, I realized how little, I actually understood the west and how much lesser the west understood me. Although my English skills helped, the west didn’t find me particularly interesting and before long, I too embraced the Desi double life and stayed with it for 20 years.
Assimilation is hard work and it is a journey of its own. You see, unlike say the Jews escaping the holocaust, we do not come from a fundamentally wrong place. We Desis mostly just escaped fierce competition in the homeland.
Back to football.
With Cricket being my first love, for a very long time, I felt like Football is this brutal sport and that it was irrational to watch it. However, this changed when my home town Kansas City Chiefs started doing well from 2018 after rising from obscurity for several decades.
My brother, also a first generation Desi-American and unlike me a veteran of watching the sport and a great tutor, explained it to me as follows.
Football is war! You have an “offense” team, a “defensce” team and a “special” team. Each of these teams can win the war for you but the Offence team gets the most focus. As the general (Quarterback) of the Offense, your job is to explode the payload / bomb (football) in enemy territory. You have in your command, the airforce (passing) or army (rushing) and you have to make a split second decision to engage either of them. Your coach (high command) sets the strategy (play calling) but leaves it to you to adjust based on ground realities. Your opponent plays defence when you play offence and they will get their turn to score when your turn ends. The special teams are like your support system and when you have to cross a difficult terrain, they will build a bridge.
The Superbowl, i.e. the grand finale of the football season means so much more for us Americans than just being a sport. This is our India-Pakistan world cup cricket game. We come together to feel strength in our diversity. When they sing the national anthem, it inspires us. We enjoy our “gladiators” fight it out for the big prize as much as the half-time show and the commercials!
And at long last as I speak football with my American friends, I feel assimilated! Recently, an office colleague told me “I wonder why they keep playing this 80s music non stop in the cafeteria – I think that the immigrants think that this is our music?!”.
And no, my loyalty and affection for India is not any less. If anything, its stronger than ever – I just found out that I had space for both America and India in my heart! And although cricket is no longer a passion after Sachin and Dhoni retired, I still check the scores often.
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint.
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