Mylapore is great...but so are other places
February 21, 2010
sent me this "Mylapore is wonderful" video:
I agree with the greatness of Mylapore, there are lots of things I enjoy very much there (see
my various posts about Chennai
.... but I disagree with LOTS of other things. Is the Mami's duty only to cook for her husband, who seems so incompetent in the kitchen...is that something that he cannot learn? why must he keep burning himself in the kitchen, and why is that a sympathy factor for him?
And if you take a conscious decision to help your child out with her child ....why should that be bad? Earlier, daughters would come to the mother's home for the childbirth...if today, the mother goes to the daughter's home, what's wrong with that, if it's being done voluntarily?
I disagree with the idea that helping with the grandchild is equal to being a servant...and also with the idea that the work a servant does is also somehow "inferior". I particularly DETEST this idea! WHY is housework or childcare considered so inferior by TamBrams...or, indeed, by most Indians?
Please, grandparents! There is NOTHING inferior in helping to care for grandchilden abroad, and making a few compromises for that most delightful of jobs. If you can't do it with good grace...don't do it at all!
I enjoy both my life in Bangalore, with a lot of activites. and my life in St.Louis, taking care of my grand-daughter.. They are two facets of me...and I feel in no way that I have sacrificed anything.
And we need to get rid of this idea that ONLY living in India (or in this instance, Mylapore) is good. There is a lot that one can learn from going to a new culture and a new country. Let's learn to have more open minds! One can be as spiritual in the US as in India, and I don't mean attending Sanskrit classes.
Each culture has its pluses and minuses. It's so nice to talk about the pluses of a life in Mylapore, but does anyone talk about the eve-teasing, the nasty rowdyism, the lack of good roads or good infrastructure, and all the negatives that one faces? Why only accentuate the positive of India and the negative of the US?
And the bottom line is that ultimately it is thousands of people from this same Mylapare who ARE sitting abroad. Why not analyse WHY they are going there if everything is so rosy here?
I choose to live in India for various reasons...but that doesn't mean that I can't appreciate what's good in other cultures. Why do we always have to run down others to feel good about ourselves?
