“And, who are you?”
I was with some friends at a music producer meetup in New Delhi, India. I knew a few people
there but mostly everyone was a stranger. Being introverted, I was listening to everyone’s
conversations and trying to blend in. But a charismatic man caught my gaze and popped the
question.
I fumbled for an answer, but managed to say, “I am Amrit Gill, a Music Producer and Recording
Engineer”
When they heard my accent, their faces displayed shock.
“Whoa, where did you get that accent?,” he asked while grinning. “Are you an American bro?”
I have to admit, I was feeling nervous that they would begin to treat me differently, but I had no
choice but to tell the truth.
“Yeah I was born there, but I have lived in New Delhi for a few years now.” I responded quietly.
The pandemic caught us all off guard. I was working in a recording studio when I first got the
mandate to start wearing a mask. Within a few days the studio shut down and my co-workers
and I were sent home. I stayed at home with my family for a few months spending my time
making music and finishing my college classes. Our big plan was to move to the US after having
lived in India for a few years. My family had moved back when I was in high school. I attended
an American school with an all American faculty in a very upscale area of the city (compared to
Indian standards). I was living in what social anthropologists refer to as an “Expat Bubble.” After
the pandemic started we were forced to accept that everything was too uncertain to move
countries. Instead, we headed to my grandmother’s house.
I vividly remember the flight that would change my life completely. I was sitting in an Air India
cabin with my mother and younger brother headed to Bangalore, a city in the south of India
nicknamed “The City of Gardens”. In the past week we had just finished packing up our entire
house. We packed all our clothes, furniture, endless trinkets, decorations, pens, pencils, and
coins inside the sofa seats… you get the idea. Everyone inside the cabin had on a facemask,
face shield and sat a seat apart. There was mostly silence in the plane’s cabin; everyone
seemed lost in their thoughts. We were only comforted by the whirring sound of the plane’s
engine. After 3 hours we landed in Bangalore and had to undergo another Covid test in the
airport. We walked up to a small podium where a tired looking man sat behind a glass counter.
He handed each of us a COVID rapid test where we had to swab our throats. We opened up the
package and swabbed our throats letting out a hacking cough in the process. I fidgeted
anxiously as I waited for our results. The man at the counter motioned for us to pass through. All
three of us let out a huge sigh.
A few months later, I was settled in my grandmother’s house with my mom. My brother left us to
attend his freshman year of college at Carnegie Mellon University. We had watched with
uncertainty as he left in a taxi to board what would be one of the last flights before India closed
international travel for nearly 2 years.
India had reached a record second wave of COVID cases and deaths. We were locked down in
our houses with strict instructions to not go outside unless it was an emergency. In the news
there were horror stories of cremation facilities being overrun with bodies. People were dying at
the doors of hospitals, not being allowed to enter due to no beds being available. I was
struggling mentally reading these daily reports and while being in lockdown. I experienced fear,
depression, and anxiety and found it hard to focus on my work most of the time. But more than
anything, it was a daily effort to adjust to the simplistic Indian lifestyle we were living.
The house we stayed in was constructed by my great-great-grandfather in the early 20th
century. He was a wealthy man from humble beginnings. He managed to acquire a lot of
property over his lifetime and ended up owning an entire street of houses in one section of
Bangalore, which was named after him. In the 1980’s after my grandparents retired, my
grandmother was given a small house by her parents for her to live in with her husband. So that
brings us to the present day where her Gen Z grandson is trying not to pull out all his hair.
As temperatures soared past 90+ degrees in the summer, I sat on a clay floor with my laptop
(which would get too hot) underneath a lowly ceiling fan for 10+ hours a day. Since the house
was very old and built with mud and clay, there was no air conditioning nor could it be installed.
To make matters worse, I was working with clients in the US so I would be awake until 2-3 AM
daily. Don’t even get me started on showers. The city we lived in had a water problem and the
handheld showerhead we installed would barely let out more than a trickle of water. I was
exasperated. I began to deeply dislike my grandmother’s house and India in general. I felt that
the country was backwards in its progress, and was a terrible place to live. According to social
anthropologist Kalervo Oberg this is the “culture shock” stage of adapting to a new country.
In retrospection, my situation was much better than that of several other people around me. No
one in my direct family contracted COVID, nor did anyone pass away. I graduated college online
in December 2020 and managed to land two part time positions with companies in the US while
maintaining a freelance music education business. I was grinding out the days and making good
money. However, I still felt more lost than ever. I disliked living in India.
One monsoon afternoon in between clients, I began to daydream about my life in America. I
thought about my childhood and school days. I recollected the friends I had made over the
years and how I spent my free time. It slowly hit me that I wasn’t really an American either. I had
always felt that way but I had never expressed it to anyone nor truly admitted it to myself. I was
always pretending like everything was fine, while in reality something was missing.
Though I was born in America and had a relatively comfortable childhood without any struggles
of poverty or any real hardship, I never really considered it as my “home.” That was a strange
thing to realize. Why could that be? I mean I was from Boston and I was a huge fan of the
Celtics and Red Sox. I loved watching the latest Hollywood blockbuster, camping by the lake or
spending a lazy Saturday at your local water park.
After about an hour of walking back down memory lane it began to sink in that I was neglecting
the Indian cultural values with which I had been raised as a young child. I had often found it
hard to bridge the gap between the two different cultures and resorted to pushing my Indian
heritage into the background. However, I realized that those repressed feelings from my
childhood were still there in my psyche. I had been ashamed to be Indian. I mean how couldn’t I
be? My food was different, my name was different, my family was different.
So who am I then?
There is a term for people like me called “ABCD” which stands for American, Born, Confused,
Desi (a person of Indian origin). The phrase was coined in response to the massive cultural
shock experienced by Indian-Americans. A common example of confusion is when
Indian-Americans are mistaken for Native Americans.
People would often ask me, “What country are you from?”
I would say “I’m an Indian” and I would be met with perplexed looks.
They would say, “You don’t look Indian!”
I quickly realized what was going on and I would respond with “Oh no, not that kind.”
At that point people’s faces gradually relaxed and they would catch my drift.
“Oh yeah! I love your country, especially your food!”
I spent many days asking “Who really am I?” to comfort myself from all that was happening in
the outside world. The question was now burning like a fire in my mind. I knew I couldn’t find my
answer with endless daydreaming but I didn’t know what step to take next. Little did I know that I
was in no better place to begin this journey of self discovery than the very place I so deeply
disliked staying in….My grandmother’s house!
One day while I was looking through my late grandfather’s bookcase, I found a book where he
had made some notes. The subject of the book was on ancient Hindu culture and tradition.
Reading through his notes I was very surprised that he had such a large depth of knowledge on
traditional Indian customs and rituals. I was very impressed. I read his notes everyday for
weeks, taking away something new each time. Eventually, I bought a few books on the subject
from Amazon.com. This led me down a rabbit hole of study on the ancient system of knowledge
in India called the Vedas. I was amazed to find that there were ancient instructions for almost
anything you could think of. Ranging from the best way to wake up in the morning, how you
should eat your meals, to the methods of conducting complex rituals that could benefit a whole
village for years. I was grateful that I had found some direction to my question.
As time went on I began to write down my findings in a big notebook. I would add something
new to it everyday. In this way, time slowly passed on. Before I knew it, the state government
began to slowly lift its travel restrictions. I was inspired to explore my ancestral land. I convinced
my mother to accompany me on a roadtrip across the lush, tropical South Indian countryside.
We visited several ancient temples, some of which were in very remote locations including: on
mountainsides, hilltops and in caves. I was simply in awe at the level of detail and artistic fervor
that the builders possessed. Some temples had grand halls which spanned several hundreds of
feet. Many had intricate carvings of celestial dancers, musicians and gods of every shape and
form.
I asked the question: why did these people go to the extent that they did to build these temples?
It was said that some of them were built by multiple generations of people. Surely the kings of
yore commissioned some of these temples and therefore the local artisans were essentially
forced to build them, but the temples in the remote locations remained a mystery. It began to
dawn on me that these people were living for something more than themselves.They found their
inspiration in a “higher power,” so to speak. Whether that was Mother Earth, a certain God or
Goddess, or society itself was unclear to me but regardless, I felt an immense sense of warmth
and peace when this realization sunk in.
Little did I know that this was just the beginning of the journey of discovering myself. I now had a
foundation that I was to build on. I was no longer confused at this point, and therefore did not
meet the criteria for the “confused” in ABCD. Now I was just an ABD (A Bad Date….Perhaps?)
My mother and I moved to Pittsburgh in late 2021 to be with my brother. I found a job at the
University in the department of Human Resources. I knew that the challenges of life would
continue, but now I had a spiritual foundation to utilize whenever the situation called for it. And
mostly importantly…. I was beginning to answer the question “So who really am I?”
References:
1.
2.
3.
4.
An Amygdala. “I Am an ‘American-Born Confused Desi.’” Medium, An Amygdala, 6 Mar. 2020,
https://medium.com/an-amygdala/i-am-an-american-born-confused-desi-ab0cb76bd2ca.
Sohail, Mina. “South Asian-American Youths Struggle with Cultural Confusion.” Pavement Pieces, 23 Dec.
2011, https://pavementpieces.com/south-asian-american-youth-struggle-with-cultural-confusion/.
“The Expat Bubble.” InterNations,
https://www.internations.org/guide/global/living-in-another-country-blending-in-15286/the-expat-bubble-2.
Yale, Brandie. “Understanding Culture Shock in International Students.” NACADA, 29 Nov. 2017,
https://nacada.ksu.edu/Resources/Academic-Advising-Today/View-Articles/Understanding-Culture-Shock-inInternational-Students.aspx.
Hindu Temples
Brihadeeswara Temple - Thanjavur, India
Credits: Ananthakrishnan, D., pexels.com
Hoysaleswara Temple - Halebidu, India
Credits: Lobo, K., pexels.com
A Typical House in Bangalore
Credits: Jacob, R., The Old Houses Of Basavanagudi, lbb.in