Family Ties: Stories That Inspire

[0:12] Natalie Saldarriaga: Alright, so please introduce yourself, tell us your name, and where you’re from.

[0:18] Nirupa Umapathy: My name is Nirupa Umapathy. I am originally from a city called Madras in South India. And I currently live in Jersey City. I am American by passport but I’d like to say that I’m Indian.

[0:35] Natalie: Okay, great. And why did you decide to share a story for this project?

[0:41] Nirupa: Um, I love the work that Raíces is doing and um, about sharing the wisdom and the knowledge sharing that is inherent in stories. I personally am very passionate about family stories and family history because I’m writing a memoir right now about our roots and how far we go from our roots to where we choose to fly from our roots. So this all kind of tied in really well for me.

[1:11] Natalie: Great. Uh,how would you describe your cultural background?

[1:16] Nirupa: Uh, for eighteen years I lived in India. India is obviously very pluralistic so when you’re living in the south of the country you live in a different planet than if you were born in the north of India for instance. So I grew up in a very traditional Tamil family . Tamil is my native tongue. Traditional in the sense that my father’s generation, my mother’s generation lived very traditionally, but the decisions and the choices that they gave their daughters was much more empowered and suited to our own voices. So, traditional and progressive is how I would describe it. India back in the eighties and nineties when I was there was very strongly patriarchal, and it still is, but I felt the imprint of that very significantly in the day to day of my life. I left India at eighteen to come here to do my college education. Technically I have lived more years in America than I have lived in India. Um, so I am sort of American by nurture, but Indian strongly by nature.

[2:34] Natalie: Okay. Do you go visit often? Or did you go visit often…

[2:38] Nirupa: I go every year.

[2:38] Natalie:…when you… when you first left?

[2:41] Nirupa: When I first left I didn’t have money, Natalie. I was broke. I didn’t have money to afford a ticket back, so I flew on a one way plane ticket. My father had money. I spent a lot of his savings to buy that ticket so I could come here and then I think it took me six and a half years before I really went back home. Some of it was because I think I was just so exhilarated by the freedom that America had to offer. And in a way I think part of me as a young woman was revolting against some of India’s traditions in the way I felt curtailed in my voice that I didn’t want to go back. But then after six and a half years a sort of homesickness set in and just I started going back home. I go home now every year because all my family is still there. And I spend about two months if I can…

[3:31] Natalie: Nice.

[3:32] Nirupa: …in India.

[3:33] Natalie: So what was that first going back home experience like after six years?

[3:43] Nirupa: It was very mixed. Um, look I will say this and I am being very open here. India obviously has a very strong post-colonial legacy, right? So I was a post-colonial child growing up. As much as the British Empire really massacred India’s wealth and its culture in many ways, until I left there was a very strong bend towards anglicized traditions. So, to be as English as you could be or as non-Indian as you could be… I was part of that generation where there was more pride in not being… being more sort of Americanized or anglicized. So, in a way I think when I left I was really strongly wanting to like build new roots in a different country and I knew that when I come back with the college education from America they would all look at me like I was special. I was young back then and I wanted to be special. Uh, I look back now on that it was very mixed. I did not want to go back home, but at the same time I wanted to go back and show them how far I had left from where I had started. That’s the honest answer. The story is very different now.

[5:03] Natalie: I see. So what is your experience like now going back home?

[5:08] Nirupa: I have such a resurgence of Indian pride at this moment for myself. I am… I have a really strong craving to go back and really be connected to that culture… to my origin story. Um, I also have lived here for twenty-three plus years and America with its own culture of sort of capitalism and disparities in every way. Um, the racial tension and inequities that we have in this country really have made me pause. I’m in between places right now. I am not entirely able to relate to America and where we are. I will say that very cautiously. It also comes from too much exposure to this country. You know? If I lived in India twelve months in the year maybe I would say something very similar because as you probably know India is also under a fairly Hindu forward think[ing]…Hindu Fundamentalist-ish kind of government there. So I do not know what it is to really live in India. But, what I want to go back to is the spine that I got from being part of that culture which is so pluralistic and very evocative in its storytelling and long, long, long heritage of history and culture. And ultimately at the end of the day like it’s when I listen to… I’ll give you an example. When I listen to songs from my… in my native tongue I immediately tear up. So it just goes on to show… not in a way that I can’t say that about English. Even though English is really my first language at this point. Um, there’s a deep home sickness that I am able… unable to place exactly for you. But it’s a homesickness of being between two places right now.

[7:07] Natalie: Yeah.

[7:08] Nirupa: I don’t know where I belong.

[7:09] Natalie: Yeah. Yeah. And I’m just curious when you first arrived to the US did it live up to its hype? Were you disappointed? Were you… how did you feel?

[7:20] Nirupa: Yeah. Because I arrived to go to college. I went to an amazing all women’s college in Massachusetts. It was like a bubble. I spent three years on campus. I studied one year abroad in London. I was on a full scholarship. Close to full scholarship. I got a lot of financial aid. And, I worked on campus to make up for the rest. Everything was sort of taken care of including the meals. The reality kind of set in only when I was about to graduate. Um, because I’m an immigrant and I was on a student visa so finding an H1B visa you have to find the right job. I made a lot of choices at that juncture that were not exactly heart driven. They were very sort of brain driven. This is the right thing to do. I don’t want to graduate. I was going to graduate with no money, but I was not… I was very focused on not being, um, financially dependent. I was focused on paying off my student loans as soon as I could. I did not want to be… I mean look, I did not want to live the life that my parents lived. Okay, so um, that choice was not heart driven. So I ended up going to finance and I think once I started my work life is when I think I lost a lot of… that was the beginning of the disconnection. I felt so connected until then. That was the beginning of the disconnection and it continued for fourteen years. Until I left.

[9:03] Natalie: And… so do you think it had mostly to do with the field you were in? Or…

[9:09] Nirupa: It was also the culture of… I worked, I worked on Wall Street. I do not as you can imagine my family had… I come… It was like I was born in Neptune and I went to Pluto. There was no… there was such a gap between what I grew up with and what I was surrounded by, but its from a class standpoint. I mean, my parents uh, you know like we… they had enough money to pay for education and they probably saved for our marriage but like this thought of like having this much money was just like unthinkable to us. And I worked in the business of money. Like literally are buying and selling and trading in money, right. Um that was one. The second was the culture. I was on the trading floor so the culture was one of conflict. It’s always and it really was about big egos and big personalities. The third thing was I was an immigrant, you know? I had no one to fall back on here. I was here with my boyfriend who was also from India. And we both were focused on creating a foundation such that we will not be sent back home. Um, and that we had enough money to pay for our bills. We lived in New York… not in New York. In New Jersey, but we worked in New York. Those were all very real choices and when you’re making those kinds of choices you’re just doing the right thing. You’re not necessarily..I… We were too young. We weren’t thinking about, “Is this like aligned with your soul? Is it aligning with your creativity?” That was the beginning I think where I really feel like I stopped losing touch with my creativity and my voice. I put the mask on. I was basically trying to be the people that I worked with. Cause I wanted to fit in. I didn’t… I wanted to have a job. I wanted to keep the job. They were very different from me. At that time.

[11:13] Natalie: Yeah. Okay. Thanks for sharing that. That’s so interesting. I am always interested in like the… I am an American who lives abroad so that I am always interested in what that opposite, you know, that other side of the coin looks like.

[11:26] Nirupa: So yeah it was like… I was just like how I was an immigrant in America when I first started in finance. I felt like I was an immigrant on the trading floor.

[11:34] Natalie: Yeah.

[11:35] Nirupa: Fresh off the boat.

[11:35] Natalie: Yeah. Wow.

[11:37] Nirupa: No idea.

[11:38] Natalie: Yeah, yeah. Wow. Okay. Um, so, back to the story. Who is it about and what relation do they have to you?

[11:47] Nirupa: I would like to talk about my paternal grandmother.

[11:50] Natalie: Okay.

[11:51] Nirupa: My father’s mother. And, yeah.

[11:56] Natalie: Alright, and did you ever meet her?

[12:00] Nirupa: I did. She was… but she died when I was really young. So she must have passed away… she passed in her mid sixties and I must have been under ten. I don’t remember the exact age. Um, the first two years of my infant life I actually grew up around my grandparents so I peripherally had exposure to her. But she lives larger than life in my imagination because of the kind of legacy that she’s created within the family.

[12:27] Natalie: Aright, so then who shared this story about her with you?

[12:33] Nirupa: It was primarily my aunts and my father. It’s a family that tells a lot of stories. It’s all from her offspring.

[12:45] Natalie: Do you remember when they started telling you these stories? Around what age?

[12:50] Nirupa: It happened five years ago when I was digging… doing some digging for my memoir. I was really keen to understand the role both my grandmothers played in our… in the kind of inherited traits that we… that were passed on to us. Um, and so that’s when I started asking them.

[13:09] Natalie: Okay. Alright so whenever you’re ready please share the story.

[13:14] Nirupa: So, the thing that caught my ears when I first started asking about my grandmother. Her name is Chokkammal… was my aunt would say that the day my grandmother got married to my grandfather, the rumor in the family was that her father had married a parrot to a cat. I’ll explain. She being the parrot and the cat being my grandfather. It was the reason why they kind of described it like that was it was the most unlikely of marriages and now in India… if you… to clarify further, marriage is a very important thing because it is the basis for transmission of wealth. There’s a lot of thought. You know, India has arranged marriages so marriages are really thought through. In this case my grandmother was married off to the most unlikely man by her dad. Um, the reason being unlikely was because she’s from a very wealthy family and her father was a very successful industrialist and my grandfather did not have a penny to his name. And he was..the only thing that he had going for him was that he was a highly educated and literary man. And again going back to this post-colonial legacy the idea of a man of that ladder, so the arts, of the letters it was very valued. So my grandmother’s father really valued that he had a degree that was almost close to a postgraduate degree which was considered a great sign of prestige. And the reason why this always catches my ear is because um, the story of wealth creation of my family was like a tale of two cities. On one hand my grandmother grew up almost like royalty. I’m exaggerating a little bit. She grew up in a very wealthy family and now suddenly she lands in the doorstep of a school master, that is my grandfather, who is a physical education teacher, um, who barely made enough money to support a family of eight children. Now in India at that time the way property was handed down girls… women were not given property. They couldn’t inherit property from their parents. So you only got what was your wedding trousseau. So in this case… in addition to the jewelry that she got for her marriage her father gave my grandmother a house, um on the street in where my parents still live actually. That is the only inheritance that she got and so she relied on her husband to kind of help support this family. My grandfather was a very peculiar man. He was very mercurial man. He would give half his salary, even the full salary was not enough, he would give half his salary to my grandmother and that created a great amount of financial distress as you can imagine for the family. But the reason I am sharing this story is that my grandmother was surrounded by the opulence of all her brothers and sister who had all this money, but yet she had to bring up family where it was hard to make ends meet and the way she did it was she would basically every month she would get groceries on credit from the local store owner. She was very charming and charismatic so she talked her way into this. And my father and his siblings had one cow which they would basically milk and they would go from house to house selling the milk from the cow. She rented the house downstairs and they lived on hand-me-downs. Like my father and his siblings lived on hand-me-downs. All the while being part of this larger family where you go to all these family functions people are showing up in cars and like there’s so much money and then yet this family did not have that. The reason why I probed and prodded into that story is how did intergerationational choices affect subsequent generations? There came a time where it became unsustainable for her to like support on this half a school master’s salary and what she was making so when her eldest son went away to work um, he started sending money home, but even that was not enough and so she asked my dad at some point the decision was made that my dad would not pursue college education and he would go to work instead. And I think he might have started working even before he was twenty. Um, and he started working early and his salary then went on to support, along with his brothers, the family. The reason I am sharing this is that for the longest time I held this deep sense of shame almost that my father did not have a college education. All of his siblings graduated with college degrees and my dad did not and so I had probably a little bit of resentment within me that you know he had to make that sacrifice for the family. Um, and so for me going back and unpacking why is it that why did the events churn the way they did. I had to do this almost in a way of forgiveness for my grandmother and my grandfather. And one of the most beautiful things that I always hear from her children is that regardless of how tough things were at home and they were tough very much as I said my grandfather was also very temperamental. Um, and he would go away from home for months at a time because he was gifted this parcel of land in a neighboring state which was like a little forest, a piece of land, and It was gifted to him and he would go away for like months on end. So she would have to take care of her kids. But despite all of this she brought her children up in such a way that they never ever bore a grudge against their dad. There was never anything ill that was talked about my grandad, that’s one. And no matter if there was not enough food at the table when a guest knocked on my grandmother’s door. She would always rustle up something from the kitchen and she would make a full meal out of it. And she would show up to every family function and preside over taking care of all the arrangements like in marriages. Like helping a bride tie her hair and like the sari and this and that. So she was always like this kind of mistress of ceremonies despite the fact that she lived through so much adversity and having to make ends meet. The courage and the resilience and the grace with which she kind of stewarded her family gave them an inherent sense of I think connectivity. They’re a close tight knit family of siblings. And two, they laugh over all of those days of childhood. Like there is never one sort of sour grapes kind of… I never heard that kind of transmission nor resentment. Um, and that kind of magnanimity that the kind of uh imagination that she fed her kids with on how to kind of scrape your way through and not complain and make like five out of two or like ten out of three. I’m just saying like and the fact that no one ever talked or bad mouthed their father really created an important legacy. And on her deathbed I remember cause she died of cancer. One of her last parting wishes that she asked of her kids is that, “Make sure that you take care of your father like he’s a king until the very day that he dies,” and they did. And um, it was just that inherent dignity to this family. I think in so many ways that it is really made me rethink my choices on how I view entitlement and how you accept the graces of what has been given you and how you multiply that. With what has been given you. So yeah.

[21:51] Natalie: It’s amazing cause she could have been and done the opposite, you know? She came from this wealthy family and she could have blamed him for everything. And be like, “It’s your fault.”

[22:03] Nirupa: Yeah.

[22:04] Natalie: And she… it’s not just this like she lived with him and then that was just her life, like you said, she kind of constantly reminded of what she no longer had.

[22:13] Nirupa: Yeah

[22:14] Natalie: It’s amazing.

[22:15] Nirupa: Living with that kind of complexity um and to be so… she took everything in her stride and I actually see that in her kids as well. Like you know, like you take everything in your stride and the other thing is also she was extraordinarily relational. Um, for me for instance if I’m in a place of scarcity I shrink. Like I don’t want to be reminded of all the things that I don’t have. So if I am depressed or down or if I am having a tough month. My tendency is to retreat. I don’t put myself out there. I don’t go out there and I’m not hanging around people that are like…who’s happiness reminds me of what I don’t have right now. My grandmother seems like she was the exact opposite. Like no matter what happened at home I think that she just showed up every day. Like, fully.

[23:05] Natalie: Yeah.

[23:06] Nirupa: You know. Yeah.

[23:07] Natalie: Do you think that was just her personality or you think there is something in her home that taught her to be that way?

[23:15] Nirupa: I think a lot of it was her personality, as well. Um, it’s not clear to me like her just like how her children worshiped her. Like she was like a goddess. Um, her brother’s worshiped her. I mean there’s something really special about this woman. Uh, she was… I think a lot of it was her personality. She was also like for a woman of her generation, uh she had this… so India has many languages as you know and she had no problems for instance like she didn’t know Hindi. Tamil is our native tongue, but if someone talked to her in Hindi she would immediately like break out into like broken Hindi. Or if someone talked to her in English and she couldn’t speak out. She would break out in her broken English and the goal was to communicate and the goal was to kind of be part of that state. I think that she really very much was that woman that just sort of put herself out there. Outspoken, she played the veena, which is a musical instrument. She sang. She was very artistic and cultural. Uh, I think a lot of that inner strength she must have had to kind of create that from her own boot straps. She had to probably bootstrap her way through because in India as well there is this thing about women… Once a daughter is married at that age that generation especially you were expected that you don’t go back home and depend on your parents. So, I would suspect that while she might have gotten some help from her brothers, I think that you are not supposed to end up going back and technically be asking them for money again. Everything is your husband and your husband’s home. Um, I like to think that it was her creative genius…

[25:04] Natalie: … and her joyous spirit

[25:04] Nirupa: I wouldn’t make any… that is the methodology that I want to create of my grandmother…

[25:08] Natalie: Yeah. And her joyous spirit. She just seems like such a beautiful person. No?

[25:14] Nirupa: Yeah, she was. And like uh one of the sad, so she worked so hard in kind of getting her children up and running and settled in life. And so in India also by the way for middle class families. I mean up until that time getting your children married off is a big deal. It’s not just about them finding jobs and this and that. And she got each one of her kids married on that very poultry-like money that they had and the time when all her kids were coming up and they moved from being not having… being able to make ends meet to like becoming slowly like middle class to maybe even like upper middle class in parts and like some parts you know some parts of my family are still middle class. She didn’t get to see her sons and daughters prosper because she passed away early. She passed um because of cancer and one of the things that her children talk about with great yearning is that I wish she had lived on long enough to see the garden that grew from the seeds like she created. So yeah.

[26:17] Natalie: And do you know how your grandfather thought about her? Spoke about her?

[26:22] Nirupa: Unfortunately I don’t. And I have a very skewed biased view on him which is not fair. Um, he… I do not know. I think all I know is that when she died he wept at her funeral. I know that he was a man that was very fond of her, but it was also a generation where like expressions of love were very restrained. And I think that men were… he had a temper. Let’s just put it that way. So I’m not able to reconcile that. I’m not able to reconcile how he truly felt about her or not.

[27:03] Natalie: Okay. And when you first heard this story about her do you remember your initial reaction?

[27:11] Nirupa: You know it’s so interesting. As much as like my dad has grown up with no feelings of jealousy or envy that he has like his rich cousins and this and that. I as a kid acutely grew up with this sense of what I did not have. And I have no idea where I got that from. Uh, perhaps from my mother’s side. Um, so for a very long time I think I grew up feeling as if I want to have more money than my parents had. I want… you know it was about that. So, many years later looking back on this when I heard that the parrot being married to the cat I was so angry with my grandmother’s father. I’m like… why did he do that? Um, but then like you know as I listened to how she transformed her own arch it just for me was like you know cause I have a lifetime to live up to her legacy of this kind of transformation. Of being given like a little shrivel of lemon and still learning to make lemonade from it. Um, so I would say that it’s only been a respect. I would also say that I have a different sense of fondness for my grandfather now. It’s not resentment that I used to carry. Um, partially because there’s another side of him that I also have not fully unpacked. I know that he was extraordinarily like boisterous and jovial and grew around his kids. And he was a very irreverent father in the sense that there was no hierarchy between his kids and him. Things like that I would like to unpack a little bit more of him as well. Um, but I want to live in my family’s legacy of no matter how little it’s about what you amplify it to be.

[29:00] Natalie: Yeah. Do you wish you would have known about this story earlier or do you feel like it came to you at the perfect moment?

[29:09] Nirupa: I wish I’d known about all of this earlier.

[29:11] Natalie: Yeah?

[29:12] Nirupa: I would have probably had a different appreciation for my childhood growing up. Um, I think I would have had a greater sense of family pride.

[29:21] Natalie: Hm.

[29:22] Nirupa: Yeah.

[29:23] Natalie: Do you think that this story has… did it… when it came to you were you already having that sense of pride or did it…

[29:30] Nirupa: Yeah.

[29:30] Natalie:… or did it help spark that?

[29:32] Nirupa: I think that like many years later down the line I am so deeply indebted to both sides of my family for the legacy of love. I literally come from a family where uh, the marital… not martial… the familial bonds are so close and so tight that it continues to be one of my strongest currencies, Natalie. I have never grown up ever doubting whether I have been loved. Or like about lovability. Um, it’s probably one of the biggest basis for my confidence. Yeah.

[30:11] Natalie: How beautiful.

[30:13] Nirupa: Yeah. Yeah.

[30:16] Natalie: Is this story well-known within your family?

[30:19] Nirupa: Yeah. Amongst the siblings… amongst my grandmother’s children, yeah. This is like a family myth of… and amongst the extended family meaning her siblings. My grandmother’s siblings they talk about… this was the marriage of like two different planets coming together, you know, yeah it is.

[30:44] Natalie: Do you think family stories, histories, are important? Why or why not?

[30:51] Nirupa: I think that they are very important. Um, I know that we all talk about biological DNA, but I’m strongly convinced that we also have the DNA of habits. The DNA of tendencies and traits. The DNA of why we make decisions and why we make choices the way we do. I tend to take a lot of comfort from listening to the stories of my families to sometimes understand why is it that I show up to… show up the way I do in places. I’ll give you a very concrete example. For instance, about money. It’s a passion for me and I mean that in the sense in that I study it in a very anthropological sense and um, I always wonder about when my tendency towards scarcity sets in. Is that coming from my mother’s side of the family? Is it coming from my father’s side of the family? Uh… when I’m taking a risk I think about where is that coming from? Uh… who am I sort of mirroring closely? Um, hypervigilance. This tendency to catastrophize is it because of the loss of something significant in the family that still lives on? I really very deeply believe in studying family history very much from a behavioral standpoint. And every family has it’s own culture if you will (30:56). Um, it’s not just the history it’s also the culture that it passes on between generations. Like for instance like the way my grandmother created that kind of closeness amongst her children… that same closeness exists amongst the offspring of her children. So her grandchildren also… that generation one down also maintains that level of closeness. Maybe not so close as the siblings themselves, but you know what I mean? It’s this kind of unconditional calling back. Um, that’s very strong culture. There’s another side of it is that um, there’s such a culture of food in my family that every gathering the language of love in my family in that side is food. It’s that talking like at the top of your voices and sharing the food and like breaking bread and telling stories and that’s the way we kind of shrink that time between like what we do not personally experience to where we are now. And I think it’s very important for families to also look at legacy like that as to how far have we come? Where are we like tending back towards the original family tree. Where are we like moving away? To kind of also create a thread of continuity between generations. I do believe that it’s so important for that kind of like intergenerational um, continuity especially because more and more in India as well the nuclear family structure is setting in such as way that you don’t have the same kind of intimacy that you used to share as families would share and I think this is where stories come in, in family history comes in.

[34:12] Natalie: Wow. I love that! Every family is its own culture. I’ve never thought about it that way.

[34:17] Nirupa: It is! I mean oh my God. I can like… you can look at the way you go to an event. A family function. An event in my family on both sides. My father’s side of the family the people are talking so loud that like you can barely hear yourself. So, even if I am standing outside of the door I will know whether it’s my mother’s family or my father’s family.

[34:40] Natalie: That’s great. [laughs]

[34:42] Nirupa: Yeah. Yeah.

[34:46] Natalie: Um, so this next question I think is going to be interesting because you grew up in India, right? Your childhood, adolescence, but then you’ve also lived in the US for a long time and I imagine it’s very different. So, the question is in what ways do you or don’t you see yourself reflected in history? So maybe it’s a two-part answer for you or maybe not, maybe it’s one answer. So I’m curious… like growing up in India. Did you see yourself reflected in history? And then also now being in America and living in the United States, do you see yourself reflected in history in the way it’s told?

[35:23] Nirupa: Yeah. Um, in India I think I was a very boyish girl growing up. I was very androgynous. I did not have a place back then. I was too bold, I was too outspoken, I dressed differently. The women that were before me and that I had see intext book dressed differently. They comported themselves differently. I almost did not want see myself reflected in that history. Uh, which is why I left. And, in that sense I would say that I found my place in America in my femininity and in my gender politics. Um, I could be who I wanted to be. I dressed the way I wanted to. I spoke the way I wanted to. Uh, I became financially independent. I could sit across the table and not have to wait for the man to go first. Um, so in that sense I think like any immigrant that has come here and has actually had a fairly safe path to exile so to speak, like you know, I did not come under distressed circumstances like some others have. Um, I would say that it was very much a blank canvas to make my own history at the base of the pyramid of financial security. And even after a certain point, psychological security. At this point in time though, do I want to be reflected in the history of America? I want to be reflected in the history of America where my story can be an example of not having come with a lot and having kind of created something from scratch and really kind of being scrappy and hustling and finding and being able to navigate the edges of this country like my grandmother would have done. Because I think about it, if my grandmother would have came on the plane and she had landed in America, uh she probably would have just focused on creating a life for herself without worrying about whether they thought she was too brown and that she belonged somewhere. She would have probably sat at the table regardless, right. Uh, that is the part of history that I think I want to remind some of us. Even if there is no seat at the table I want us to take a seat at the table. Um, I don’t want to ask for permission anymore. Um, so it’s much more of a defined pen if you will that I want to rewrite my history. I wasn’t all of that. There have been plenty of times where I worked in extraordinarily male dominated, extraordinarily white-centric environments where it wasn’t even obvious to me that like you know that I was silencing myself, ok. I mean I look back on it now, but if I could re-do that I would take my seat even more boldly at the table than I did. Um, and there’s parts of America’s historical legacy that I don’t even want to… that really fills me with great shame. Which is uh, the persecution of the first settlers of this country. Uh, the way that was the first genocide and then like slavery and then on going racism that continues on. And guess what? My tax payer dollars is supporting somewhat of this culture here. You know, at this point in time. It’s hard to not be part of the system. Um, at that part of the history I am not very proud of.

[39:28] Natalie: Yeah. Do you think history is accessible to everyone?

[39:35] Nirupa: Not in the way maybe I studied it.

[39:37] Natalie: Okay.

[39:38] Nirupa: It was boring and didactic and uh, a bunch of like random facts and figures and of people that I really didn’t care about. This was in India and history also, I didn’t enjoy history as I was taught in India. Also, I don’t enjoy studying history from the standpoint of narrative bias that it always inherently has. Uh, primary resources. All primary sources largely privileged Euro-centric traditions. Um, a whole chunk of oral histories like get wiped away in this motive. Uh, education, um as you know I am also part of the community history program. What I love about the newer forms of history, public history, is where we as the living artifacts of history get to like tell our histories in the form of family histories. Oral histories. Um, community histories. Um, this I can relate to. And this I find to be as vital. And I wish that there could be push back if there could be some kind of push back in the sense of I do not like this talk down hierarchical narratives anymore of history. Or at least it’s not I don’t it just isn’t as relative to me anymore, for me personally.

[41:00] Natalie: I’m curious, how was history taught in India to you?

[41:05] Nirupa: Um, it was a large… I can’t remember much of the lessons. It was incredibly boring. Um, it still had a very strong post-colonial sort of legacy to it. There was a lot of studying of the British Empire.There was definitely like we studied the struggle for independence. Uh, but beyond that I can’t… I mean there was definitely a sort of valorization of the age of exploration I am sure. Which we know has had its own consequences like when Christopher Columbus like sailed around the world or when Vasco de Gama came to that side of the world. I mean it was still I think in a way I would assume I can’t remember too well.There probably was still an inherent admiration for this sort of western advancement out to these so called unknown horizons of the world I would think. With the exception being the Indian struggle for independence which I think there is a big level of national pride around that.

[42:16] Natalie: And did you take any history courses at university in the US?

[42:20] Nirupa: No, I studied Anthropology and I studied Economics.

[42:24] Natalie: Okay.

[42:25] Nirupa: I didn’t find history interesting at all so I didn’t really want to engage with it and frankly like the only recent times when I really engage with history has been because I’m part of the Community History cohort now and expanding my view of what history can even mean and how it can be applied in day to day life has been much more eye opening.

[42:45] Natalie: Do you think people…

[42:46] Nirupa: … you won’t find me picking up like some history textbook, uh and reading through it.

[42:55] Natalie: I see, I see. Um…

[42:58] Nirupa: It’s very privileged the way it’s written and much of academic language sometimes is just become.. It’s just extraordinarily dry.

[43:09] Natalie: Hm.

[43:10] Nirupa: You know.

[43:11] Natalie: Yeah.

[43:13] Nirupa: Yeah.

[43:14] Natalie: Yeah it makes sense that… I think many people aren’t that interested or they think they’re not that interested because of the way that history is being told to them right? You know if you don’t see yourself reflected… if you never hear your own stories why would you really care if you’ll always be…

[43:28] Nirupa: That’s exactly right.

[43:28] Natalie: .. learning somebody else’s story

[43:30] Nirupa: Yeah.

[43:32] Natalie: Do you think people nowadays are kind of becoming more interested in history or learning their own personal histories?

[43:39] Nirupa: I think like programs like Community History are really kind of helping the everyday person expand their view of what history can really be. And um, and the idea of bringing in oral history and family history and um, dialogic I mean like removing the hierarchy between there’s an expert historian who knows what is the right thing and then there’s us who listen to it as the audience. I think breaking some of those barriers I think will bring in more people. I personally would say that it would be amazing to have curriculums in schools also reflect very local history, not just kind like national history or transnational history, but also to really let go of the history of the state… local neighborhoods to really get… kind of make it as intimate and also to bring it back to like what are the lessons that we can learn from history that we can apply in our day to day life?

[44:40] Natalie: Yeah, definitely. I think that’s a good idea.

[44:43] Nirupa: Yeah.

[44:45] Natalie: Yeah, cause when you can relate to a story then you first care about it more and also you remember it.

[44:52] Nirupa: Yeah. Yeah. And also probably expanding the dissemination of history and not just relying on primary sources and text. Textual history. Really like creating a traditional othered forms of dissemination of that knowledge. Whether it be through oral history or you know what I mean? To really kind of create… to really like balance out… I mean we primarily read about things that come from documented cultures. You know? Um, I wanna see the other side of it. I would probably be more interested in attending some kind of um, a story telling ceremony of some sort where I get to hear about the lineage that was passed down uh, between from elders across generations. Uh, for example, uh than I would be in reading about conquests and the victories of like some Euro-centric explorer, you know?

[45:52] Natalie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is there a part of your culture that you’d like to learn more about?

[45:58] Nirupa: The Indian struggle for independence. I would like… there were so many parallel movements and I know that the world largely knows about the freedom struggle… the largest non-violent freedom struggle led by Mahatma Gandhi um, but there were also some very uh there were parallel movements uh… of other leaders… of other threads within the Indian independence struggle that I would like to read about. I don’t uh, I’m… what has been popularized is this one kind of to me it seems like the model of the story. I would like to learn more about where there was dissent within the Freedom Fighters as well. And which there was and is the second thing I really would absolutely love to learn is the role of women uh, in the Indian freedom struggle because there were plenty of Freedom Fighters that were women. You hear only of a few names, it’s mostly sort of like a character male figures.

[46:58] Natalie: And is there any part of your family culture that you’d like to know more about? Any members?

[47:05] Nirupa: My grandfather. My paternal grandfather. I would like to know what drove him to make the choices that he did. In a way I think that he was following a soul path. It was not necessarily supportive of his family but the things that he did and the things that he chose to do like uh, going into the forest for like months at a time. I mean I’m sure it nurtured him and fed his soul. Um, and he chose to do that. He couldn’t be a house-holder. He didn’t want to be a house-holder. He made very unconventional choices and it also takes a certain kind of courage in very conformist India to be your own person and he was.

[47:50] Natalie: Is he thought of in your family as unconventional?

[47:53] Nirupa: I think so. Now, I don’t think his siblings would say that he was unconventional or nonconformist but I can see that. And, in some ways I think I’m fascinated by him because I would like to have the courage to make unconventional choices and stray off the beaten path. And I mean I do test that edges like him. Like, I’m also a free and wilding spirit. So, I definitely see parts of him living on within me.

[48:22] Natalie: Yeah. Would you think that when you decided to move to the US, would your family call you unconventional in that moment?

[48:31] Nirupa: Oh yeah. I mean I was… I broke all the rules. Um, very young. I was always a pretty like wild exploratory child. I got into a lot of trouble for it. I paid for it as well. And, I was doing things like I was dating when you’re not supposed to date. Um, and I was very rebellious and leaving uh the home. I think I was probably the first person in the family to pursue an education abroad. In the entire family. Um, now like I left a very successful career and I’m now sort of have completely fallen off the grid for most people and so I’ve done… I got divorced. I have always tried to live to be… I’ve always tried to be a free wilding spirit as much as I can. And that’s my grandfather. Yeah.

[49:29] Natalie: You have a little bit of both in you.

[49:33] Nirupa: I wish that I could say that I’m as gracious as my grandmother. I don’t know that I am.

[49:39] Natalie: But from how you describe your life you’re a go-getter like your grandmother.

[49:44] Nirupa: You could say the go-getting part. Yes, you’re right. Let’s give it to my grandmother for the go-getting [laughs].

[49:50] Natalie: [laughs]

[49:51] Nirupa: I always thought that I am not the person that when I don’t have like enough food in the fridge I’m going to like whoever comes at my door I’ll cook them a feast ok?

[49:59] Natalie: [laughs]

[50:00] Nirupa: [laughs] But she was [laughs] Yeah.

[50:05] Natalie: Alright, well those were all my questions for you today. Is there anything you want to add about your grandmother or anything else?

[50:13] Nirupa: No, I think this was wonderful. Thank you for allowing me to like kind of investigate and explore my family’s history.

[50:20] Natalie: No, thank you so much for sharing. What a wonderful story.

[50:24] Nirupa: Thank you Natalie