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The Evolution of My Faith
My religion was something I inherited long before I was old enough to have an opinion about it. I was born into a Syrian Christian family in Kerala. My father came from an old Orthodox Syrian Christian family with roots going back many generations. The church at Kallooppara is part of that history; my paternal grandfather and great-grandfather are buried there in prominent locations. Religion was not something I chose. It came with the family I was born into, the traditions around me, and the assumptions of the community in which I grew up. But my relationship with Christianity was never as simple as that background might suggest. I left…
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Independence versus Interdependence
As I mentioned, we moved to the San Francisco area a little over two months ago, and we are currently living with our son, Amit, and his partner, Brett. When we first started planning the move, I assumed that living with them would be temporary. We would settle in, find our own place, and eventually establish our own household. It seemed like the natural thing to do. After all, that is what many of us in America have been brought up to believe. Parents raise their children, children grow up, go to college or find a job, and eventually establish a home of their own. Parents continue living independently, and…
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Twenty-Five Years After 9/11
It is hard to believe that this happened twenty-five years ago. I was 55 years old, and we were living in Great Falls, Virginia. In some ways it still seems like yesterday. I first heard the news that a plane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center buildings. The general feeling at the time was that it might have been a small plane, and that it was possibly an accident. Not long afterward, the speculation shifted to pilot error. It was only when the second jet struck the other building that everyone realized there was no accident involved. America was under attack. I recall that my wife, Mini,…
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Education in Colonial Kenya
I grew up in colonial Kenya, living there from 1949 to 1962 — from the age of three to sixteen. Kenya was then under British rule, one of the many colonies that made up the British Empire. At that age, I was far too young to understand the full impact of the colonial system on everyday life. I simply accepted the world around me as the way things were. Looking back now, I realize just how deeply segregation was woven into it. Education, housing, social interaction, and many other aspects of daily life were organized, to varying degrees, along racial lines. My focus here is on education. Some of…
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How I Ended Up in the US
I was living in Bombay, quite content with my life in that vibrant city. I had the good fortune to hold an enviable position at a multinational company, Hindustan Lever, and my career there was flourishing. And yet, beneath that contentment, there was a restlessness stirring somewhere at a subconscious level. That restlessness was fed, in part, by my then-wife Geeta’s growing fascination with the “American dream.” Her cousin lived in Delaware and had filled her ears with stories of the wonderful life to be had in the US, and Geeta wanted that for us. I resisted at first. Having absorbed a very British disdain for American life, I dismissed…
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I am back ………
Over three years after my last entry on this blog, I have decided to resume writing. So much has happened since then…….. For a start, I turned 80 last January and so I am now in the ninth decade of my life! My three children are also getting on—one is in her mid-50s, one in her early 40s and the youngest is in his late 30s. Who would have thunk that I would actually have middle-aged children, or close to it! Two months ago, we moved from Tampa to be close to our son, Amit, and his partner, Brett. Although we are still quite functional, we are at a stage…