Brotherhood Dharma, Destiny and the American Dream Read Free Page B

who knew the answer. In a single stroke, he had earned respect.
    As gentle and tolerant as my parents were, there was never a doubt about the line drawn between whites and “brownies.” Most colonials assigned to India had come out in Victorian times to make their fortune or else to escape disgrace. It was a time when the oldest son inherited everything, the middle son went to university to become a clergyman, and the youngest or most hapless son became a soldier. India was an escape route and a chance to rise higher socially than you could have back home. Salaried clerks lived like rajas. The colonial clubs were bastions of pretentiousness, stuffier than any club in London. The British were out-Britishing themselves.
    By the time my parents were growing up, this fixed hierarchy may have shifted, but the attitude of contempt and indifference to Indian culture hadn’t. Which is understandable when you have conquered a people and want them only for looting and profit. India was a jewel in the crown for mercantile reasons. There was no real military use to occupying the country, only a vast potential for profit.
    The Chopras attached their fortunes to the British because there was no other ladder to climb. My great-grandfather was a tribal chieftain in the barren desert landscape of the Northwest Territory and had held out with cannon rather than accede to the British army when they came to call. So family legend went. He was killed, but his son—my grandfather—accepted a position as sergeant in theBritish army, which guaranteed him a pension. The linkage with the white colonials became second nature. England was the other place where tea, chutney, and kedgeree featured in daily life. Both countries stopped everything when the cricket scores came over the radio and worshipped cricket stars more devoutly than gods.
    Still, when my father was ready to set sail, my mother, who wouldn’t follow him for a while, got him to promise one thing: As soon as he landed at Southampton, he was to go and have his shoes polished by an Englishman. He did and reported back the satisfaction of sitting in a high chair with a white man bent down before him. He remembered this incident in later years without pride, but without regret, either. While the British saw a benign empire (no one was legally enslaved after a certain date), the subjugated people experienced their psychological scars being rubbed raw every day.
    My father traveled to Edinburgh to sit his medical license exams—it was riskier to take them in London, where the test was supposedly more difficult—and when he sent word back to Bombay that he had passed them, my grandfather was overjoyed. As when I was born, he went to the rooftop of our flat with his rifle and fired several rounds into the air. Then he took Sanjiv and me to see Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves at the cinema, which thrilled us. Even better, he was in such a jubilant mood that he took us to a carnival and lavished us with sweets.
    In the middle of the night I was awakened by the anguished cries of the women of the house. Servants rushed in and swept us up in their arms. Without explanation, we were left with a trusted neighbor. Our grandfather, we learned, had died in his sleep. At six, I had no concept of death. My confused mind kept asking, “Where is he? Somebody tell me.” Sanjiv, who was three, reacted with a sudden outbreak of a mysterious skin condition. He was taken to the hospital; no credible diagnosis was made. But one doctor hit upon an explanation that still satisfies me today: “He’s frightened. The skin protects us, and he feels vulnerable, so it’s peeling off.” This man predicted that Sanjiv would recover as soon as my parents arrived, and he did.
    A day later we heard that my grandfather was being cremated.Two small children wouldn’t be taken along, but one of my uncles attended, returning with a bitter scowl on his face. He was a journalist, someone I was in awe of. He didn’t know