Latest / Chavadi: The Meeting Place / Episode #21 - Shrima Shetty Makhija

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Episode #21 - Shrima Shetty Makhija · Chavadi: The Meeting Place

• 0:09
  SPEAKER_02: Hi there, or as we say in Tulu, Namaskarra.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Chowdi.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_03: Chawdi means the meeting place.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_03: Architecturally it is a veranda, sometimes outside a home, sometimes within.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_03: Always to welcome guests, to swap stories, debate the news, and pass the time together.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_02: Each episode we will bring you voices that reflect the rich tapestry of life, memories from childhood, lessons learned along the way, and the moments that stay with us forever.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_02: Some humorous, some poignant, but always special.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_03: I'm Lalita Shetty and I'm Siddhan Shetty.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_03: Today we invite you to our chavdi.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_03: Today we have Srima Shetty Makija.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_03: Shrima grew up in Bombay as an only child, and now she's married to Prince and she's been living in the US for five years.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome Srima.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_03: How are you doing today?
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, hi, Sid.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, Lalvanti.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for inviting me to Choudi.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for being on our Chavadi chat because we are so excited.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_02: Again, you are one of those I've watched growing up.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: You're a beautiful, wonderful young lady, and I'm excited to be talking with you, Srima, today.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: I love the name and I love this combination.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: I love having you and Sid together.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: It just is such a cool bridge between I don't know.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, Lalu Antika.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: You can say the Opha or a Boomer, but I do believe I think this is a really cool bridge and it's very interesting.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks for doing this, guys.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, of course.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_03: Anytime.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_03: Now let's get started.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_03: So let's start with your childhood, right?
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_03: Because we're gonna do a full chronology of your life.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_03: But talking about your childhood, you mentioned that you went to Mangler a lot to visit your paternal grandparents.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_03: And specifically, there I think you used to go to the cow shed every single time you went to visit.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_03: So tell us a little bit more about that.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, I think my memories about growing up um were my uh just like any other kid, favorite time is summer, spending your summer vacations.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I would visit Mangalore, my grandparents, and yeah, the coolest memory is that as soon as I enter our home, I wouldn't actually enter our home first, I would go first to our um shed and be introduced to like a calf.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: I I would love this.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: My grandmom would be waiting.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we would have talked about this calf before I go, and my dad would tell me there's this cuff, and there would be different names and really cute names.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I would be introduced to a calf every summer and then um uh milk these cows and and drink milk, and it's the coolest milk I've ever had, the yummiest milk, rather, and it's I don't think I'm ever gonna have that milk again because the memories that I have, the color, the taste, yeah.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: I have to try going to some Texas farms now to kind of uh reminisce old.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_03: Do you get to name the cows when you first for the newborn calves, or was that uh somebody else did that?
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_03: What was the tradition?
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: My grandmom would name calves, yeah.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm actually still very, very attached to I think my love for animals comes from growing up in Mangalore, uh being around cows, calves, uh goats, chickens, cats, dogs.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: It felt like growing up in a farm.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: So you had this nice blend of being a country girl in the summer vacations and then coming back to Mumbai uh for your schooling and things like that.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like yeah, I'm a city girl day to day, but maybe in my heart I'm a country girl.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_03: And you mentioned uh traveling a lot, right, in your childhood.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_03: So you grew up in Bombay, you spent a lot of time in Bangalore, lots of summers, you also went to Haasan.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_03: So maybe give us a few memories of uh I know you're very, very close with your family.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_03: So traveling to these different locations, visiting different parts of your family.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um, what was that experience like?
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would my parents were uh really good about splitting.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm actually close to both sides of my family, my dad's side of the family and my mom's side of the family.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think I would give my mom more credit than my dad for this because just you know, dads are busy, he would be at work, my mom would be the one taking me everywhere.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I would spend my summers split between um Mangalore and Hasan, Hasan, because my dad's sister, you know, they've had coffee estates and they would live there, so we would do that and then go to Bangalore, meet my mom's side of the family, her siblings, so all of my first cousins.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it was actually the most exciting time.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: I I actually am closer with so many people from so many different like Laluanti actually to like now.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I can explain.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a lot of people when they ask relationships, you don't you don't know that, and that's such a fun thing, right?
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: You ask someone, oh, how and everyone knows how everyone's related, and then there would be like this huge family tree.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: My husband actually makes fun of buns, and he says, These guys don't have family trees, they have a family forest.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_03: That's so true, yeah.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm close not just with my cousins but also their cousins because it's summer, right?
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: All kids would hang out together.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: All of that even goes down till date.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, now married for five years, and we were invited to a wedding, and we went to the wedding, and Prince is like, Hey, but actually, before we go, shouldn't I know how you're actually related to this guy?
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'm like, Well, let's call it family friends, and he's like, No, I want to know the relation because you know people ask, and I'm like, Okay, fine.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you really want to know the relation, then he is my mom's sister's husband's sister's daughter, son.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: For real, this was the relation, and he's like, Stop.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Why does this poor kid have to invite us?
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, grew up with him.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: I met him every summer, and when I would travel to the US, I went to Boston, I went to visit him.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: He took me around, so we're close, yeah.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, there are so many fun memories of growing up and growing up with so many different people, and you're close to all of them.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: And that is such a typical way of describing, right?
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: Some people think we're making fun of it, but it's true that's who he was with all those connections.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, it's like when if I were to say the way we are related, not related, but kind of close, is the same relationship.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, my mom's brother's wife's sister's daughter, that's who you are, right?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_02: You came to my kids' birthday parties, and I have pictures of you growing up, and that's how I know how you've grown up from being a little kid.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, that's it, that's a cool thing about uh Bun's and your childhood, especially, because like you said, your mom took that extra effort, and I think their family is also like that, they're just very welcoming to everyone.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, yeah.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think bunt people love to have more the merrier, more food.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yeah.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: So talking about all that, uh Srima, since you uh like you said, we are Bunts, and like we tell our listeners, the Bunt community is basically from South Canada, uh, Mangalore, Coastal Karnataka, Tulunadu, but we have moved all over the world.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: What is something that equates to Bunt for you?
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: The first thing that comes to my mind is um shared experiences, fun and trauma.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I feel like uh our values are the same.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um food, language, secret languages.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: As soon as you know someone is punt and you you realize you can both speak the same language, especially when you're in a foreign land and nobody else can speak that language, I think is pretty fun.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Temples.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, one of the memories growing up was from Bombay to Mangalore visiting temples, family temples, and uh they were not just fun for the experience of it, but also we would get so much food in different temples.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, prashada.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Growing up, it was just fun, but today they all hold a really great memory, and it's actually something I enjoy doing today.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like it kind of ties me to my parents and and their parents because imagine you visit Mangalore, but you go to your dad's side of the family's temples, and my dad visits his mom and his dad's side of the temple, and my mom does the same.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: So a child is left with four temples.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, luckily, I married outside of the community, so my kid just has four temples, not eight.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's great memories and maybe also some trauma.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: I imagine my child complaining about my mom takes me to eight temples.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_03: We all do that, don't worry.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, but then and when you grow up, you think, oh, those were such special times in the moment.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, oh my gosh, another temple, but then years later, those remember those are fond memories.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_02: But you were also talking about uh the jewelry, the bunt jewelry and clothing.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: What do you mean by that?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: How does that equate to bunt for you?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, of course.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like you you know, when it comes to buns, there's so many things that you can distinguish a bunt from from different clans, right?
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: For example, I was at a cafe once and I spotted a woman wearing a traditional bunt jewelry, it's called the Odungila.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: And as soon as I spotted that on this girl, I looked over at my husband and I said, Oh my god, she's bunt.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, You gotta be kidding me.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Are you like, stop trademarking even jewelry now?
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I'm telling you, she's bunt because I feel like you can identify people with the jewelry that they wear from different places in India.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I walked over to her and I'm like, Hey, are you bunt?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: And she's like, Oh my god, yes.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I and says, So I literally I first thing I did was popped over at my husband as like screaming, saying, She is banned.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: And see, that's how we made a new friend.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: And uh funny story, she actually comes over now, and families know each other, so and I think one of our guests earlier this year, Lakshmi, Achmu, my cousin, also mentioned the Vodungila.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's a wedding ring that we wear, right?
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: You want to talk a little bit more?
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have a voding la?
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: I do, I do.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: I uh married outside of the Bund community five years ago now.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I didn't actually re I you don't think of a lot of traditions and customs growing up until you actually do them.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: And one part of my wedding was actually embracing a lot of my culture and tradition, and fortunately, I married into a family that were very accepting of how I want this wedding to be, and it was a bunt wedding, and all of our cultures that we embraced.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so I do have a wodungila.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay, that's good, and it's like a V, right?
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's a V, it's a beautiful ring.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: I get way too many compliments for my ring.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: I also think the ring is popular because of Aishware Rai, she wears it everywhere, and everyone I've had so many people walk over to me and say, Oh my god, is that Aishware Rai's ring?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Yes, yes, yes, it is.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: We all have the same ring.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think embracing a lot of those aspects for me came when I was getting married.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um something to do with my wedding attire.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: I knew I wanted to have a bunch traditional attire, so it was the Kanchivaram sari.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'm so, so, so happy and excited that I did that just because I feel like years from now, I actually, for one of my functions, wore my mom's wedding sari.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: So for the Murta, I was wearing my mom's wedding sari, which is almost 40 years old today.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Back then it was over 35 years old, but yeah, I wore her wedding sari, and I feel like these are such dear memories that you hold on to, special, and you feel like it's it's the idea that you could pass it on, you know.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: So it would be lovely to see my child in my wedding sari, and my husband is very excited about saving that on our uh daughter's wedding budget.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_03: That's funny, um, and we can we can definitely sort of expand more on this jewelry clothing aspect because fast forwarding a little bit, you actually are very interested in fashion design, right?
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um but speaking more about your adolescence, so growing up, I think you're called by your friends Cinderella because you grew up with very strict parents.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_03: So give us a little bit more about the shetty household growing up in Bombay, um, how how your relationship was with your parents, whether they were both strict or whether you're one of them was like your best friend, etc.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_03: etc.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: They're both my best friends, and they both have played good cop, bad cop at different.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I have been called your child, your child based on how I'm behaving to one another.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm good, then I'm my dad's child or my mom's child on a different day.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And also, it's funny, and this is something you laugh about, but when you're going to weddings and you're you're dressed to your aces and you're looking pretty, someone would be like, Oh my god, you look so pretty, you look just like your mom.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: And this would all be people from my mom's side of the family.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: And if I meet someone from my dad's side of the family and I'm looking nice and pretty, then they would be like, Oh my god, you look so pretty, you look just like your dad.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: I would say I'm close to both of my parents, and they have both both been um strict and have both been friends at different stages and parts of my life.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my dad growing up was known, I mean, also shettis are known to be kind of I wouldn't call them thugs for a lack of a better word.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: But shatties are known to be, you know, overbearing personalities, right?
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_02: Wrong personalities.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Growing up, a lot of us my friends were scared of my dad.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my friends would call me Cinderella, I would have to be home before midnight for sure.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: My dad would be up and he would do this weird thing where I would enter the house and he would just look at the clock, and I just have to see what time it is.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: There would be no words spoken, he would just be sitting there, there's a clock opposite him, I would have to enter, I have to read the time.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: Basically acknowledging that I'm so many hours late.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um our complex had seven buildings, and if I'm still playing down after 8 p.m.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: or 8 30 p.m., uh, when my dad's car would enter our complex, some kid would spot and the kids would all scream, Shri Ma's dad is your Shima's dad.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine kids' voices beating my father's car, and I would know my dad's coming home and run up home.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my god.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_03: You have this whole system around this.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_03: I can't believe it.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: We are all worked out, yeah.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: So growing up, my dad, I would definitely say, uh, was a strict parent when it came to time that I spent outside of my home.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: I was never allowed to have sleepovers.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: All of my friends had to come sleep over at our house.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: Even after a friend of mine actually got married and she moved to a different country and would visit, and I'd tell Papa, hey, I'm going over.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: And at this point, now I've been friends with them for over 20 years.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then he'd say, Wait, but I would love to see her too.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's a cool way of saying come home and stay.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, talking a little bit more about identity, also growing up, right?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_03: So I think you mentioned a little bit how in Bombay growing up you were viewed as the South Indian girl, but then for example, when you went to Bangalore to visit family, you were the Bombay girl, right?
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_03: So maybe talk about the sub-identities of being Indian, which I think people don't think about, um, and how maybe you perceive it.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, I grew up in Bombay, so tradition there were there are today a lot of bands in Bombay.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: I went to school uh in Atpal Sanghi, which is run by a Gujati board.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's called SVKM, and they're very popular, but it's a whole lot of North Indians and mostly Gujatis actually.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I grew up with a handful of shatis around me, but majority were from different communities.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: Growing up, we actually don't look at each other as you know, oh you're a Catholic, oh you're Muslim, or you're North Indian or South Indian.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: But there would there has always been this identity with a lot of North Indians, especially, where you just looked at, oh you're Madrasi, because if you're from the south of India, they don't really take the time and effort to understand all of our different um cultures.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: So almost sorry, when we fill out forms and you bubble the Asia, the Asian bubble, it's almost like that, but on a smaller version.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: On a actually, but on a much more deeply rooted version, at least over here, you know that I live now in a country that has people from all over the world, but in India growing up, it's we're all Indians.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: You can look at each other as Indians, but I would be the South Indian girl.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, we look at each at some point maybe to do with food because as kids you're always looking at your friends, tiffin box, so you know what's in their lunch box, or the language.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think language is one of the first things that someone notices because if you're shatti and you're around shatti people, you just kind of have to speak in Tulu.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: And when you're talking in your mother tongue, there's way too many jokes that are funny, but only in your own language.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: In that language.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that happened to me while growing up in Bombay.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: We would travel so much that every time I'm outside of Bombay, especially in Mangalore or Bangalore, I'm looked as the Bombay Bunt.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I speak Bombay Tulu.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um whereas my Tulu is actually perfect, it's great.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: I can communicate with people.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_03: But is the is the Bombay is the Bombay Bunt viewed as this cool, outgoing person that uh like the party person, or what is the perception of a Bombay Bunt?
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_03: Just asking, curious.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: Bombay Bunt perception.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: I I could be speaking out of turn because I it's probably I don't know if other people look at it that way, but at least from what because I'm part of the Bombay clan, right?
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know some nobody saying this to my face.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that the belief is that it's people from Bombay probably just are more flashy in a certain sense, if you would call that.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um they they sh show off maybe a little more.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm actually now thinking why I was now called a bombay.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for that.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I think it's also the the like you said, a little flashy, a little more confidence, a little more maybe in back back, uh, you know, like Bombay was more urban than other places.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_02: Now, of course, more places are similar, but it was like you dressed differently, you had a more North Indian influence, so which was totally different from Bun's living in South India.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think the South Indians going like back in the day looked as North Indians as the eastern people look at the western country.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: West, yeah.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why this happened, but I think this happened a lot where you looked at the North Indians as oh wow, they're more um not superior, but cooler, you know.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now you think of so many things in like deeply rooted ways, but the color of the skin, I don't know why it was such a big deal where you're a lighter color, but based on where you're born.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that a lot of traditionally older, I'm talking about like way older generations looked at at these different clans of society differently.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: Also, I think food, food was a really, really um, I wouldn't say challenge, but for me, I'm a vegetarian bun.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm actually I'm I'm an outcast within my own.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: You're in the minority.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: The minority.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the black sheep, actually.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm most certain that people would get stressed out calling us over for meals, but yeah.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I was the Bombay Bunt with Bombay Tulu and and Bombay Fashion.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, can miss that, right?
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_03: The Bombay fashion.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: The Bombay fashion, yeah, for sure.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but yeah, moving on a little bit.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_03: So you eventually go to college and you focus on mass media, right?
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_03: And maybe you give us this sort of like the BMW story here that your dad would always be confused about a little bit.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: I yeah, I studied uh BMM, which translates to bachelor's in mass media.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: And my dad obviously, he's a he actually he begged me to do at least one, like he told me just clear the entrance exam.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I'm not doing anything to do with numbers, there's no chance.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: So for him, understanding what mass media was was super challenging.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: If anyone asked him what was Sri Ma studying, he would say, Oh, I don't know, BMW.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, and I would always the joke, I'd be like, You have one child, how hard is it to remember what your child is studying when you have just one kid?
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the but funny story is I actually ended up working with BMW, so I guess he was manifesting this whole time.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: I was as a campus hire from college, I worked for a multinational conglomerate with Sahara.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then I worked for a fashion week.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: It was super super cool.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: I was working with um couture designers from all over India.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, again, North Indian designers who were considered couture.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: So worked with a lot of designers from Delhi, and then after seven years with Sahara, they were we were shopping for a new sponsor, title sponsor for the same event.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I ended up working with BMW because BMW was our title sponsor.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_03: Beautiful.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_03: So your dad, yeah, your dad was exactly right, right?
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: Just like how I'm phobic with numbers, he's phobic with the word fashion.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: He would hate telling anybody that I work with, you know.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_03: I was not really, but knowing your dad, he's very spiritual, right?
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm sure he has he's definitely manifested this in some way.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: He is, he is very spiritual.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: I actually grew up reading the Bhagavad Gita every Sunday, and one of the things he packed for me when I was moving is the Gita.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_03: Oh wow, that's awesome.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: He did that without my knowledge.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was sweet because while I was leaving and my bags were all packed, he's like, Amma, he fondly calls me Amma, which which for a lot of people means mother, but also it means baby, darling, a baby.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, he's like, Amma, I packed a little book for you.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: Please make sure you read it every day.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_03: I actually call my grandmother Amma, so I always chuckle.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_03: Would you remind me that your dad called you Amma?
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, even my husband is North Indianese Punjabi, and um when my dad calls me Amma, he's like, But you're not a grandma, yeah, just a term of endearment depending on who calls it, who you eventually after that, after working with the BMW, you I think around maybe mid-20s, I want to say.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_03: Um this is when I assume that you're getting a lot of questions from the aunties about marriage and everything, and then you come to America, right?
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_03: For your uh for a little sabbatical slash masters, you do a design course at Parsons.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_03: Um was that your first time coming to America?
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_03: What was that experience like?
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: That was my first time living in New York by myself.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I had visited uh a few times before that.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: I have a lot of family here, a lot of my maternal side of the family.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: So growing up, I would be lucky enough to travel to this side of the world.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: The funny story about aunties or anyone in the Bunt community, you don't have to be even related directly to ask personal questions.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: So, of course, I had way too many questions about marriage in my 20s.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up actually believing I was gonna marry a Bunt boy.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know at what age or what time in my life.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: It was not something that you're told, you know, it's just something some there are parts of you that you just are understood.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I grew up seeing so many things and just believing that that's what happens.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: Your parents introduce you to someone and you get married to this person.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: So um that's how I actually looked at marriage.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: That my parents would introduce me to a boy, and uh he would be perfect on paper because all of them were I would marry one of them.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: So when I moved, when I came to the US of during my course was the first time I I I was by myself, and I have this interesting story where one of my uncles, he is a very, very prominent doctor here in New York, and he actually came to the US over 50 years ago.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: So he was one of the first immigrants that came here, and when you're one of the first few people to leave your country and move to another country, a lot of people get in touch with you or approach you for questions.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people within the community have actually stayed with them, and he kind of has a great influence, he's one of the founding members, I believe, for Bana.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: So definitely has a lot of influence in the Bund community, and also I think one of the things about the Bunds back in the day, I think that's changed a lot today, but was that you marry within your community.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: So my mama also, I'm pretty sure, believed that I would marry a Bund.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: He took me out of dinner when I was studying here, and he goes, Srima, if you have someone you can confide in me, I'm here for you.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I have a great relationship with my mama.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: He's someone I look up to, he's my hero, he's always encouraged me to do everything in life.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things about the Bund community, I feel, is we don't look at families as just our own.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: We don't think nuclearly, you know.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: You look out for each other, right?
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: You look out for your own.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: So he moved here after um my my mom had lost both of her parents before she got married.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so my mama moved here and, of course, was responsible for his siblings and their families.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like he had this, he's always had this sense of, you know, I had to give up a lot to, you know, partly one of his passions was cricket.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: He had to give up on his cricket career, and he had a great career.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: He was playing cricket with Gavaskar and Vishmanath, and he was growing, but he had to choose to be responsible, and he chose to be in the medical field, and he's actually a gift in the medical industry, so he was it all turned out great.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: But for someone like him to come and tell me that you can confide in me, because like I said, growing up, he was so encouraging for us to do anything.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: I I was able to tell him anything.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_03: I would do anything with him.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: So he's like, I will talk to Papa because my dad is infamous for not attending any of uh the weddings within our family for anyone that married outside of the community.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: So he was like, just let me know if there's someone, and I was like, Oh my god, I broke, I broke the bunt man.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_03: Your uncle was saying I got your back, basically, right?
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_03: So go and find somebody, but I got your back, right?
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think he told me go and find somebody.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think the idea was that if you have found someone, you should tell us now, just because I feel like the family had been um hoping for a great match within the bunt community.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: But he was just like, hey, if if you have someone, you should tell us.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I've had fortunately, I've had a good relationship where I felt like if I had, if I actually did have someone, I I would have gone and told him.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I did, as it happens.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh a year and a half later, he's one of the first people I spoke to when I actually met a boy outside of the community.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you have to give us a whole story now.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, oh yeah, that's a whole story.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: I met my husband on a dating app while I was in India.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: I matched with him on Hinge.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_03: And this is you go back to India after your master's course.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh this was not a master's course.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: I did a design course.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um when I took a sabbatical from work, I was really intrigued with design.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: I was actually working with a lot of architects and designers doing business development, but design really piqued my interest, so I felt like I wanted to see if I if there's anything to do with my passion that I can grow in um professionally, which is when I did this course, and I went back to India almost a year after I moved, not a year, okay, a little less than a year.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: I moved back in August.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: I was actually in Bangalore in late 2019, uh, working with a very well-known designer in Bangalore, Anita Shetty.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: And she was kind enough to let me in on all of her projects, and that's when COVID happened.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: So had to go back home.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: And during COVID, there was a running joke in my friend circle that I should re-download Hinge.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: So Hinge was something I downloaded as a joke, not a joke, but something my girlfriends and I did together.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: We were swiping right and left, and I just I felt a little shallow, you know, because how do you really just swipe left or right based on on five seconds of a profile picture, right?
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: But this was actually something I did with my girlfriends, and cut to a year later, now in India during COVID, my friends are telling me Shrima, you should download Hinge in India version.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: But and I'm like, no, what was I gonna do during COVID and talking to all these people?
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: But one day all of my apps got refreshed, including Hinge, and I started to get notifications.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: I had, you know, when you look at your inbox sometimes and you have this crazy number and you don't end up opening it.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: Why what's the point, right?
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: What is the point of reading all of these?
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_02: Whatever maybe.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I didn't open my hinge, and then I got a notification saying prince wants to send you a message.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I opened it as a joke because the joke was there's no prince waiting for me in New York.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's the joke my friends had.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I opened this as a joke because I thought there was a prince in New York, and it so happens to be that this prince was actually from Bombay.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: So when I looked at the profile, I was like, oh my god, I opened this as a joke for my girlfriend's group chat.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I was just gonna snapshot this guy's profile who calls himself Prince, and now the joke's on me because I'm Mrs.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: Prince.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was meant to be, right?
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_02: You wanted to find a prince and you found a guy named Prince.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: I did, I did.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: I had this idea of a prince for sure, and it all worked out.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think when we started talking, we didn't really think that we were gonna see each other.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: There were no flights, it's basically there were these emergency flights only.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because the borders were still closed when he came to India.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_02: So romance grew over COVID.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_02: Over COVID.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_02: So it I've heard those are the ones that you know are gonna last because if you can have something last through COVID, you know you've you've been run gone through the ringer.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: I guess you've gone.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: There were lots of ringers to come.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_02: So Srima, I know earlier when we talked, you had mentioned that in your experience, in in the people you knew, bunt boys seemed to be marrying outside the community, but bunt girls somehow seem to stay within the community.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_02: You talked about your mama, your uncle telling you let us know if there is someone you've met.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_02: So when did you first tell them about Prince?
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_02: Because I know you said your dad is also pretty traditional, right?
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so how comfortable were you telling them?
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_02: And when did you kind of tell them about him?
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: With Prince, actually, it felt very, very natural.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: I was also maybe it could have been the time COVID was a really tense.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, during COVID, I almost believed I would never move out of Bombay when you're of marriageable age, whatever that might be for different people.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: But within the Bund community, I think it's when you turn 25 and 26, and like I said, a lot of these things possibly are changing today.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: But for me, back then, it was definitely when I was 26.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: When I was 26, I met the first guy that I was introduced to, so I felt like telling my family about Prince over everything that had happened.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: As I said, I saw a lot of my cousins marrying into the band into the Bunt community, but a lot of my guy cousins were marrying.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: I have an American sister-in-law, I have a Colombian sister-in-law, I have Maliali's sister-in-law, and they're all lovely and they all fit into our family so well, and we're all very close with each other.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I was the first from my mom's side of the family to marry outside of the community, the Bunch community, and Prince just felt really easy.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: As I mentioned earlier, I have a very, very close relationship with my parents.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's respect first, love second, but of course, we're still friends.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I knew that when the time comes, I'm able to share anything with my parents.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I had built this up with Prince, right?
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: I had told him that my parents are very traditional, especially my father, and I had told him all of the stories of my father not attending any of the intercaste, you know, or this is the term in India, intercaste marriage.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: When you're still marrying within the Hindu religion, but you're marrying outside of your caste.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: So my dad, within his own family, his nephews and nieces uh married North Indians, and he didn't attend anybody's wedding.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_02: Oh wow, yeah.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: The first wedding he attended, um Bollywood movie, you know?
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_03: Classic.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_03: And starched the starch dad.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_03: Have you met my husband?
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: He lives for this.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: He probably was like, Yes, I want to take you up on the challenge accepted.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: He had this whole idea that he has to, you know, there's gonna be this whole family resistance, he has to win over me, win over my family.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: But when the time came, I think Prince and I had a very natural friendship that just grew, and I told it as it was to him and to my parents.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: I told Prince that whatever I felt for him was very genuine, but I had to have my I'm the I'm an only child, and there's yeah, if there was any kind of heartache on any of the sides, I would feel really, really bad making a life decision.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: So he knew this part about me, and then I told my parents I told them how I met this guy and how I feel about him.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: And he wants to one of the first googlies I think Prince threw at me was, hey, I want to come to India and see you, like three or four months into talking to him.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, What?
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: My first literally my first thought, oh my god, you have to quarantine.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes, What?
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Why are you coming to India?
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, To see you.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, but but the borders are closed.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, I can still come.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: My parents live there, and I was like, Okay, need to see your parents.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, Yeah, but I've and he told his parents about me.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like when that happened, I'm like, oh my god, if his parents know, my parents should know.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because if he's coming to India, I'm not gonna have him come sit on this 20-hour flight and not have my parents know about him.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I think when he told me he made this decision to come to India, the first thing I did was tell my mom.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: And my mom was like, Oh my god, girl, you're on your own.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_03: No way.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: No, she was really happy for me, but she knows the relationship I have with my father, so she knew that him and I should talk to each other.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: I I wanted to tell my father on my own, but I was slightly nervous only because of the timing, right?
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: The timing in America, I don't know what's happening to the world, how am I gonna live in a different country?
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm an only child.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I was a little nervous, so I spoke to Prince and I told him about my uncle who lives in New York, and I wanted to take him up on the previous conversation.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like, hey, I think I'm gonna tell my uncle, and my uncle will talk to my dad, and I think then my dad would take seriously.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: I just thought that if it comes from me, maybe he might.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how C I think it's an infatuation.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to make an assumption exactly if he would think this is an infatuation.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so I thought about this, and something really interesting happened at this point.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: Prince happened to tell his parents that I'm about to tell my maternal uncle about him.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: And the first thing my father-in-law did was tell Prince that I don't want Sri Man to do this.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: I have three daughters, Prince has three sisters, and he said, I I uh as a fa father of three daughters, I know the burden a father carries about her daughter's marriage.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I wouldn't want this information to come from anyone else.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be the one making decisions, whether it's good or bad for Prince, but it would be the right one for his daughter.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: Only a father should have the power to make that decision.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I want Sri Ma to tell her father on her own.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: So when Prince communicated this with me, the most interesting thing that happened was I felt so at ease at this point because I what I understood sitting thousands of miles away from this person I had never met, I did not know anything about his.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: We had no people in common.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: Friends or families trying to imagine, oh, can I find someone in common and find out about his family?
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: In just that conversation, what I understood is that we have the same values.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: True.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that made me comfortable to tell my dad about him.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I went to my dad and I told him about Prince, and my dad was um, he is a man of few words when it comes to to decision making.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's very simple.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's yes or no, or you know, I'm I'm an only child, right?
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I've had the power to change a lot of maybes or no.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: He said nothing.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: He said nothing.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: He just absorbed and heard me the first day.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: The next day, as I mentioned, we read the Gita.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: So we were reading the Gita, and he he tells me, Hey, so you told me about all about and I told him everything about Prince, about his where he grew up, about his academics, his career, his family, siblings, their families.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_00: I gave him all of this information dump, and he did not say one word to me.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: And my mom just was sitting in another room listening to me.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like, good luck.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no, I mean she's your mom is still like this is all your fight.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, she was also nervous, right?
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because, like I said, it's COVID, it's online, never met this boy.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: He seems great, but nobody had really met him.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: So she was excited but nervous.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: And at this time, then when my dad goes to me, so so what did you say his name was?
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I go, Prince Papa.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, twins, they're twins.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_00: I said, No, Prince, his name is Prince, and he goes, But what's his Hindu name?
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, Prince Papa, and he goes, Yuvraj.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: We are going to call him Yavraj.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Oh wow, that that said everything.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: If we are calling him something, means he's gonna be part of his own.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so that's awesome.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there, but then it didn't end there.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: My dad then told me this guy is gonna come all this way, take all this trouble during this crazy time.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe it's a good idea for him to actually meet someone, I R L.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I told my mama about him.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_00: Prince had a few rounds of interviews before he actually came to India, but he won everyone's heart even before he reached us.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_02: Now he's the true prince.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I remember my first cousin who met him.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I knew they were having dinner, and he went for a bathroom break, and she face timed me in these 10 seconds, and she's like, Oh my god, he's so cute!
• 44:12
  unknown: Like, what?
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, But he he's smaller than what you would imagine.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, what do you mean smaller?
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: He's short, and she goes, No, no, no, he just looks really young.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I guess that's a good thing.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it was an exciting time in our family.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: And as I mentioned earlier, you know, my in-laws were very gracious.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_00: Our wedding was done with all of the bun traditions.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: We had the murta.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_00: My mom-in-law had one request where she said that their tradition is to wear something called chudas, which is bangles, and they have this custom where the bangles don't come off for minimum 40 days after you get married.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I had the red bangles on from the day of my wedding until 40 days.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: Traditionally, actually, uh, I believe you kept it on for almost a year.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: You took it out on your first wedding.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_00: And interesting, someone mentioned to me that even the buns had the same tradition.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they would have to wear bangles.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_00: We just, you know, somewhere around along the line, a lot of traditions just die.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: But I was happy that I was able to honor which I thought was a Punjabi tradition, but also maybe was a bun tradition at some point.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_00: So that was interesting.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_03: I know earlier we talked a little bit about identity, um, or like the changes of the perception of Indian identity within India.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_03: But I'm curious also about how your your growth as a bunch or as an Indian has evolved, especially after you moved to America.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um you mentioned growing a lot culturally after the move.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_03: So tell us more about that.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think the first big change I've ever had in my life was moving in my 30s, because I think when you're in the same place, your same comfort zone for your entire life, especially your growing years, you're very set in a lot of ways.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_00: And moving to a different country at that stage of your life comes with so many different, I would say, adjustments.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: Also, I'm very privileged to live in a country.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was privileged even to actually so frequently visit here, right?
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm growing up, I came here so often, I am used to living.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_00: But when you're on vacation, when you're actually living, living in a country, it's very different.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_00: Also, we are we're living in different times today than what when my uncles and aunts and all moved here.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_00: My aunt has told me scary stories about.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, scary to me because I can't imagine life that way, where you write a letter and wait for two months to hear back from someone because if not for Wi-Fi and FaceTime, I don't think I could live in a different country.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_00: I at the tap of my phone, my fingers, I can see my parents.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like all of those things are so important when you're when you live away.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that are more most interesting that I have embraced moving away is um I you don't you don't realize your day-to-day things that you will you you will actually want to carry on when you live away from your home.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_00: I I did not see myself as someone having a little temple in my house, or even though I grew up like that, but you don't imagine you're gonna do this when you're alone.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_00: You traditionally do this with your parents on a day-to-day basis, but today I do that not just this is actually not part of my spirituality or my religion, it is actually just something that ties me to my home and this feeling of doing things that I did with my parents, and the identity part comes from you know how I mentioned earlier that growing up in Bombay, I'm the South Indian girl, and when I'm traveling to the south of India, I'm the Bombay girl, and then the same way I feel like that is carried on when I move to the US.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_00: Every time you leave your house, I'm the Indian girl, and within the Indian community, I'm the South Indian girl.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like that part of your identity is something that you carry with yourself with a lot of pride, and I must say that in in India, I'm a very proud Bunt.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that Bunts, even in terms of values and and uh kind of making you the person that you are, because I grew up in families that don't really think of themselves as a nuclear family.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_00: You think of growing up, I saw my parents in their thought process, it was not just me, my spouse, my child.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_00: My my parents always thought of as a family, as a unit for extender.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_00: I have I've had so many experiences where multiple people have come to me and said, Oh my god, you know, your mom's from Pinto Slane.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_00: Pinto Slane is my mom's house name.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_00: And they would tell me things like, Oh my god, I grew up in Pinto Slane.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not just one or two people, it's actually like like numbers of people who walked up to you and talk about this.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_00: And these are just things that you hear but you understand only later on in your life when you're grown up and you have your own home and your own family, where you feel like, Oh my god, I'm part of a family that did not just think of myself.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like that comes to you in your personality where you don't just think about yourself, like my dad.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, his older sister lost her husband when she was very young.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_00: And my dad was 219, I believe, and she was uh a few years older, but she had four children, and she had lost her husband who had um a restaurant.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_00: And my dad was studying CA and had nothing to do with the hospitality industry, but he knew that this is what is going to support not just his sister but the four kids, and he did everything he could to make sure that restaurant is running and stays within the family.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_00: And today that restaurant actually, of course, generates so much employment and all of that, but it is supporting not just the nephews and nieces that my father imagined for his but also for his kids, so it's third generation, and you know it's out of the ordinary, I believe, because today imagine if you know you your sibling were to unfortunately lose someone and you drop everything in your life to make sure that you support their families.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I I feel like there are multiple such stories, not just from my family, but families across.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you all have these stories.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_00: Siddhanta, I know for a fact that your father is one of those people.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_00: When I moved here, my dad told me, Oh, my cousin lives in Austin, you should call him.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_00: And you know how we are like you know, kids hear something and ignore it for a while.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_00: And for weeks and weeks, my dad followed up with me, did you call?
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_00: Did you call my cousin?
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_00: Did you call my cousin?
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I actually, when I was moving here, also I knew my the host of the show, uh, Lalita Shetty, who is Lalu auntie to me, has a sister here.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I knew that I had aunties that I can get in touch with.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_00: I got in touch with your dad ultimately because I couldn't have another conversation with my father where he said, Did you talk to Yashwantha?
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_00: And he was so kind and so sweet and so welcoming, not just to me.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, I had this great conversation with this man on the phone where he welcomed me, he told me about the puncher, told me, Come, I'm gonna invite you to this dinner party.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_00: Let me know you're in a new city, you're looking for a new opportunity, looking for a new job, and he helped me as much as he could.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_00: But I felt like okay, this man did this for me because I'm his cousin's kid or whatever.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_00: But today I have learned that he does this for everyone who comes into the city.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_03: He does basically, yeah, you're not special Shiba, you know, just everyone is every person is special.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but you know, that's the thing that where we I think that when you grow up like that, when you look at your families going above and beyond for everyone, it just becomes a part of who you are, and you you have I wouldn't call it a burden, but the honor to actually carry on all of those traditions because you're so tied to it.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's one of those things where you connect the dots and you appreciate the past a lot more because you can see how it has affected your current state, right?
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um if you look at the past, there are so many things I love.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_00: History, I I'm a I and especially when it comes to family history, right?
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_00: When I hear about my grandfather was a criminal lawyer in the 50s, a very prominent lawyer.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um he was called the unbeaten lawyer because he had never lost a case.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_00: He's also called the lion of the bar.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently, students would come in to hear his um debates.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, his um and there are books written about his case.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_00: He had a few international cases back in the I'm talking about the 50s and the 60s in India.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_00: He's a lawyer, obviously, in in Karnataka in Mangalore, but he used to travel to Calcutta to New Delhi for these international cases.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_00: Some got the attention of the Vatican because it was a it was a really, really big case.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, there was a case about an international robbery, something about Paris.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like all of these, like I said, you know, I'm not just attached to the idea of the history, but because I'm his granddaughter and him being this prominent personality, and it that's actually where it started.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_00: Where you're one of the few privileged ones to be qualified and educated, then you're in a position to help a lot of your extended acquaintances, family, friends.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, funny thing, his granddaughter married someone we didn't know this.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_00: Fought my brother-in-law's grandfather's land dispute.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_01: Crazy.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, yeah.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_00: So many stories about, and I think, like I said, we all pass on a lot of um not just traditions and custom but also values.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like when my my his son, my uncle, came to the to the United States.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_00: He um when you when you see your parents supporting so many people, you want, I think it's the idea of wanting to be kind of like your parent.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_00: So you you try and do all of these things for your community.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_00: So when he moved here, he embraced um and welcomed so many buns that were traveling and moving to the United States.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I have so many stories of again, so many people telling me, Oh my god, you're Dinkaray's niece.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_00: I stayed in his house for six months.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine that?
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_00: My mommy, and I would I would have to say this has to be a unit decision, right?
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_00: You can't be a solo individual trying to do everything.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_00: He was lucky enough to marry this woman who kind of encouraged and supported all of his ideas.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_00: She would pick up and drop off people to the train station.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_00: People became doctors studying and living with him.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_00: When I needed something just about a year ago in Austin, medically, I needed something very urgently.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_00: It was during the holiday season.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_00: We were trying to contact everyone.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my mom remembered my mama student who lives now in Austin, and she's like, Hey Srima, there's this doctor called Dr.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_00: Raj Shetty.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't you get in touch with him?
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, mom, I can't just randomly call someone.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_00: She's like, No, no, no, just do it.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_00: And interestingly, your father also named the same doctor, and then I got in touch with him, and he went out of his way to help me.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like that's why it's not an I don't think this is just my story as an individual.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_00: I feel as a community, we go out of our way to look out for each other.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I believe like Prince was just shocked.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_00: He found out that this doctor did this for me.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_00: Your mom very recently had a dental emergency, it was a holiday.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was able to get medical attention on a holiday, and these individually they might seem like small stories, but to think of it that we are privileged to know so many people who look out for each other.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think we were so strong.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_00: I always say the band community, we're small but mighty.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_00: Together, we're always stronger.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I think we look out for each other.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think that's the general ethos of the group, right?
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, focus on the collective and helping each other and always lending a hand.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, just like you're learning from your dad and your mom to that.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, exactly.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and moving on a little bit, right?
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_03: So talking about your extracurricular activities, any interests.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_03: I know one thing that we really haven't mentioned out, mentioned that's a huge part of your life, uh, especially since you grew up around different animals.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_03: Now you have Archie, who's your like who's basically like your little baby, right?
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I always I always see you around Archie, and then Archie's a very, very basically my baby.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_00: He is my baby, and as you have taken his name, he is now sitting by my side.
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and yeah, he I think my love for animals comes from growing up in Mangalore, uh, almost like a farm in India.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_00: I have a pet back home with my parents, and his name is Dodo, and everyone has made fun of his name, but he's a darling, and I thought he's my baby, just mine.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_00: He's more so my parents' baby.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_00: Every morning I FaceTime with my parents and I see them just they're so fond of him.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_00: By font, I would even say that they might pick him over me.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_00: And Archie and Dodo know each other, they probably dislike each other, but they know each exists.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_00: When you know, we talked about a lot of our extracurricular interests and activities.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_00: I love fashion, I love to travel, I love animals, I love anything to do with fashion and shopping and sourcing.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like everyone knows that about me, right?
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone who knows me who's buying something new gets in touch with me.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, oh my god, I'm shopping for a new couch or a new bag or a new jewelry piece, and I'm always excited.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, most of my days, other than outside of work, I spend with Archie and you know, spending family time.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_00: My husband loves to cook.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_00: I learned to cook only after I moved here.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, growing up in India, you don't really learn to do a lot of home chores, if I may say so.
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, I didn't know anything when I moved here.
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_00: The first few months that I stayed with Prince before our Indian wedding, because we had an American wedding before.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I just lived like a guest and I left, and he's like, Wait, this is not how life works.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta do laundry too.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think he was also making me feel comfortable.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_00: So he did everything, he was cooking, cleaning, doing my laundry.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, Oh, amazing! Life is a bombay.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_00: So when I went back home, I was like, Oh my god, you know, I I I took a little bit more interest in cooking.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like food is such a big part of who you are, right?
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, growing up, I remember I would get upset if there's idli at home.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_00: I would tell my mom things like, oh my god, I can't swallow it.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_00: But today, oh my, when my mom visits, she has to make idli that I freeze.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um growing up, ghee.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I would throw a tantrum if ghee is being made at home.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_00: But when she visits and she makes ghee, and even after she leaves, that smell of ghee is um fragrance just transports you to, you know, is it's such a this strong memory transports you to a different place and it reminds me of home.
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_02: And like I was saying earlier, Sri Mai, you are always so well dressed, it's like you've just stepped out of a magazine cover almost, and but still you're so down to earth when you talk, and you're it's very nice to see.
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_02: I can say this, the younger generation continuing being a band, absorbing all the values.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_02: And just from talking to you today, everything seems to be that that basic Band culture has been a part of your life through you've absorbed it from your parents, your aunts, your uncles, like family has done.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_00: We spoke about identity, but what I'm missing is I I've been identified as you know uh Dintaray's niece or Sita Shadi's daughter or Sudhish Shati's daughter comes with a lot of pride, and all I have been trying to do is make them proud.
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_00: Where I I would love for people to talk about my father, like tell my father, oh my god, look at that, Sri Bukati's father.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that he is going to be even more proud to be identified as my father.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I would like to conclude that uh being Bund has contributed so much to my personality and is a part of who I am.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I hold all of my traditions and values close to my heart that I would love to uh carry on to our generation and generations after us.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and yeah, and like I said, we're small but mighty, so we're always stronger together.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for you know being part of my life because I feel like everyone I know is a really dear part of who I am and helps me make me who I am and helps me be better every day.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:02:54
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much for hopping on the podcast.
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um I always enjoy spending time with you, Fima, hanging out with you.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_03: You're like a cool older sister.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um so I always feel like it's it's always fun having conversations with you.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um and now just to sort of like wrap it up really quick, we go from you being Cinderella and Bombay to finding your prince in America.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_03: So uh it's a long journey, but curious if you have any values, traits that you think you've developed throughout your life that you think would be very valuable for this next generation of people to learn from and go from there.
• 1:03:31
  SPEAKER_00: I have actually never looked at my values and traditions more than I have in the last five years moving away from home.
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I I have only very recently come to realize that this is part of who I am, and I would like to continue and pass that on to generations, even something as small as I don't know if you could call it a value, but it is definitely a one tradition.
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_00: Food is a big tradition, and as I mentioned earlier, I learned to cook only after I moved here because I miss my mom's food so much, but also they enable me to cook great food because I have a whole lineage of people before me who cook their amazing cooks.
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_00: All of my aunts, my mom's sisters, including my mom, I would say are the best chefs in the world, and I believe that they have also been enabled because we all have amazing putties and masalas.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um that actually so funny story, Prince once came to me and he knows that I get all of my putties from old grandmas, and he comes to me and he's like, Babe, have we taken these recipes from all these aging grandmas?
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, don't worry, we got this, but hopefully, you know, I I haven't thought of our traditions as much as I mentioned that moving here, um, food, language.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to speak our language to my kids.
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_00: And these are not thoughts that I have had before, right?
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I know this only today.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_00: I was I'm I read this book, Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain.
• 1:05:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's by Lisa Felman Barrett, and it talks about tuning and pruning a child's brain, and it starts as an infant, and um, I'm I'm talking about this because it comes to do with language, right?
• 1:05:26
  SPEAKER_00: The more familiar a child is with sound, which is different sounds, uh, then become languages to infants, and this happens very naturally because when I even play with other kids like my nieces and my nephews, I did not realize that my love language actually comes out in Tulu.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like when I'm speaking out of affection, I speak in Tulu, and I'll very fondly talk to kids, including Archie.
• 1:05:56
  SPEAKER_00: I even sound like yell in Tulu, because maybe.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I've been yelled at in Tulu.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_00: But I I feel like food and language is something I hold dearly, and I'm hoping to pass on that to our kids.
• 1:06:12
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah.
• 1:06:14
  SPEAKER_02: Language and food brings people together.
• 1:06:17
  SPEAKER_02: And that sounds like that's been in your life all along.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I really appreciate you being on this podcast, talking, sharing so much with us.
• 1:06:27
  SPEAKER_02: I feel you hopefully you will inspire more people.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_02: I wish you all the best.
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_02: Spread this love.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_02: Make us continue to be small but even more mighty.
• 1:06:37
  SPEAKER_02: Kids like you will definitely do that for the Bunt community.
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you.