Desi Girl Huma Reminded Me Concept of India
I visited Sammamish Art Fair today at City Hall. It is now fall time but the day was sunny. So the Fair attracted big crowd of art lovers. While going from stall to stall, seeing paintings, photographs, artifacts made by the local artists, I decided to sit in a cozy corner to relax for a while. An attractive young man was busy in his fixing his guitar and soundbox for his musical performance, a young, attractive tall lady was helping him in the process. He started playing jazz music along with a saxophone and cello player.
The lady sat next to me after the everything fixed for the performance. Conversation started. The young guitar player runs a music school in Issaquah downtown. The lady sitting along with me was his wife. It started with a very formal kind of conversation. She asked about my job and background. When she knew that I am from India, her facial expressions changed and I could feel warmth as if she did find some one from her own fraternity. Her name is Huma Mohibullah. She eased and started opening up, shared that her father is from Bangladesh and mother from Pakistan. Mother's family migrated to Pakistan from a small village called Billalah which used to be a part of United Province of pre-partition days now called Uttar Pradesh. She was born and brought up in Karachi, a city of migrants. Despite being a Pakistani, her mother and her family still called Mujahirs, the generic term used for those who came from India at the time of partition. They felt suffocated, got an opportunity and shifted from city of migrants to country of migrants i.e. USA first to Ohio and than to Seattle.
Remembering her school days here in Seattle some twenty years back, she recollects that in the entire class she was the only one who did not look like everyone . Of course different, a Desi ( generic term broadly for Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Nepali, Afghani and Srilankans as they look less or more similar in color as well as facial features). And after this IT revolution there are abundant Desi people in Seattle.
But why I thought to write this blog on Huma on the first place. Her whole persona negated the very division of Indian Sub Continent in three different political entities. Despite her upbringing in Karachi and 20 years stay in US, she speaks the same language which I speak at home. She loves the basmati biryani, nan and curry the same way we relish. She studied and earned Degrees in US, her most friends are American, she never visited India but she loves bollywood films, music and dance, she also enjoy poetry of Ameer Khusro, Ghalib, Jigar, Firaq.
When I ask her what is the reason of this commonality. She feels that India is not a country, it is a concept which rest in the mind of people of Indian Sub-continent and wherever they go they carry along. You may name it culture, tradition but it is real thing.
Huma married to Bob Limbocker her school mate, he is basically a musician and runs a Music School for children. Bob is a pakka Gora, when after a long courtship, he asked her to marry, she asked him to learn some workable Urdu so that he can impress her parents !
Now Bob speaks Urdu and believe me he teach bollywood songs also as many of his students are from Indian community and parents request him to teach some of the bollywood latest hits !
What impressed me most about Huma, she is doing her Ph D from Washington State University on a subject very closely linked with 'We' and 'They'. She did her Post Graduation in anthropology but the subject of her research is political. She has tried to study the impact of 9/11 on the life of people who do not look like the third, fourth or fifth generation of Americans and after 9/11 suddenly they become 'They' or outsiders despite the fact that they are also Americans.
Huma is not like traditional Pakistani girls covering her head with long scarf tall ; she is petite, attractive, fair and has black hair. She says when she is with her husband Bob, people also feel that she is a Gori girl but when alone they often ask her if she is a Maxican.
After a long conversation with Huma, I can now say that your passport may be your identity for official purpose but your persona can not be limited in your narrow geographical boundaries.
The lady sat next to me after the everything fixed for the performance. Conversation started. The young guitar player runs a music school in Issaquah downtown. The lady sitting along with me was his wife. It started with a very formal kind of conversation. She asked about my job and background. When she knew that I am from India, her facial expressions changed and I could feel warmth as if she did find some one from her own fraternity. Her name is Huma Mohibullah. She eased and started opening up, shared that her father is from Bangladesh and mother from Pakistan. Mother's family migrated to Pakistan from a small village called Billalah which used to be a part of United Province of pre-partition days now called Uttar Pradesh. She was born and brought up in Karachi, a city of migrants. Despite being a Pakistani, her mother and her family still called Mujahirs, the generic term used for those who came from India at the time of partition. They felt suffocated, got an opportunity and shifted from city of migrants to country of migrants i.e. USA first to Ohio and than to Seattle.
Remembering her school days here in Seattle some twenty years back, she recollects that in the entire class she was the only one who did not look like everyone . Of course different, a Desi ( generic term broadly for Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Nepali, Afghani and Srilankans as they look less or more similar in color as well as facial features). And after this IT revolution there are abundant Desi people in Seattle.
But why I thought to write this blog on Huma on the first place. Her whole persona negated the very division of Indian Sub Continent in three different political entities. Despite her upbringing in Karachi and 20 years stay in US, she speaks the same language which I speak at home. She loves the basmati biryani, nan and curry the same way we relish. She studied and earned Degrees in US, her most friends are American, she never visited India but she loves bollywood films, music and dance, she also enjoy poetry of Ameer Khusro, Ghalib, Jigar, Firaq.
When I ask her what is the reason of this commonality. She feels that India is not a country, it is a concept which rest in the mind of people of Indian Sub-continent and wherever they go they carry along. You may name it culture, tradition but it is real thing.
Huma married to Bob Limbocker her school mate, he is basically a musician and runs a Music School for children. Bob is a pakka Gora, when after a long courtship, he asked her to marry, she asked him to learn some workable Urdu so that he can impress her parents !
Now Bob speaks Urdu and believe me he teach bollywood songs also as many of his students are from Indian community and parents request him to teach some of the bollywood latest hits !
What impressed me most about Huma, she is doing her Ph D from Washington State University on a subject very closely linked with 'We' and 'They'. She did her Post Graduation in anthropology but the subject of her research is political. She has tried to study the impact of 9/11 on the life of people who do not look like the third, fourth or fifth generation of Americans and after 9/11 suddenly they become 'They' or outsiders despite the fact that they are also Americans.
Huma is not like traditional Pakistani girls covering her head with long scarf tall ; she is petite, attractive, fair and has black hair. She says when she is with her husband Bob, people also feel that she is a Gori girl but when alone they often ask her if she is a Maxican.
After a long conversation with Huma, I can now say that your passport may be your identity for official purpose but your persona can not be limited in your narrow geographical boundaries.
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