Interviews >> Fai                                                                           

FAI

(India)

This interview was conducted in January of 2004 by Cristina, the editor and publisher of this website. Much laugher was shared during the course of said interview, which made it a joy for both interviewee and interviewer. Enjoy.
 

His name is Faisal, but I like to call my new Indian friend “Fai”. That’s how he actually presented himself, gently anticipating people’s difficulties with pronouncing and remembering foreign names. Such is one aspect of living in America.

We met at a Christmas party of some fifteen people, the majority of which hadn’t seen any of the others before. The marvels of technology: first the online world, people meet on Ryze.com or some other networking website, and then get acquainted in person. Sometimes with some surprises… but in this case, there were only good ones.

            Similar in age (late 20’s) and length of stay in America (6 and 7 years), we began comparing “notes”, so to speak. You make friends fast this way, and many times it is the bridge that covers otherwise completely different life experiences. I told Fai about my new project, the Sentimental Refugee website, the idea behind it, and what I want to accomplish: build an outlet for people to compare their experiences with immigration, so we can help each other if needed, and so that we can all realize that we are, in spite of our many differences, also alike in so many ways. Sounds corny, but it might make for a better life for many . He seemed very interested from the get-go, which was a wonderful boost for me. And he wasn’t simply making polite conversation, as many people with sunny dispositions (must be the warm weather in California) tend to do to avoid flatly refusing someone or showing a lack of interest. Because of the winter holidays I postponed trying to extract an interview from him. But he wrote me an email a month after the party to ask me if I was still interested. Who could have asked for a better interviewee?

            So we ended up meeting not too long ago in a nice Argentinean restaurant on Ventura Boulevard, about 20 minutes away from downtown Los Angeles. We spent the next three hours talking and eating, laughing, and having a great time. I hope you will enjoy our talk as much as I have.

Q: So when did you come to the United States and under what circumstances?

A: I came in 1998 but I don’t remember the month. I came through college, I was doing an MBA in India and they had a transfer program, so I came to the US to do my Masters. I didn’t know a soul. A guy I knew back in India who was also in the program gave me the phone number of someone he knew, and that was my only contact. This other guy put me in somebody else’s house to stay for a week.

Q: You stayed with a family?

A: No, not a family, they were all students. Indian. It was interesting. I didn’t know anything: the rules, the place, what’s happening, what were the formalities. Plus, I was in New Hampshire, where it snows a lot. I came from a tropical country to snow - overnight. And I didn’t have a car. I walked to college, four miles, through snow. It was interesting. After a while I moved out by myself into a different apartment. As a student you can’t get a job, you can only work in school for $5 an hour. It was fun, and interesting. I worked in India, while I was getting my MBA degree, for an entertainment company. But in the US I started in the cafeteria. It was a learning experience, starting at the bottom. A lot of ups and downs, you learn many American ways of how life is.

Q: Any shocks? Cultural or otherwise…

A: Everything was fine with me. Coming from Bombay… New York and Los Angeles combined, I think, compare to that… I really didn’t have any shocks. But people talk differently and behave differently, and I did notice change. It was a good change. People like to say hello and smile a lot. I was impressed.

Q: So you noticed changes, but they were good, for the most part. You didn’t recoil from anything.

A: No. I have to say that the only thing that really shocked me was how unsupportive the Indian community was with me. I actually had American as well as Asian people be more helpful. That was a reverse cultural shock, if you can say that. Back there it wasn’t like this…. You want to do something, they help you. Maybe it was because they were all students and didn’t have a lot of resources. Maybe I was just unlucky. I was very surprised by that. It was not the best experience staying with my country people. With people from other countries I was a happy camper. Everything else about college, the assignments, the projects, the classes, work, it was all great.

Q: How about the level of education? Do you think that an undergraduate degree in America is at the level of high school back in India?

Overall the standards of education are lower than what we have in India. When I was in college over here people used to pay me $10 an hour to teach them how to use a calculator (scientific). Even the basics…. I’d say an American masters degree would still be college (undergraduate) level. I was very surprised to learn so many things in my masters program that we learned during the first year of college in India.

Q: Did you see any great differences in the social customs? Did you have any difficulties adjusting to anything?

A: I was always very social, very friendly, so interacting socially was not a big challenge.  But it was interesting to discover what the level of friendship was. Back in India it’s alright to stop by somebody’s house without having to call up to make an appointment a week before.

Q: How would you describe the level of friendship?

A: The comfort zone is a little further away than with friends from your own country. Even with good friends actually. There is always some kind of distance. People are more materialistic. If someone is doing – and I’m sticking to college level – an assignment for you, he would ask for money. That was unusual to me. Small things like that.

There is something missing in the friendship bond out here. You don’t end up being as close as you would think you would be. But… surprisingly, in my experience, with people from other countries, you can be really good friends with them.

Q: How about friends from the old country? Do you still keep in touch with them? Are you still good friends?

A: Oh, yeah.

Q: All of them?

A: Most of them.

Q: Any of them say “Now you’re an American and you don’t want to talk to us anymore?”

A: No, nothing like that. I make a very conscious effort to keep in touch with my friends. Through email… it’s always been like that. ‘cause when you go back…

Q: Have you been back?

A: Yeah. Twice, after I came here. So when you go back, you are going to see them. I definitely keep in touch with my friends. Some of them come over here, I give them the tour.

Q: There’s nothing like an old friend…. I think they give your life a sense of continuity, isn’t it?

A: Oh, yeah … walking down memory lane with them … it’s being with your past.

Q: How about family? Any changes there? They stayed behind.

A: They are all very supportive of my life. My parents are still back there. And I have a brother who just got married. I was supposed to go back in December, his wife gave birth to a baby girl. But I couldn’t go then because I just started work with a new company. They understood.

Q: They are all fine? Supportive?

A: They are not fine-fine, but they are supportive.

Q: They are not fine-fine? A guess - your mom is not?

A: Yeah … she wants me to go back. I think one needs to keep going back on a regular basis. My mom comes over here about once a year, so it’s okay. I don’t feel like I’m by myself, all alone. My family was very encouraging of me when I decided to come to America all by myself. Up until that time I had lived with my parents at home. When you move away… every little thing that you had back there, you don’t have it here anymore. So actually we got even closer after I moved. Much closer.

Q: Why is that?

A: Just being away I guess. You chat and email, telephone, and use all the technology. But meeting in person is meeting in person. Giving your mom a hug is giving your mom a hug.

Q: How about working? You have a term of comparison, from working in India. How is the work environment?

A: You have people of all kinds, everywhere. So I am not going to talk about the exceptions.  

Q: I take it there were some….

A: (laughter) Of course. There are always some. Everywhere. But there aren’t too many. Overall I think the style of functioning and work ethics out here is so completely different than it was back in India. First of all, you address your boss or anybody senior level to you as “Sir”, or mister and their last name. But out here… I was calling a 65 year old guy by his first name.

Q: Do you like that or not?

A: I had a tough time adjusting to that.

Q: Really? You didn’t like it in the beginning?

A: No. It was so new. I mean… he’s older than my dad! …. My landlady… she’s old, but I call her by her first name. Now I’m okay with it, but when I first started it was very difficult to get used to that. The whole respect thing was there…. I think out here people want to be called by their first name. I used to call my boss, my VP, “Sir”. He would really enjoy it, liked it when I called him that, and it caused him to be very fond of me. I was the only non-managerial level person who had direct contact with him, and formed a very strong bond.

Another example: I have always been taught that out of respect you never sit while talking to somebody. Now, while working in corporate America I would get up from my chair if anybody came up to my desk to discuss anything; my VP found this very quaint and tried to figure it out, until I had to explain why. In another instance the COO from my last job would come over and beat me at getting up by bending down / kneeling to talk to me, so I didn’t have to get up each time. He totally understood why I do this and loved it. I still continue this at my new work place, I guess old habits are tough to break.

Work-wise everything is very professional and things get done really fast out here. Not that things don’t get done fast in India, but in America it is somehow more visible. I would say that the things that are important here are important in India too, but the style of functioning is more professional, let’s say, than back there.  

Right now the atmosphere is totally changed though in India, from what my friends are saying. People are adapting to international standards… well, I guess that would pretty much mean American standards.

Q: I’m going to get very daring and ask you about more personal things … I wonder if you had a girlfriend back in India and how that worked out for you after you came here.

A: I did see someone back in India, but we broke up after a while. Long distance relationships don’t really work. That’s when I started interacting more with college friends. It was interesting…. I had a few girlfriends in college, a few American girls.

Q: So dating wasn’t really a problem…

A: No. It was fine with me. It’s much more liberal in the US though. If you want to talk about culture shock… yeah, I had to make some major adjustments. For instance, back in India,  when you date a girl, you don’t go to her house, you don’t meet the parents.

Q: You don’t?

A: No, not until you’re very serious anyway, and you want to get married. Only then. Back here … I’d been seeing this girl for three days and she took me to her house. I said “I don’t want to meet your parents”. She said it’s okay. I met her mom, dad, brother, and sister.

Q:  And they adopted you right away as part of the family?

A: Not that… but… I met her on campus and we spent something like three days together, and after that she took me home to her house, and introduced me as her boyfriend. And I’m thinking “Oh, my God!”…. back in India…. I would be dead meat.

Q: You know, it’s not really usual for American girls to do that. You must be a good catch if they all want to take you home! Other people complain that they never get to see the parents, that they never get to talk about serious stuff. (laughter)

A: I was very uncomfortable. She introduced me to her mom as her boyfriend. If that happened back in India, you would get spanked. You don’t talk to your parents that way. That was a culture shock for me. But other than that…. I found that dating was less emotional and more materialistic. Everything is superficial. Everything is very nice on the surface, but underneath it's different … back in India it’s not like that. When you are with someone, you are into it, totally, with everything.

People here switch guys or girls every other day, very fast. It’s more like a true one night stand. Back in India people heard of this but nobody does it really. Now I know what it’s like.

Q: Did it bother you?

A: It didn’t bother me at all; it was simply one of those things… I’m thinking “Oh, now I’m actually seeing it”. Before I was only reading about it, or hearing, or seeing it in the movies.

(Pause…)

Another adjustment: back there you don’t hold hands or get all mushy in public. You just don’t. People think it is a lack of respect. Out here it’s everywhere: the grocery store, the gas station… I was “wowed”. Not that I was new to it… it goes on back there too, but not in a grocery store: at a party, with your friends, that’s fine, but not walking down the street.

Q: How about the language? Was the accent ever a problem?

A: Everybody has a different accent. You are a foreigner from a different country. People from the East and West coast of the US, they have different accents too. Initially it took me a while to understand what they were saying. But then, when you expose yourself to difficult areas, it gets better. So I was talking to them more, trying sometimes to change my accent to suit theirs.

Q: Did it work?

A: Yeah. Some people still have difficulties pronouncing my name. It was spread over a good length of time, this sort of adjustment.

Q: How long do you think it took you?

A: See, this was one of the advantages I came in with: back there I studied in a Scottish school. When you are a kid in India you have three main languages: you have the national language, then the state language, then, when you go to school, in 90% of the cases the language of choice is English. It is only in 3^rd grade that you start learning Hindi, which is the national language. Then further up you start learning your state language. If you travel 100 miles in any direction anywhere in India people speak a different language. Not only do they speak differently, but they may not even understand the national language, so English is what they understand. So when people ask me “How long have you been here? Your English is so good… did you learn it in three months?” I explain this whole thing. This is a misconception about India, that there is a national language …. English is the common language. You can go anywhere and speak English and people will understand it

Q: But see… I think there is another aspect to this whole language thing: you can make the surface adjustments fairly easily, in a year or so. But the deeper stuff… because language carries emotion. And when you say “I love you” in your native language, it has a completely different charge, emotional charge, than if you say it in a foreign language. Or when you talk to children… when you’re caressing or cooing with a baby, you can’t really use a foreign language. Does it happen to you too?

A: Yeah… more recently actually. Because my brother just had a baby girl, she’s two months old. So now my shopping days are spent in kids’ stores. I never used to pay much attention to them and now… they looked cute playing there, but now it’s a different kind of observation. Saying something in English or in your mother tongue, it’s a whole different emotional output, if you can say that.

Q: Do you ever regret coming to the States?

A: Back in India, like most of the other places in the world, you get a job based on your connections. I know I would have started a career through my dad’s contacts, or through some connection, not entirely on merit. That’s how things used to be done. It’s very difficult to get in, if you’re interviewing, even if you are a very good candidate and there is somebody else that has a connection to the interviewer, they will most likely get the job. So I knew I wanted to see if I can make it on my own. I had a good comfort zone though, because I knew that if I failed here, I could always go back. It was a calculated risk. It was a win-win situation. If I don’t make it, I’ll just go back. So I don’t regret coming here.

Well, the only times I regret it it’s when I can’t be there to play with my niece - the family part. Every night though - we have a web cam that’s always on, and I see her playing. So I’m there, I can see her grow up. But it’s different, because you see them but you can’t touch them. It’s fun in its own way. I don’t regret it, but it’d be nice.

Q: Do you think you’ll ever go back for good?

A: I never thought about that. I don’t even know if I’ll stay here for good. I always keep my options open for everything. Always. I don’t like to close down my options. Maybe I’m selfish, but I don’t want to disappoint myself. In the end… if I say I’m never going back but then I lose my job and I’m totally broke, then I will have to go back, and in that case I will consider myself a failure and will be thoroughly disappointed with myself. So I don’t want to close down my options. With anything.

If my parents come here, I’ll probably stay here. If they’ll stay in India, I’ll probably move back to India. I’ll end up wherever they are. Or I will end up having two homes, and spend a few months in each every year: a few months in India, and a few months in America. Or maybe I’ll move to a different country where they can come.

Q: So you’re willing to move your life around them.

A: Yeah.

Q: Do they want to come over? Do they want to move?

A: Yeah, they are open to the idea. From my dad’s point of view it’s like this: it’s your career, it’s your life. You’re starting a career, you’re starting a life. We don’t want to cause an obstruction so you go do your stuff. If we have to come over there to be with you, we’ll come. And I think the other way: no, I want to be with you guys, I can start my career back there too. It’s a mutual, unsaid agreement and it works for us. I haven’t even thought that far actually.

Q: Do you want to have your own family?

A: Some day… it scares me to think of it now.

Q: So you did get ‘Americanized’ that way?

A: You know… that’s a point. Back in India, when I was in my teens, I thought that by 24 I would be married. I wanted to be married. That was my thinking when I was in college too. Now it scares me. It’s not that the life style changes radically, you still have to pay rent, pay the bills … what bothers me is this: if you’re married, you have to go back every night, on time … I can’t take that, not just yet. I guess I’m still a free spirit, I’m still in that zone. I don’t feel like I can be answerable to anybody yet.

Q: You know, Americans would say “I’ll just call my husband or wife and tell them I’m going to be late, and that’s that”. So the “Indian” way still shapes your way of thinking…

A: Maybe I just grew up to know what it takes to run a house. When I came here, I realized all the stuff that you have to take care of. So if you’re bringing somebody else in your life, then you have to provide for them. That also involves making an adjustment to your lifestyle. You provide them all the comfort they want. Finances are not a problem. Money comes, money goes. But the whole concept of… I’m married….

Q: It sounds like such a burden!

A: Yeah…. It scares me…. I need coffee.

Q: Can we talk about religion?

A: Sure. My family is religious. They follow rituals and they pray, but not excessively. And I grew up that way. And after I came here, without my mom looking over my shoulder, I eased up a little bit.

Q: But do you really believe in those things? Or is it simply a ritual that is passed over from generation to generation?

A: No, I do believe it. When I sit back and pray, I feel good about it, about myself. I do feel a connection. I’ll tell you a story… I went out for a hockey game with this lady who was, well, not exactly part of the faculty at the college I went to, but she was working there. Anyway… we got to talk about religion and she confessed to be an atheist. Now, please understand, in India that’s a taboo subject. You just don’t talk about that sort of stuff. I was very intrigued and even shocked. I asked “Are you sure you can speak out loud?” and she said atheists and non-believers are different. I really didn’t understand the difference, I’m not sure I understand it now. When she was a kid nobody told her to go to church, to pray. She didn’t know she had to go and pray. Now somebody tells her to go to church, which is a totally new concept. She said “Do you pray? Are you happy? That’s good, I have nothing against it, but don’t tell me to pray”. That’s when I got more into why people do not have a complete culture in America, at least in my opinion. There is a disconnect, even in families. It doesn’t happen back in India. We started talking about religion, she asked me what I believed, and a few hours later she was puzzled and confessed that it’s a whole new, different world out there and she hadn’t seen it like that at all. She took it like a story and said “Tell me more”.

Q: What does home mean to you?

A: I’ll say home is India. You grew up there, you knew everything… you’ve been here 7 years but the majority of your life, you’ve spent it somewhere else. At the end of the day you still want to go back where you came from. I think that’s my home. But if my parents were here, I’d be fine.

Q: So it’s where your family is, right?

A: Yeah, my home is where my family is.

Q: If you got married to an American girl do you think you’d still feel the same way about your family of origin?

A: Oh, yeah. I’d probably keep living here with the American girl, but my heart would be back there. I’d still want to go there, or have them come over here. Going back to where your roots are… to me, that’s where my home would be. I wouldn’t be able to get it out of my system. I haven’t been back in almost 3 years now and I am so eager to go back. It’s growing on me. I have to go.

I haven’t closed my thought process on that. Home can be here, or there, or some other place. I haven’t thought what would happen if I don’t ever go back. I know I’ll miss it, but I don’t think in those lines because I know my options. I’ll always keep going back. I’ll have dual citizenship, live in two countries, have two homes. I have never actually thought of how I would feel if I could never go back.

Q: Some people refuse completely the thought, the possibility that they might have to go back. They are adamant about never going there.

A: Well, the thought never occurred to me. But I can see how someone from southern India, for instance, where things are not as prosperous, where, for instance,  you have to walk for miles to get to a bus station … I could imagine someone saying “I don’t want to go back there”, after living here, driving a car and having all the comfort. You get used to that. I could see that happening for some. And even for more prosperous people… the level of comfort you can achieve in America doesn’t really compare to what you can get in India. If I need a cell phone I can search right now and probably there is a store open where I can buy one. Customer service is good… so you have luxuries. Your luxuries become your necessities. It tends to spoil you, to make you addicted…. Back there, you don’t necessarily have to have everything we have here. Things like having your whole house to yourself, living on your own, which doesn’t really happen in India. In America, as soon as you’re 18, in some cases even sooner, you’re out of the house.

Q: But there is a strong spirit of independence that gives rise to this need to break free from your parent’s home, don’t you think?

A: Yeah, that’s good, to mature yourself. But there are times when you feel the loneliness creep into you.

Q: Do you feel lonely sometimes?

A: Well, not really. I miss my family sometimes, but I don’t get really lonely. That would be so close to feeling depressed or sad. Isn’t it?

Q: I don’t think so…

A: No? Thank God I haven’t felt that yet. I miss the family but I think that’s totally different from being lonely.

Q: Sounds like you got adjusted really well….

A: The big problem that I had… when I was in India, everything was provided for me. I didn’t have to do anything. I never did laundry, cooked food, pressed clothes, stuff like that. That was interestingly difficult for me to adjust to. I had to learn all that. Back there, it’s the last thing on your mind. Especially for men… my dad doesn’t go into the kitchen at all, not even to get a glass of water. My mom or the maids would do that. When I’m there, I’d walk into the kitchen. But… yeah…. My dad just now learned how to make coffee. So when I came here, I had to learn how to cook food, which I still don’t know very well. I can make an egg, and coffee. Don’t get me started on doing laundry… I didn’t even know how to operate the machine; I didn’t know you need different detergents. My American friends laughed at me, and showed me how to do it. I go crazy over doing grocery shopping. I still don’t do that very well. Those were major challenges for me. The daily chores. I didn’t know you had to separate whites from colors.

Q: Talking about adjustments… in the work environment…. I know that a lot of people, a lot of immigrants, though they would never admit it, they feel so very insecure at work.

A: Yeah… I think going to school here definitely helps. A lot of people come here after they find a job in India. They find the job while they are still there. And I talk to some of those who come directly without attending school here, and there is a major lack of confidence, self-confidence, that they deal with on a daily basis. They always think…. Even though they may have the right solution they don’t speak up. I suppose it’s just an inferiority complex. If you don’t go to school you keep quiet, you’ll be uncomfortable to speak up.

Q: And you think that if you go to school, that will help you bridge the gap and become more comfortable?

Absolutely. You deal with people at all levels, you get an inside into how companies function in the US. So when you join a company for a real job, it’s déjà vu. You’ve done that before. But for someone who comes directly into a new company… they tend to sit and observe most of the time, instead of getting involved. I think that really affects productivity. It takes months and months for these people to become really comfortable and speak up. And when I say “discussion”, I mean open discussion.

Thank you, Fai.

For privacy reasons we won't divulge Fai's full name. But he is willing to talk to anyone who's interested in opening the dialogue, and you can reach him at itsfai@yahoo.com.

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