Immigrant Bengalis

​​​Like a movie

My wife dozed off on the sofa nearby while watching TV.   A movie was playing in the background, a typical romantic Bengali flick - the kind that we often watched together as part of our entertainment in our retired lives. I walked to the sofa and sat down next to my wife.

The storyline in the TV was a popular theme from many recent Bengali movies. The main characters were a middle-class elderly couple Mr. and Mrs. Chatterjee, living on their own in Kolkata, while their only son, 45-year-old Amit was settled in USA. He was there for about 20 years and working as a promising technocrat with a growing young family.   

The story followed the expectations of parents’ dream in their advanced age for an old-fashioned Indian family structure where three generations lived under one roof and took care of one another. In contrast, the son faced a serious predicament to balance his promising career and his family and children’s future in a foreign country against taking care of his old parents back home – a sense of old-fashioned responsibility for an Indian son. The story revolved around the pain that the parents felt, and the guilt that the son carried in his heart for not being able to fulfill his socially expected duties. The pain for both parties compounded manyfold by occasional harsh comments from relatives and neighbors regarding the ‘unfortunate’ parents and the ‘irresponsible’ son.

The movie portrayed a story that happened in the late 90s and beyond.  Although I arrived in USA in the late 60s, about 30 years earlier, the characters reminded me of my life and my family. It brought back memories and feelings that I am carrying with me ever since I left India.  Despite being in USA for over 50 years and having lost both my parents over 40 years ago, I could empathize with the movie character Amit. The question always haunted me, am I one of those ‘irresponsible sons’ to my ‘unfortunate parents’? The movie was just a trigger to take me back to the days when I left home for USA.

The journey to USA

I arrived at Berkeley, CA from Kolkata in the Fall of 1969 to start my graduate studies in engineering. Unlike the character in the movie Amit, who came to America to immigrate and settle down for a brighter future, I left home with the intention of advanced studies only – NOT to settle down in USA.  With a middle-class Bengali background in the 50s and 60s from a small town in West Bengal, my family and I did not know the meaning of immigration or settling down abroad. In the 60s, I did not know anybody who went abroad to settle down. My parents were proud of my accomplishments and went along with the plan of higher studies abroad fully expecting that I was going for advanced studies just like a few of my family members did before me, and like them, I would return home upon completion.

At the time when I arrived in America, the doors to US immigration just opened widely for Indians with college degrees.  Prior to 1967, overseas travel and studies to USA were generally limited to exceptional (academic and otherwise) Indians and/or children of wealthy and well-connected families. But the open US immigration policy allowed more young Indians from middle-class families to come in large numbers in search of better lives through employment.

With large scale immigration of Indian youths beginning in the 1970s, the parents were left behind often on their own. But the success stories from earlier immigrants encouraged the subsequent generations of youth to strive for the green card or the permanent residency in USA. The green card was considered the fastest way to get to a financial status generally not achievable in middle class India. The storyline in the movie scenes represent the time when immigration became a desirable goal for many Indians and their families.

Amit, the main character in the story, migrated to the USA to settle down and his parents were naturally excited about their son’s success and opportunities. They actively supported him at that time to apply for permanent residency and US citizenship. There were many ‘success stories’ floating around from family and friends about their sons and daughters, who already left and settled in the USA. The parents did not want Amit to miss that opportunity.

Looking back after 50 years, the American immigration policy changes and the associated Indian ‘brain drain’ continued to be a big boost for the US economy. Despite being only about 1% of the US population in 2020, Indian Americans play a major role in today’s American society and the economy. They are at the helm of some of the biggest technology companies, many startups in the Silicon Valley, as well as in several leading US technical and business schools and universities, and in local and mainstream politics.

In the absence of a universal health care and government plan in India for the elderly or disadvantaged (like the Social Security and Medicare system in USA), the mass middle-class migration broke the  traditional Indian societal norm and the safety net for elderly support. The implied ‘social security system’ for many families was that the children took care of parents in their old age.  The consequences of such break-down of the Indian social norm was the primary theme of the movie. We know that the movie character Amit migrated to USA with strong encouragement from his parents. But as time passed, the family dynamics and needs changed. Despite Amit’s success, the parents started to recognize the challenges of growing old in an empty home. Suddenly they began to think “was that a good decision to encourage their only child to settle abroad?”

In the movie, several scenes of social gatherings in Amit’s family were played out where Amit’s father and other aging parents were proudly sharing success stories of their children living abroad. The parents appeared to live well in the reflected glories of their children’s successes, although in the back of their mind, the thoughts of their own lonely future started to cast a long shadow. The topic of upcoming challenges without children in the impending retirement and old age, invariably came up in the conversations. Some parents talked about the possibility of moving permanently with their children to the foreign land, but the conversation gradually shifted to inevitable compromises and sacrifices necessary for such moves. Most of the parents recognized that the serious adjustments to their independent lifestyle and the loss of community, that were integral to their Indian daily lives were often hefty prices to pay for such moves at an old age.

The movie also dealt with the reality of traditions and culture in Indian society. Amit found some excellent and comfortable western style ‘old-age or retirement homes’ in Kolkata which he thought would be ideal for his parents. Although these options were very expensive by the Indian standard, he was committed to support such a decision since his parents were against the move to USA.  But the idea of moving to an ‘old-age home’, no matter how fancy it was, was not desirable to Amit’s parents.  Such a move would certainly confirm the feared perception of their family and friends that ‘they are in the old-age home because Amit did not want to take care of them.’   The parents started to second guess their decision regarding spending all their energy and resources to support Amit’s ambitions. Deep down, they began to wonder if their son wanted to take the easy path instead of doing his duty for his aging parents.  A question invariably came to their mind without ever uttering loudly, “why can’t Amit come back now when he can afford a good living in India?”

Change of Plan

I never anticipated that my life would become anything like the story in the movie. My idea of coming to America then was for advanced studies and then return home.  However, four years into my graduate studies, I was about to wrap up my Ph. D. and planning to travel back to India for the first time. But a subtle change started to confuse my mind. The student visa that I had allowed me to work for 18 months in US after completion of doctoral work.  The opportunity to extend my stay for this limited time appeared too enticing for me for the purpose of getting some work experience in USA as well as to save some money that I could not do before with my meagre graduate student stipend.

With the recommendation from my Ph. D. advisor, I was offered a postdoctoral position at the Argonne National Lab, a leading research organization for energy research located outside of Chicago. The opportunity was exactly the kind that I was looking for my future. Within six months, I was promoted to a permanent research staff position with the promise that Argonne would help me to get my permanent resident visa in the USA. This was too good of an opportunity for me to forego.

Thus came a major turning point for my career and my personal life.  The 18-month plan to go back home got extended to 5 years. My parents, particularly my mother, was not at all happy with my decision, but they reluctantly agreed in favor of supporting my career.

With a real job in hand, I returned home within a year. There, I got married, and returned to the USA with my wife. In another three years, we decided to build our first home in Naperville, a nice suburb of Chicago.

The decision to buy a home in the USA sent a strong signal to my parents. They never travelled outside of India and had a mind set of home ownership in terms of  traditional Indian middle-class values. To them, buying a house meant a lifetime purchase often passed on to children and grandchildren. No matter, how much I tried, my arguments to explain the differences of buying a home in US versus in India, for example, we did it primarily as an investment and for significant tax savings, sounded like excuses to my parents.

In all honesty, I was not sure if I believed in my own arguments. Going back to India at that critical stage of our lives would have meant a huge disruption professionally as well as in our personal lives. We could already visualize a promising future for ourselves in America.  

I knew in my own mind that the plan to return home was fast becoming a disappearing dream.  But delaying our return also meant that I was failing in my promise to my parents and to myself. Unlike Amit, the movie character who was the only child, I had sisters in India who were great support to my parents. But that did not alleviate my belief that I was failing to fulfill an Indian son’s obligations and responsibilities for his ageing parents.

I needed to talk with my parents face-to-face about my unavoidable conflicts. How could I fulfill my duty to be with  them in their retirement and at the same time I could continue to build our future that we could see for my family in USA?  Would my parents consider living with us and weigh the benefits of moving to USA permanently? Of course, I knew that this would be a difficult choice for them.

It would be impossible to discuss these very personal and difficult topics through postal mails, the only form of communication (telephone connections were poor and prohibitively expensive) that were available to us in late 70s. It was only possible if they were with us in Naperville. So, I proposed that my parents come to visit us after my father’s retirement, soon to happen.

The  idea of traveling to USA was exciting to my parents. The timing was perfect. The travel date was set for the Spring of 1979. They became busy in planning for their first passports, American visa, and all other necessary travel arrangements.

I could not wait for them to arrive in Chicago.  To me, the idea of seeing my parents in our home and be able to see the excitement in their face to be in America was  a long-time dream. I started to plan for the activities and travels that I thought would be enjoyable for them.

The highly anticipated visit never happened. My mother had a sudden cardiac arrest in Dec 1978 and passed away without any warning. She was only 52. My grieving father eventually visited us two years later in 1980. But, despite our interest to keep him with us for a longer term, he was reluctant and  traveled back to India after 7 months.

Unfortunately, my father did not live long after going back to India. He passed away in December 1982 after a two-week illness. My family in the USA and I could not be  in India before his funeral because of difficulty of finding last moment airline seats during the busy Christmas season. I could not even perform the last rites for my father, the solemn duty of an Indian son. When my mother passed away with no warning whatsoever 4 years earlier, we had little more luck. I could at least get to Kolkata in time to perform my mother’s last rites.

When I left India for the first time, the idea of making USA my permanent home was unthinkable to me. The only person who raised a red flag was my maternal grandfather, who was well known for speaking his mind, however unpleasant that might be.  As I was leaving for Dumdum (Kolkata) airport, he blurted out to my mother, “you are stupid to send your only son to USA - he is not coming back - nobody does.” I could not believe that he uttered those crazy words at that moment. My mother was devastated and started to cry. I was genuinely hurt at my grandfather’s unkind words. But unfortunately, his words turned out to be the unpleasant truth. My 5-year plan became 10, 10 became 20, and soon the idea of returning to India permanently became just a fleeting dream and wishful thinking.

Epilogue – A Familiar Story

Today, I cannot deny that my professional and personal life and my children benefitted greatly from my decision to accept permanent residency in the USA. But I must also acknowledge that it came at the expense of huge sacrifices from my parents, particularly at late stages of their lives.

My story is certainly not unique and may resonate with many Indian immigrants. Most of them arrived in USA with a dream and quickly got assimilated by the ‘land of opportunities.’ They have generally done very well for themselves and their immediate families. Simultaneously, with time, the parents left in India have started to age thus creating the challenge of managing their day-to-day lives.

The movie that triggered my story aptly portrayed the same conflicts and dilemma. As the movie played out, it showed that Amit, the immigrant son, lost his mother from a short illness. Like me in real life and many others, he could not get back in time to see his mother. But he tried to be a good son – he travelled back to India as soon as possible to perform his last rites for his mother, although his wife and the teen-aged daughter could not travel in the middle of a busy high-school year. The family and neighbors noticed and commented about their ‘irresponsible’ behavior; “could not she have missed her school for a week or two? What was so big deal about her school?”, they asked.

Amit’s predicament, however, continued in the story when he needed to return to Chicago, leaving his father alone in his home in India. He never asked him to consider going to an ‘old-age home’ – he knew that would certainly go against the life-long Indian values of his father and his community of family and friends. Instead, he got 24-hour health care services to be provided at home; but he kept wandering if that was good enough for his father, who already started to lose some of his faculty due to impending dementia.

In the real world, many first-generation Indians living in USA are confronting with an insolvable predicament about their aging parents, left behind 8000 miles away.

​(Posted October 4, 2024)

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An Immigrant’s Predicament
Gautam Bandyopadhyay