Bringing up an Indian child in a country where a ‘family’ is merely a social organization form that sticks with you till you’re a teenager can often get tricky. It is not uncommon for harried Indian parents to go out of their way to teach authentic Indian values to their children. They sign up for weekend Bhagavadgita classes at their local temples, recount stories from the Ramayana and Mahabharata, offer them Indian classical music and dance lessons, throw them lavish arengetrams, arrange for language classes to hone them in their respective mother tongues, and take them to their native every other year. But what some of the children do with all this is a different story altogether. For instance, they refer to the demigods and demons in mythological stories as ‘dudes’ and ‘dudettes,’ secretly practice headbanging to a highly amplified heavy metal warp in their friends’ basements, can’t get Vande Mataram right even after contorting their lips and rolling their tongues to a 360 degrees glob, and would rather stir clear of stray dogs and roadside food vendors, among other things, in India.

I met an enthusiastic Indian parent recently - a father who resumed his love for the violin despite crazy work schedules, just so his eight year old son could receive proper Indian classical violin training. Apparently, the school requires that a child be taught and perfected at home by a parent who has adequate knowledge of the instrument. I was even fortunate enough to see the little one perform, and was blown away at his dedication and demeanor. And I can’t wait for him to grow up and perform for bigger audiences. I’ve known several other such parents, but sadly, I have also seen some of their children grow and completely disregard their the lengths they went to in order to provide them with superior initial grounding. And more often than not, when they grow up, they also grow wings, to use an antiquated Indianism. Which means that they give in to peer pressure and move out to build new homes and lives outside the influence of their parents and Indian roots. Some even cut all ties with their parents as they’re, to put it brutally, ashamed of them. Makes you wonder about the good old Indian dream of raising and nurturing children to have them take care of you in your old age.

But there are exceptions. There’s this respectable family of immigrants belonging to the baby boomer era, with two children. While the son brought home an American bride, the daughter chose a Russian groom. Both the children stayed with their parents until they got married, and they still visit them every other weekend for a family reunion of sorts. I’ve often seen the American daughter-in-law drape saris and celebrate Indian festivals, and the son-in-law belt out Vedic hymns and quote the Gita.

Then there’s this young computer geek who hails from a remote village in South India, and hasn’t forgotten his roots at all. He’s made huge donations to charity causes, including one to build a school for the underprivileged children of his village, and isn’t ashamed of taking his sari-clad, beetle-nut chewing, Telegu-speaking mom (who has little to no knowledge of the English language), sightseeing. In fact, he takes pride in everything she does, be it sow coriander seeds in his backyard for a cilantro mini-lawn, or pack a pungent spiced-rice preparation in Ziploc bags for a Statue of Liberty brunch.

There’s a group of Indian bachelors and bachelorettes in my community that organizes programs for children to get to know their Indian traditions and be in touch with their ethnicity. They also celebrate Indian Republic Day, Independence Day, and organize cricket tournaments for little baseball fanatics who couldn’t tell a cricket ball from a Lego one if it hit them in the face. There are at least a couple of buoyant housewives that have gotten together to publish magazines for desi children with an Indian touch to the stories and features. There’s also an innovative sister-duo that has come up with Hindi rhymes and ‘varnamala,’ (alphabets) for toddlers. And of course, there are Indian channels on the television that air educational programs for children, even if it’s something as rudimentary as a ‘Sri Krishna’ series. But then, the children also have access to the mournful melodramas of Indian families complete with conniving ‘bahus,’ and their mothers-in-law. They also get exposure to Bollywood movies with shoddily dressed heroes and heroines and their claptrap song-dance sequences.

Now every time I hear of an Indian whizkid winning the Spelling Bee, or gyrating to a hot Kareena Kapoor number at the local desi community gathering, I don’t really think of it as progression. I would be much happier to see an Indian kid chin up when his parents ask for ‘alu bhaja’ at Mc D’s, rather than hang his face in shame. But first, I need to teach my little one that the ‘elepayn’ (elephant) as she knows it, on the lobby wall is actually a God named Ganesha.