Tuning Out the Teletubbies

With my daughter more interested in the exploits of Barney than Rama, how was I going to raise her a Hindu in America?

If religions were countries, Hinduism would be Italy. Like Italy, Hinduism is flamboyant and colorful, with a focus on family and food. Hinduism is rambunctious, open, public, full of festivals and free of guilt. For many, it is above all a religion grounded in community.

When we were kids, besides praying with our family at the temple, my brother and I attended a weekly bhajan at a neighbor's house. It would end with a potluck dinner after which we kids ran around ragged and wrecked the poor host's house.

Every home had a puja room--a public display of Hindu gods. It was a prayer room and an altar, where we lit a lamp and recited Sanskrit mantras in the evening.

Hindu festivals were spectacles of light and color. For Diwali, one of the largest Hindu festivals, everyone wore new clothes, distributed homemade sweets to friends and relatives, and burst firecrackers. For Durga puja, we built floats carrying a statue of the goddess Kali. There was an informal competition to decide which neighborhood had built the best float. The atmosphere during Durga puja in Calcutta is like the carnival in Rio.

How, then, was I going to raise my daughter as a Hindu in a Christian country?

How could I even hope to duplicate the carnival-like atmosphere of Hindu festivals in America, where they are largely uncelebrated?

The simplest thing would have been to let go altogether like some of my Indian friends have done: they name their children Neil or Megan, ignore their Hindu roots, and celebrate Christmas. It is easier on the kids, they say. It creates less friction, less conflict for the children, who are going to live in America all their lives. Why burden them with a religion they neither experience nor understand?

Letting go has not come so easily to me, partly because Hinduism is the only religion I know.

I also happen to really like it. I had fun celebrating Hindu festivals, the weekly bhajan gave me memories that I carry to this day, and my family's traditions have led me to install a puja room in a cupboard in one corner of my New York apartment.

If religion is an anchor, then Hinduism gave me a sturdy one.

Deciding to raise my daughter as a Hindu was the easy part. Actually doing it will be the hard part. I called my cousin Lakshmi in Michigan, who has raised two teenage boys in this country without sacrificing Hinduism. "It was hard," she says. "What you need to do is find a community of Indians who are willing to practice Hinduism. Hold bhajans in your home. It's not against the law."

No it wasn't, and in fact, I knew Indian communities in different American cities that did just that. My sister-in-law, who is a pediatrician in Fort Myers, Florida, takes her 13-year-old daughter and nine-year-old son to a monthly bhajan held in an Episcopal church. About 50 Hindu families live in Fort Myers and most of them attend the bhajan. "It gives the children a chance to meet other Hindus and learn the Sanskrit language," my sister-in-law says. "One of the parents tells them stories from Hindu mythology. It is like Sunday school except it's not held on Sundays."

That might work for suburban Florida, but what about hectic Manhattan where the average Indian doesn't have time to run out to Kalustyan's for Indian groceries, let alone meet for a monthly bhajan?

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