By: M. Someshwar
Posted: April 5, 2008, 11:48a.m.
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Kensington, Md.– Few people know of the Amchi community. It’s a small coastal community in southwestern India, known for its distinctly lyrical language, and high consumption of sea-food. But what started out as a small impoverished community at the start of the 20th century has fast become one of the more prosperous Indian ethnic groups. Amchis have spread across southern and western India, and across the world. Many of them have advanced degrees in engineering, medicine and the odd one in communications (Aka Mishri Someshwar).
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But amchis are a fast dwindling bunch. There are only 250,000 of them left. And girls like Ms. Someshwar aren’t helping.”I want to get married before I’m 30,” Ms. Someshwar, 23, notes. “But I’m not sure I want to marry an amchi.”
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No amchi marriage= lower likelihood of amchi babies. Community size dwindles. Sound the alarm bells.
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Ms. Someshwar’s parents aren’t surprised, and only a little disappointed. Fewer girls in the community marry within it anyway. Of Ms. Someshwar’s seven first cousins on her mother’s side, five have married outside the community. “This is a shock to everyone, because those girls were raised far more traditionally than I was,” Ms. Someshwar notes.
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Ms. Someshwar’s mother says that her relatives have coped fairly well with their daughters (and son) marrying outside the community, which is to say, they’ve attended the weddings and haven’t disowned their children. But they’ve warned Mrs. Someshwar about the coming doom to her own family. “My sisters and parents often tell me ‘wait and see– Mishri will marry outside too,” Mrs. Someshwar, says. “I tell them ‘Oh I know. She’ll probably marry someone Jewish. Or some other American. And they gasp.’ ”
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Ms. Someshwar’s aunt, Jyotsna Tonse, is more verklempt. She points out an even bigger problem. “What’s worse is when we see our children– girls and boys both– who don’t marry even when they’re in their early 30s! When will they have babies?”
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Ms. Someshwar notes that she will be married and have at least one baby by the time she’s 32. “Too late!” Mrs Tonse harrumphs. “I can’t help her take care of her kids if I’m that old! She needs to have them earlier, like in the next three years.”
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From left: Shonai (Mishri’s sister), Mishri, Mrs. Tonse, Mrs. Someshwar
“I could never do that!” Ms. Someshwar says. “I want to have children when I’m old enough to appreciate them, and not resent them for holding me back from trying things out, like working overseas, traveling or whatever.”
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Ms. Someshwar adds that unlike the single Amchi girls in their early 30s that her aunt worries about, she will take whatever she can get when she’s their age. “I don’t want to be 30 and unmarried,” she says. “I’ll let my family recommend some men if I’m 29 and single. At that point, I’ll even take a bald one, I’m sure.”
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Is 29 that late, your correspondent asks her. “Yes, I think so,” she says. “The longer you wait, the harder it is to get married. Plus, I don’t need too much. I just need someone who can fix the toilet and make decent money. And if he has good table manners, then I can take him anywhere. I don’t think you can ask for much more in a marriage, can you?”
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So you don’t want your intellectual equal?
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“Intellectual equal? At what cost?” she says. “If the toilet won’t flush, I don’t need him to quote Kafka. I just need him to fix the damn toilet.”
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Ms. Someshwar’s father is similarly pragmatic on the matter. “She can find him on her own. My interest is only in her making a lot of money and marrying a man who makes a lot of money. And if he hurts her, I’ll kill him. Then she’d probably get a big life insurance payment out as well, right?”
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Ms. Someshwar says that she gets her pragmatism from both her parents. “The bottom line is, I know when I can be picky, and when I can’t,” she says. “Right now I can be. In 5 years, probably not.”
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Ms. Someshwar says that her generation is different from her parents and different from Gen X as well. “I think the baby-boomer generation of Westerners fought the battles that my community is fighting in Generation X. Which is, they’re the first generation of women to have careers and not just jobs. So how do they balance the high flying career with a family? How do they find childcare, when the baby’s grandparents are unable to help, either because they’re too far away or still working? So now you put the baby in day care, something that most people in my community would have never dreamed of, even 20 years ago. My mother and aunt, who are of boomer age, never had the choices or challenges Western Boomer women faced. But Amchi girls, and Indian women in general, who are of Generation X, are struggling with that.”
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Ms. Someshwar says that her generation of amchis, Gen Y, may have found the solution. “I think we’re trying to be more pragmatic about the work-life balance and moving it closer toward the life bit. That means having a career and picking our own spouse, but also being interested in settling down, having kids by our early 30s, slowing down our careers while the kids are young, and so on.”
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But what about the marrying an amchi boy bit? Ms. Someshwar has more complex feelings on that. Not her relatives, though.
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“When they marry outside the community, a little part of our heritage dies,” Mmes. Someshwar and Tonse lamented, in separate conversations. “Our kids already don’t speak our language, but will their children even eat amchi food? Or learn about their heritage? It’s disheartening.”
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Ms. Someshwar notes that these things worry her. But for her, the issue is larger than that. “This is a truth that few people may want to accept, but Amchi girls are far more dynamic and assertive than most Amchi men. And I don’t know about other girls, but I want to marry someone who’s my match in that area. I couldn’t bear to be with someone less ambitious and assertive than me. I don’t want to be the more stereotypically masculine influence in the marriage.”
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Ms. Someshwar’s assertiveness and confidence, while looking for a man she can ” look up to” seem contradictory, your correspondent point out to her. “Oh absolutely,” she says. “And I don’t think its an amchi girl thing. I think it’s the dilemma that any ambitious, well-educated woman faces. The desire to have a man who makes more than she does, who is taller, possibly even a little smarter. At any rate, better in some respects so she can admire him. It sounds Victorian, but it’s ingrained deep enough into my psyche, that to reject it would be utter folly. It’s what I want. In addition to the fact that I want him to respect me, think highly of me, and so on.”
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And fix the toilet? You’re asking for a lot, your correspondent notes.
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“Of course I am!” She says with a laugh. “I still young and single so I can afford to. Come see me again in seven years,” she says, her eyes twinkling, “when I’m Mrs. Bald-Man.”