KAUAI, HAWAII, June 10, 2024 (Hinduism Today, by Lavina Melwani): When immigrant families leave India for foreign shores, they often can carry only what fits into a suitcase. Along with the photographs, the sacred texts and the masalas they bring to their new homes, they also bring a lifetime of memories and culture to gift to their children. But the children remember only a little, and forget even more as they acclimatize to a new country and a new world. Avani Sarkar nee Modi, who left Ahmedabad when she was eight, remembered little about Hindu culture and traditions besides the fact that her mother always used cooking as the language of love and cooked for all festivals.
Their family was fortunate: they landed in Somerset, New Jersey, which was already like a thriving Little India. For the Modis, who were a deeply religious family, home life and culture were not starkly different from the world just outside, thanks to the larger Indian community present. Both their new American life and their Indian culture could flourish. It was their immigrant parents who struggled more than the children, as they worked to establish their roots and create temples and cultural organizations.
“These uncles and aunties were the ones who got us involved in Indian dancing and music with a celebration of all our festivals,” recalls Avani. “I really credit New Jersey for allowing me to preserve so much of my cultural learnings. If I had grown up elsewhere, I think my upbringing would have looked a little different, because I probably would have had to try harder to assimilate into my surroundings. Here, I felt very safe to embrace the cultural identity that I think now we’re so proud that we had when I was growing up. Because of those things, I never felt like I was an outcast in society. I felt very much like I was in a place like home away from home.”
So, Avani and her older brother Viral, who was 14 when they arrived in the US, never forgot their cultural roots. But these became merged with their American life and were not always of prime importance—that is until they became parents themselves. It was then that they had the urge to create special cultural toys for the third generation growing up so far from India.
Read how a brother and sister were led to create Modi Toys to inspire young and old alike, at source.
https://www.hinduismtoday.com/magazine/april-may-june-2024/hindu-deities-for-all-generations/