The Gift of Our Wounds Read online

  I couldn’t have told my parents that we were playing against gang members or they would have forbidden me from going to the park, and I couldn’t imagine anything worse. I decided what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them, and the games continued. It was one of the few times I took such a risk, keeping the truth from my parents. I was a pretty good kid, respectful and obedient, probably because my father’s wrath was even scarier than Bull’s. Looking back, I’m glad I was raised the way I was, and that my parents cared enough to make my brother and me toe the line. But back then their rules seemed draconian, at least by American standards.

  I’m a quick study, and I’d learned early on that American kids were pretty individualistic, but Indian kids were raised to do what pleased their parents. My parents were strict, even by Indian standards. “Spare the rod, spoil the child” pretty much summed up Mom and Dad’s philosophy on childrearing. Physical punishment as a means of discipline seemed counter to the teachings of our religion—especially when I was on the receiving end of it—but obedience to authority is highly valued in Punjabi society and if it took a swat to set us straight, Dad did. I wasn’t allowed to do most of what my friends did. The kids in seventh and eighth grades were dating and going to movies and parties, but not me. I knew better than to even ask. If I wasn’t in school or playing ball at the park, I had to be home. Eventually, my friends stopped inviting me places because I could never go. It hurt, but the thought of betraying my parents was worse. There were rare times that my resolve weakened. I could never have let on about my first kiss, in the eighth grade, which wouldn’t have happened if the girl hadn’t met me in the park. I felt the earth move when our lips touched, but I couldn’t tell anyone, not even my little brother, for fear he might squeal.

  My one little rebellion was listening to gangster rap music on my cassette recorder. I always used headphones so my parents wouldn’t hear. My idols were the Geto Boys, N.W.A, and DJ Quik, all pretty hardcore rappers. I even started copying their fashion, wearing hats with embroidery and Raiders gear. My buddies and I gave ourselves gangster aliases. Mine was P-Money. I don’t know where that came from. That was the extent of my involvement in hip-hop culture, but I kept it from Mom and Dad because I knew they would disapprove.

  I don’t know what tipped Dad off, but one day I was in my room with my favorite song playing, the one with the most explicit lyrics in the genre, and he came in and asked what I was up to. I must have looked stricken. I was right in the middle of listening to DJ Quik’s “Sweet Black Pussy”: “Now I be knockin’ bitches like it ain’t shit … Yo, maybe it’s the way I hold my dick.” Dad held out his hand for me to give him the headphones. There was nothing I could do but obey. I literally shook as he put them over his ears, and I watched wide-eyed as his face went from curious to stoic to straight-up dumbfounded. If expressions translated into words, his said, “This is so bad I don’t even know what to do.” I sat on my bed, frozen, as he pulled off the headphones and called Mom into the room. I remember it like it was five minutes ago. “You love your son, right?” he asked in Punjabi. “Of course,” she replied. He handed her the headphones. “This is what he is listening to,” he said. I’m not sure my mother even understood the lyrics, but she followed Dad’s lead and stormed out of my room. There was no talking about it, not with Mom or Dad. That night, my father gave me the beating of my life. Maybe even worse, he took away my cassette player.

  The summer before I entered high school, while other kids went to camp or swam in the community pool, I helped renovate Dad’s new gas station. He’d sold the old one for a profit and bought a full-service station on Milwaukee’s south side. The property was run-down but bigger and with more income potential. Dad, Mom, my brother, and I spent the hot summer months doing demolition and renovations. In addition to gas pumps, we had a mechanic’s bay for car repairs and a small store where we sold coffee, newspapers, cigarettes, and sundries. It was quite a step up.

  By then, Dad had grown his hair back and was wearing his turban again. The south side community was initially apprehensive about the new Indian-owned business, which was previously run by a white man from Kansas and his all-white crew. The neighborhood, once an Eastern European stronghold and predominantly Polish American, was in flux after a decade of white flight. As the old guard vacated homes and businesses to move to the suburbs, the city’s exploding Latino population moved in, shaking up the status quo. Our business neighbors were a Polish bakery and a Spanish grocery. Then there was us, the only Indians on the block.

  Over time, whatever preconceived notions people had about us were dispelled after they got to know Dad. He personified the Sikh values of “work, worship, and charity.” He lived by example and his moral code was unbreakable.

  “Never take what you can earn.”

  “Never borrow anything without paying it back.”

  “Be a person of your word.”

  “Always help others who are less fortunate.”

  Dad’s heart was as big as the sun. He’d help anyone, sometimes with service, other times with money, and often by giving sage advice. When someone new came from India, he made sure they were fed and sheltered until they could get on their feet. When the temple was short of money and in need of repairs, he grabbed his tools, took out whatever he had left in his bank account, and went to work. His work was never done. In the evenings before bed, he cold-called parishioners encouraging them to come to Sunday services. Those calls were never short. People confided their troubles and Dad took as much time as they needed, which usually meant he was still talking well after our bedtime. The bigger the Sangat (Sikh for congregation) got, the longer he was on the phone. We often said that he belonged to everyone but us.

  Dad’s customers nicknamed him “Sam” because it was easier to remember than Satwant. Some called him “Uncle Sam” because he was tall and slender with a prominent nose and a beard. He formed deep bonds with his regulars. When one of them couldn’t afford car repairs, Sam not only didn’t charge for labor, he protected their pride by joking, “My labor is always free—so I can’t give you a money-back guarantee.” It was routine for him to buy meals for people who were hungry and pass out things from our store shelves, like chips and sodas and diapers for struggling moms. He never expected anything in return.

  Not surprisingly, the “Mom and Pop” shop became a staple in the neighborhood. Business was so good that we were able to move from our house by the park to a bi-level in an all-white neighborhood in the suburbs. For Dad, it was the American dream realized. It meant that he had finally made it, and one of the first things he did was raise the American flag on a pole in the front yard. He said he’d noticed that none of the other homes had flags displayed and he wanted to honor this great land of opportunity. Most of the neighbors were welcoming, but apparently not everyone was happy having an Indian family on the street.

  On our first morning there, I walked outside and discovered a pamphlet of Ku Klux Klan cartoons on the front lawn. It was remedial enough for anyone to understand, with crudely drawn pictures of men in white hoods and bubbles over their heads with racist rants written inside. I didn’t know much about those kinds of things, but I knew what the Klan was and it scared me. I took the pamphlet inside and showed it to my father. If he had a reaction, I didn’t see it. He glanced at the paper and coolly tossed it in the trash. Dad said there had been other times when he and Mom hadn’t felt welcome here, but they didn’t allow themselves to be bitter—they just continued to focus on keeping an optimistic view of life and being good citizens. I decided to follow his advice and get on with my life.

  I had bigger worries anyway. I was trying to fit in at another school. My new high school was ten miles from home, and, for the first time in my life, I had to take the school bus. It felt strange to be so far from home. The first days of being the new kid were the worst. I didn’t have any friends, and I sat alone at the lunch table, feeling awkward but trying to look inconspicuous. Everyone knows that scary feeling. The sc
hool was diverse, mostly black, white, and Latino. But, once again, I was the only Indian kid. And once again, sports saved me.

  Football season rolled around and I pulled out the pads. I got the attention of the coach, who was impressed by my athletic skills, and asked if I played other sports as well. I told him I played everything—basketball in the winter and baseball in the spring, which I really excelled at. With his encouragement, I joined every sport, which gave me “street cred” and an “in” with the girls who were attracted to athletes.

  By then I’d discovered that sports was a universal language. I didn’t have to say anything to be accepted, I just had to play. Mom and Dad could never come to my games because they were too busy working. But the other parents tried to make up for their absence by cheering me on. For all intents and purposes, I was torn between two cultures. At school I was an all-American kid, dressing and acting like everyone else. At home, I was an Indian boy living within the constrictions of a traditional Punjabi household. That made life confusing. I wasn’t free to be myself in either place. I was muddled about who “myself” even was.

  I know my parents would have liked for me to be more involved in the temple, but my interest in our religion had waned during the time we’d lived in America. My parents, on the other hand, had only become more devout in the time we’d been here. When we first got to Wisconsin, there were only ten Sikh families, and we all worshipped together wherever we could find the space. Within a few years, the number doubled, and the parishioners pooled their money to purchase a small bank building on the north side of the city to hold services. We outgrew that building quickly, as more and more families migrated from Punjab to Milwaukee for the business opportunities and cheap property. When the congregation climbed to two hundred families, a decision was made to sell the bank building and build a new temple.

  By then Dad was president, and he was deeply involved in a conflict over where to build. It came down to his idea of purchasing property on the south side, where most of the Sikh growth was happening, and a campaign by two wealthy Sikh businessmen who wanted to build in their affluent suburb. Dad wouldn’t budge. He believed that many of the members would feel out of place in the tony suburban location and become disenfranchised from the temple. The congregation split, with the south side community choosing to worship in makeshift temples until they could raise enough money to build their own and the rich Sikhs constructing a new temple in their affluent part of town.

  The temple became my parents’ life, and, to their chagrin, I wasn’t at all interested in the politics or Sunday services. I was too busy falling in love. During my senior year, I’d met a girl named Jenny. She was white—forbidden fruit—but I was drawn to her spirit. I knew my parents would disapprove of me dating someone outside of our religion, so I couldn’t let on about her. The only date they wanted me to have was the one that would lead to an arranged marriage to a Punjabi Jatt Sikh woman of their choosing. Pursuing a relationship with Jenny was the first time I’d blatantly disregarded their wishes. I spent almost every day with her at school and at her house after school. Her family accepted me but they knew the rules. Our relationship had to stay secret. I couldn’t risk my parents finding out.

  Jenny was my first real love, and our relationship was in full bloom as we were applying to colleges. We wanted to go to the same place, so we’d both applied to the University of Wisconsin. Public school had done nothing to prepare me for the complicated college application process. My parents hadn’t even been able to help me with my homework when I was younger, so I had to figure out everything on my own. I wrote a pretty decent admissions essay about the trials of trying to fit into American culture, and I was invited for an interview at UW. My acceptance letter came in early spring. I’d been accepted at both the Milwaukee and the Whitewater campuses. I didn’t have to think twice about choosing Whitewater. Jenny was going there, and it was far enough from Milwaukee that I would have to live on campus. I was ready to get away from the restrictions of my parents to explore who I really was.

  Mom and Dad sent me off with cautionary words about abiding by the rules of the college and staying true to the tenets of our religion. My parents didn’t know anything about college life in America, but I could see their concern as I prepared to go off on my own. Mom broke down in tears when she dropped me off and I promised I’d come home on weekends whenever I could. The thought of my new freedom was both exhilarating and intimidating. I had never been away from home before.

  Whitewater was a town of thirteen thousand in the rural southern part of the state, about ninety minutes from Milwaukee. The campus was set on four hundred green acres that ended with Kettle Moraine State Forest, and the demographic was 98 percent white. The only thing that was familiar was Jenny. During the first few weeks of the fall semester, I found my way from class to class, trying to learn the ropes and the campus. Whitewater was a big party school, but I was more interested in playing sports, and the gym was where I made new friends. My new group consisted of guys I’d met on the basketball court—all of them white, from rural towns in Wisconsin. My routine became classwork, homework, and playing ball every night until the gym closed. Any extra time I had, I spent with Jenny.

  Despite the radical change of lifestyle, I was able to maintain a solid GPA during my first year. Jenny and I were still going strong at the start of our sophomore year, but having to keep our relationship from my family created tension between us. We’d been together for two years. Jenny was tired of being a secret, and I was tired of lying by omission. I went home one weekend and started the conversation with Mom. It took all of the courage I had to tell her I was dating a white girl and had been for quite a while. Just as I’d expected, Mom burst into tears. “Are you going to marry her?” she asked. I tried to explain how dating worked in America, and that it didn’t necessarily mean there would be a marriage, but my pitch fell on deaf ears. My mother was heartbroken.

  My parents had always made it clear that they expected me to marry within our religion. It wasn’t so much a conversation we’d ever had; it was understood. An arranged marriage was still the preferred way in my culture. The thinking was that you were not just marrying a person but each other’s families, so the parents were the most logical judges of what constituted a good match.

  I supposed I knew that telling my mother was a make-or-break situation for Jenny and me. I loved Jenny, but I think I knew all along that our relationship was impermanent because my family would never accept her. What really resonated with me, though, was how odd it felt to be on the other side of a bias and how difficult it would be to try to break through it. When push came to shove, my entrenched family values usurped the love I felt for Jenny. As much as I cared for her, I admitted to myself that we wouldn’t have a future together because she was neither Indian nor Sikh. And that pretty much sealed our fate.

  I promised Mom that I had no intention of marrying Jenny. At that point in my life, marriage was the last thing on my mind anyway. I returned to school with a different mindset. Jenny wasn’t a priority anymore, and she sensed it. The more she demanded of my time, the more I pulled away. At the end of the school year, she gave me an ultimatum. I had to choose what was more important: her or my family. After that, we decided to go our separate ways.

  The fall semester of my sophomore year started off badly. Not only was I missing Jenny, but something else felt different. “Weird” is the only word I can think of to describe it. I felt like people were staring at me because, in my mind at least, I stuck out. I was suddenly hyperaware that I was a brown-skinned city kid in a school mostly made up of rural white kids. I even felt self-conscious around my white friends. When I tried talking to them about it, they told me a lot of what I was feeling was in my head. They didn’t understand. How could they? As much as they cared about me, they couldn’t know the isolation that someone of color felt when they were alone in an all-white world. I loved my friends, but I felt like a piece of me was missing when I was around them, and
even sports couldn’t bridge the gap. I was an Indian kid who’d been living a white kid’s life, and it wasn’t working for me anymore.

  Depressed and confused, I retreated into the solitude of my dorm room. My grades plummeted and I was put on academic probation. I hated my classes. I’d known all along that I didn’t want to be a business major. I wanted to be a police officer and be of service by working in an inner-city neighborhood. With so much time to think, I realized that if I was going to reclaim that missing piece of myself, the piece that was my heritage, which I could no longer ignore, I couldn’t do it at Whitewater. I had to get out of there.

  Amardeep was attending Marquette University in the city. I’d visited him often and liked the campus. But it was a Catholic and Jesuit college, and I certainly couldn’t imagine finding myself there. Still, at least I would be near my brother, so I applied and got in. I changed my major from business and marketing to criminal justice and reluctantly began my junior year there.

  I quickly realized that the experience would be life changing. Marquette’s campus was a rainbow of colors and cultures, including students of Indian descent, which made me feel immediately at ease. I was back in the city, living off campus with my old buddies from the neighborhood. During the day, we went our separate ways. Some of them went to school and others worked. I had the best of both worlds. I had family and friends around and a whole new campus to explore.