What is the bridge between different cultures? Being a person of mixed ethnicities is something that I have experienced throughout my life. It has understandably forged me into the person I am today, and I am very lucky to have had, and continue to have exposure to many traditions, values, expectations, and philosophies of life. My mother comes from a South Asian background, and my father comes from a Euro/Australian background. Both are extremely different but share many similarities. Some can be more nuanced than others, like the sharing of religions, but others can be as simple as showing unconditional love to family. When I met my now fiancé and future wife, Madhu, I thought that because of my exposure to these different cultures, I would have some knowledge and familiarity with certain aspects like her culture’s food, and traditions. Since my mum is Sri Lankan and Madhu is Eelam Tamil, this was true to some extent. I had eaten Tamil food before, but Madhu taught me a lot about Tamil traditions. Since I was brought up as a Catholic, and her a Hindu there were many differences in our traditions. But as we got to know each other we came to embrace and love these differences. I think Madhu’s favourites are Christmas and Birthday celebrations and mine so far are Navaratri and our Nichayathartham.
When I was introduced to Madhu’s family, I was immediately aware of how progressive Ammamma and Thatha were. Being from an older generation and having vastly different life experiences to my own, I initially wasn’t sure what to expect. If I could go back in time I’d laugh at my former self as I couldn’t have been further from the truth. Whenever I visited Madhu’s house, I was always greeted by Ammamma and Thatha. Since I knew that cultural barriers existed between us, especially in this initial stage of our relationship, and they could only speak some words of English, I tried to make communicating as easy as possible for them. This meant using a lot of gestures and simple words, which I still use now. By doing this I hoped that they could better understand me and feel more comfortable in getting to know me. Obviously, I was extremely nervous, but greeting them for the first time and seeing huge smiles on their faces made me feel at ease and more comfortable. On reflection I’ve realised it’s small acts like this that counted the most and made me feel a part of the family.
Since I’m not Tamil, I knew there would be questions and concerns about whether I would follow important traditions. Not from Madhu’s family specifically, but from the wider community. It could have even been things like knowing the story behind Navaratri, or why Pillayar is always found at the entrance to a house or temple. But Ammamma and Thatha never once questioned me or showed concerns when I came into the family, and neither did family or friends for that matter. I’ll never forget the first blessings that Ammamma and Thatha both gave to me. I remember being excited, but I was concentrating quite hard because I wanted to make sure I was doing the right thing. Then, I realised that I had to crouch down so that they could place Vibhuti and Kungumam on my forehead. Everyone started laughing because I was too tall for Ammamma and Thatha to reach me, and I had this very quick moment where I thought, hang on, I can relax a bit here. Having this light-hearted approach to these traditions hadn’t even come to mind. I guess it’s because I was so new to them that I was focussed on making sure I was aware of my every action. Being in a new environment I was unsure of how to act and just defaulted to a very strict, follow the leader behaviour. Experiences like this reassured me that it was okay to make mistakes, which allowed me to enjoy these traditions more as I wasn’t so tense and hyper aware of every action I made.
Multiple times when I had visited Madhu and her family, I would see Ammamma watching a video that was playing music. It was in Tamil, but I still recognised some of the words and when I asked Ammamma what she was listening to she told me it was a song about the story of Prince Rama and Princess Sita. I realised that the words I recognised were those names, as Madhu had explained that story to me a few times before, and when I told Ammamma this she began to tell me what was happening in the video and we both shared a moment of listening to the music. Looking back on this, it meant a lot for Ammamma to share this with me, someone who is new to the culture and most likely lacks knowledge in a lot of these stories. It showed me how open grandparents can be. I also really enjoyed the music that Ammamma was listening to and I think that’s partly because I’ve become really drawn to Tamil music over the past year. Madhu has shown me many artists and different styles of Tamil music and I’ve found an interest in music that’s composed by A. R Rahman. It is a passion which Madhu and I both share, and I’ve loved diving into this part of Tamil culture, learning the songs and finding music styles that I really like. I love singing Tamil songs with her, and we can just generally share more things that we’re both interested in like never missing an A. R. Rahman concert ever again.
As I mentioned before, I was mindful that there would be a language barrier between me and Madhu’s grandparents, and I was uncertain whether it would hinder us from communicating to one another. But using simple words in English has allowed us to have long conversations and I get to surprise others with all this information that I’ve learned from Thatha and Ammamma, whether it be about someone’s birthday, wedding, or going to the doctors to get a blood test! Even though we can communicate in this way, I do want to have conversations in Tamil, not just with Ammamma and Thatha but with anyone, so both parties involved can easily communicate. Most importantly, I want to be able to have conversations with my fiancé Madhu and keep the culture alive in our family in the future to come. I was watching a few videos online about learning Tamil, and I came across one that was about how there are so many non-Tamil words used in day-to-day language. They mentioned Portuguese words, or English words, and even when talking to some family and friends they told me that they didn’t use 100% Tamil in a conversation. It made me realise that I don’t want that part of Madhu’s culture to be lost just because I can’t speak Tamil. It’s also brought Madhu and I a lot closer because we can do things like talk about cultural references and sing songs together. It might be cliché, but these are important aspects of Tamil culture that Madhu has been surrounded by since she was very young. They might seem like small things, but they all add up and we wouldn’t be able to have those moments and fun times without me knowing the language and the culture. Maybe I just got lucky, or maybe this is true amongst older generations, but reflecting on all these experiences I’ve had and the knowledge I’ve built about Tamil culture, has made me realise that I shouldn’t be asking “What is the bridge between cultures?”, but rather “Who is the bridge between cultures?”.
