As special as Mataji is to me I am not oblivious to the fact that many children had households similar to ours as a result of Pierre Trudeau promoting multiculturalism in the 1970’s. Consequently, the portion of “family class” or sponsored relatives allowed into Canada expanded significantly; skewing the system towards large extended families.
This explains how years ago in Winnipeg, a casual superfluous comment about our dear friend Garry’s grandmother, turned into an hour long reminiscence replete with mockery over these seemingly frail women who were the true dictators and puppet masters of our house holds.
It’s remarkable that across this new nation of theirs these women operated in almost the exact way inevitably rendering respect and disdain; and yet somehow they transferred a sense of culture and family.
This is what I grapple with now.
How do I transmit this being away from all family in a city not nearly as ethnically diverse (as the one I grew up in), in a country increasingly becoming xenophobic, to daughters who are only half Indian?