The apartment complex where we live has a lovely courtyard for people to walk, jog, or ride their bicycles. I go down there some evenings for a walk and some fresh air. I see lots of kids riding their bikes or scooters (the kind with wheels and no engine, that kids ride for fun) or running after each other or doing other random stuff. A lot of these kids are Indian, whose parents grew up in India but the kids are growing up here. The parents have South Indian or Bengali accents, but for these little ones, an American accent comes completely naturally. Some of them cannot speak the language that their parents speak to each other in.
When I was about that age, I would take walks on the street or in the park with my grandparents. They would tell me anecdotes, some of which would be in Punjabi or Haryanvi. I cannot speak either language too fluently, but I can do just fine and I can understand both of them pretty well.
A few weeks back, there was a small poster that somebody had put up downstairs in our apartment building, advertising a Hindi workshop for Indian kids. That was when I realised that if, when we have kids, we are still living here, then we cannot take a lot of things for granted. The kids learning to speak Hindi is one. Them knowing about our culture and tradition is another.
Well, anyway, we will cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, I'm happy with just the way things are.
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