Leaving India: My Family's Journey from Five Villages to Five Continents

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt •
Boston New York
2009

Copyright © 2009 Minal Hajratwala
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book,
write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company,
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hajratwala, Minal.
Leaving India : my family's journey from five villages to five continents /
Minal Hajratwala.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
978-0-618-25129-2 (alk. paper)
1. Hajratwala, Minal. 2. Hajratwala, Minal—Family. 3. Gujarati
Americans—Biography. 4. Children of immigrants—United States—
Biography. 5. Immigrants—United States—Biography. 6. Gujaratis
(Indic people)—Biography. 7. Immigrants—Biography. 8. India—
Emigration and immigration—Psychological aspects. 9. East Indians—
Migrations—Case studies. 10. Emigration and immigration—
Psychological aspects—Case studies. 1. Title.
E
184.
G
84
H
35 2009
973'.049140092—dc22 [B] 2008036079

Printed in the United States of America

Book design by Lisa Diercks
Typeset in Minion

Map by Jacques Chazaud

DOC
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Photographs on spine:
TOP:
The author at Disneyland in 1978,
after her family moved from New Zealand to the United States.
BOTTOM:
Kaashi R. Narsey, the author's grandmother,
with her middle son, Ranchhod, ca. 1936.

for my family
past, present, future
given & chosen

Acknowledgments
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A Note on the Text
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1. Water
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PART ONE: "COOLIES"
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2. Cloth
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3. Bread
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PART TWO: SUBJECTS
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4. Salt
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5. Story
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PART THREE: CITIZENS
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6. Brains
[>]

7. Shelter
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8. Body
[>]

PART FOUR: DESTINY
[>]

Chronology
[>]

Notes
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Selected Bibliography
[>]

Family Trees
[>]

Map
[>]

Index
[>]

This project benefited deeply from the contributions of my parents: translators, guides, fans, and storytellers. I am grateful for their ongoing and unconditional love.

To write a first book is to pay off many debts. I give thanks to the myriad beings of many realms who helped me grow into my voice:

Almost every member of my extended family hosted, fed, or chauffeured me during the course of eight months of travel and research; they are in my hearts, and I hope they will forgive me for not naming them all individually. (Similarly, my deepest apologies to those whose names do not appear in the accompanying family tree. As it is meant to clarify relationships for the reader, the tree includes only those who appear by name in the book. Absolutely no slight or offense is intended!) A list of those who graciously submitted to interviews appears in the bibliography.

I would be remiss not to thank personally Mukesh V. Khatri and his family in London, with whom I stayed an entire month; Dinesh and Kokila Kalidas, members of the motel diaspora, who arranged accommodations for me around the world; and Kiran C. Narsey, who generously allowed me to draw from his unpublished history of the Narseys firm. In the category of virtual family, Ahalya and Sarosh Katrak (Mumbai) and Swapna and Sanjeev Roy (Kolkata) hosted me for many research days and made necessary introductions.

Many thanks to the scholars and sources who generously shared their expertise and pointed me toward resources I would not have discovered otherwise: Brij V. Lal and Padma Narsee, Australian National University, Canberra; Kanti Jinna, Canberra; Kalpana Hiralal, University of Durban-Westville; and Joy and Peter Brain, Durban. Radha Patel lent me a substantial portion of her desi diaspora library. Falu Bakrania allowed me to audit her "South Asian Diasporas" course at Stanford University, bringing me up to date on academic work in this area. Paul Tichmann assisted me in accessing the Kapitan file in the archives of Durban's local history museum housed in the Old City Courthouse. Additionally, librarians and library staffs around the world have my greatest appreciation, particularly at the National Archives of Fiji, National Archives of South Africa in Cape Town, Gandhi-Luthuli Documentation Centre at the University of Durban-Westville in South Africa, National Library of India in Kolkata, University of Pune, University of Mumbai at Kalina, British Library in London, Columbia University in New York, Stanford University in California, San Francisco Public Library, University of Michigan libraries including the Bentley Historical Library, Canton Public Library in Michigan, and Azaadville Public Library outside Johannesburg, South Africa.

In India, research often seems possible only through acts of grace. In Mumbai, Sadanarth Bhatkal made it possible for me to conduct research at the Asiatic Society. In Ahmedabad, Rashmikant and Meghlata Mehta made the needed calls of introduction. Varsha Jani of the L. D. Institute of Indology in Ahmedabad kindly shared her thesis on the Solanki dynasty. Bhartiben Shelat and her staff at the Bhojai Library in Ahmedabad photocopied rare books and made it possible for me to view Solanki-era sculptures in the collection. V. P. Trivedi at the Gujarat Vishwakosh Trust gave me access to that encyclopedia publishing house's private library. At the Vadodara Central Library, Chandrakant P. Toraskar assisted me in finding Gujarati texts.

When at last I let go of my geekish love of research in order to actually write, I was blessed to have the most capable of research assistants, Ahmad Musaddequr Rahman, who worked tirelessly for a year to track down government documents, articles, and elusive facts. Hedgebrook writer's colony provided me with the space, solitude, and support necessary for plumbing the mystical depths.

My route to publishing was seamless and enjoyable, thanks to Sam Freedman, proposal midwife, and Anna Ghosh, agent extraordinaire. At Houghton Mifflin, I was blessed with an amazing team of editors. Eamon Dolan, Anjali Singh, Beth Burleigh Fuller, and Katya Rice each played a crucial role in championing and shaping the manuscript. I am so grateful for their kind, incisive encouragement and care.

Personal thanks go to the members of my writing group, Pueng Vongs, Sandip Roy, and Daisy Hernandez, whose gentle, incisive critiques were a steady source of inspiration and improvement. Linda Gonzalez, Canyon Sam, Sunita Dhurandhar, and others wrote with me in community, easing the isolation of our writing lives. Lisa Margonelli, Nancy Netherland, Soo Mee Kwon, and Raoul V. Mowatt generously provided feedback on the manuscript. Coaches and teachers, formal and informal, offered wise counsel that guided me through every aspect of the process: Susan Griffin, Liu Hoi-Man, Kate Reber, Ryumon (Hilda Gutiérrez Baldoquín), and Little Clarence. Extra-special gratitude goes to Shaily Matani, who did all of the above and more; to Miriam Kronberg; and to Parijat Desai. Finally, George "Daddi G" Ophelia endured the trials of being a writer's partner with the compassionate patience of a Zen monk, and even served as research assistant from time to time; I was sustained throughout by her steady support. Of love, one can never say enough.

As a reader, I find it most inconvenient to be forever flipping to a glossary in the back of a book. When I find it necessary to use non-English words, therefore, I define them nearby, preferably in the very same sentence. A few basic terms recur throughout this book and are worth explaining at the outset:

Gujarat
is an old name for a region that has been apportioned many times over the last few centuries; I use it to refer to the area now within the modern state of Gujarat. I use
southern Gujarat
to refer to the southern portion of the modern state of Gujarat, from Vadodara to the Maharashtra border. Navsari and the other villages of my family fall in the southernmost part of this area. Prior to independence, one district of this region was named "South Gujarat," but I have avoided that capitalized term, as it is confusing in the modern context. I use the term
British Gujarat
to refer to the portion of modern Gujarat that fell within the British-ruled region called the Bombay Presidency, and which included the city of Surat.

Gujarati
refers to the language, people, and things of the Gujarat region. It can be used as either adjective or noun. Thus, my family is originally from Gujarat; we are Gujaratis, we eat Gujarati food, and the language we speak is Gujarati.

Khatri
refers to the clan—a subgroup of a caste, and the people and customs related to it—to which my family belongs. Other groups in other places throughout India also use the same word. In this book, it refers to the members of this group who originate in five particular villages in southern Gujarat.

Politics has a tendency to muddle geography; unless otherwise noted, place names in India and elsewhere refer to modern boundaries, though the territories may have gone by other names during the period discussed. However, I use the variant of the name that is relevant for the time period in question; for example, for the modern city of Vadodara, previously known as Baroda, my spelling varies with the context.

By
Indian diaspora,
I mean people who trace their roots to India, however that locale was defined
at the time of emigration.
Although certain early emigrants came from what is now Pakistan or Bangladesh, the task of statistically winnowing them from those who came from modern "India" seems both impossible and unnecessary, for in their own eyes they too came from India. After 1947, my
Indian diaspora
refers to these earlier emigrants, their descendants, and emigrants from independent India. It does not include, however, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis who emigrated after independence; their stories must be considered in the light of their homelands' own divergent histories, a project that is beyond the scope of this book.

Occasionally, when it is necessary to speak more broadly, I use the terms
South Asia
and
South Asian diaspora.
South Asia encompasses the land that falls in the modern nations of Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Burma (Myanmar), Sri Lanka, and the Maldives.
South Asian diaspora
is thus an umbrella term for emigrants from this region and their descendants. I use it sparingly, aware of the tendency for the Indian experience to overshadow those of smaller groups.