Episode #22 - Usha Banerji

Usha Hegde, now Banerji, talks with Chavadi co-hosts, Siddhant and Lalitha, providing insight into life back in the day, connections to and experiences in cosmopolitan Bombay (now Mumbai), building family relationships and bonds, accepting life’s lessons matter-of-factly, and creating and embracing passion projects along the way.

Check out one that is close to her heart...St. Jude's India ChildCare: SJICC USA and SJICC India. Also find St Judes India on Facebook and Instagram.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Hi there, or as we say in Tulu, Namaskara. Welcome to Chawdi.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Chavdi means the meaning place. Architecturally, it is a veranda, sometimes outside a home, sometimes within, always to welcome guests, to swap stories, debate the news, and pass the time together.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Each episode, we will bring you voices that reflect the rich tapestry of life, memories from childhood, lessons learned along the way, and the moments that stay with us forever. Some humorous, some poignant, but always special. I'm Lalita Shetty.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

And I'm Sidan Chetty. Today we invite you to our chakti. Today we have Usha Benerjee. Usha grew up and continues to uh stay in Bombay. She's the youngest of four siblings, and she has one son in the US whose name is Shibane. Shibain, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:15

Yeah, Shiban.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Welcome, Ushanti. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_02 1:21

Hi, Sidan. Great to meet you online. Hi, Nalita. Lalu, la.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Hi, Ushaka. Thank you for being here. I'm so excited because, like I mentioned earlier, uh, I feel like I've known you all my life, which I have. So that's exciting to be able to learn a little bit more about you. I mean, I thought I knew a lot, but uh just in our pre-conversation, I learned so much more. So I'm excited. Welcome.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Awesome. Well, let's get started with your childhood, right? So you you obviously were born and brought up in Bombay. Um, tell us about the experience of growing up in Bombay, um, your childhood. I don't know if there's a lot of buns in Bombay back then, but tell us more about that.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

Yeah, I grew up, like I said, I'm probably the oldest person you'll interviewing for this. Oh, for oldest person you're I grew up in interviewing.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

In your 20s, right? That's the oldest.

SPEAKER_02 2:14

We grew up in the 50s and 60s in Bombay, and uh, which is why I say Bombay and not Mumbai. Sort of that that happened in the 90s, the change. Yes, we grew up in Shivaji Park. My father was in the medical profession, and my mother was basically, I would not like to say a housewife because she's very, very much more than that. She was somebody who was a very warm and welcoming person uh to I think whoever was vaguely connected to the family and who came and you know spent Sundays with us or spent the uh stayed with us till they found their feet in the city. Because my father, being one of the early Bunts in Bombay, uh had, I think, kind of status within the community, and people kind of looked up to him for many things, you know. And so we grew up, I would say, with a lot of interaction within the Band community, though we were not so very active ourselves. The area we lived in was largely Maharashtra. There may have been half a dozen Band families with whom we were obviously very close and continued, they continue to be a part of our lives because it's it's that's the way it is actually. When you grow up, you know, the bonds that you make, I think, stay much stronger than uh they are otherwise. But like my father's family, we've had uncles staying with us when we were growing up, mother's family uncles staying with us, and well, um uh Lalu's uh father also lived with us, and I think his mother and uh father lived when they first got married, they were with us for maybe a couple of months or less, but very, very interesting of that.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

Yeah, yeah, and I'm curious if you could just like maybe speak more to this whole trend of bunts from Mangler moving to Bombay, because I think that's exactly sort of when it started happening. And obviously, your dad was one of the first bunts in Bombay, but curious. I know a lot of people went to Bombay as sort of like they wanted to open up a restaurant, I think is why sheddis are very famous in Bombay. Uh, but I'm curious if you could just give us some more like I guess historical context on why the bunts were especially prominent in Bombay.

SPEAKER_02 4:18

You know, actually, if you look at it this way, uh the Bunts went to Madras, what is Chennai now, when it came to education. A lot of people who became engineers or uh doctors, or I don't know about doctors, but lawyers definitely you know studied in um studied in Chennai. People who came to Bombay actually came to work. So working, I mean setting up a hotel, many of them began very modestly. They may have worked in a hotel and then gone on to hold it. But people like my father, I would say even Ashok's father, who came as professionals. My father, in fact, trained in Bombay too in KM Hospital. So it's you know, uh they are the kind of people who work as professionals in companies or became doctors. That was a slightly different kind of um connection, one would say, that they had with the city, because their lives were, I think, I think everybody's life is very cosmopolitan in a city like Bombay. You know, you it's not that you meet only people from your uh part of the world and so on. Uh you tend to sort of mix with a lot of people. And we had a lot of that growing up, largely because of my father's, I think, his profession, and because we grew up in an area which was very, very largely Maharashtra. But uh, like I say, the band connection was always there, it was always there with the extended family, and and there were marriages which would take place, which my mother would love to go because it meant meeting the people she didn't ordinarily meet, you know. And there's actually another part of my childhood, which I didn't mention earlier, that my father and a lot of bhunts in those days were devotees of a Swami called Swami Nityanand. In fact, this um ashram was not far off from Bombay. So going there on Sundays was like a big picnic for us. It meant a couple of hours or more drive. And we'd spent the day there. They had uh, you know, hot water, uh whatever you call them, uh sulfur baths over there. That was part of it in the Swami, and you know, so on. And it was a very it was like a meeting point for Bunts. A lot of Bunts used to go to the Swami, so now you know, looking back on it, it's something which is sort of not there in our lives anymore. But in fact, we've I remember we've gone and spent holidays there also. My mother had arthritis for the longest time, and you know, so the sulfur baths would actually help her. So we'd we'd go, we'd go quite often over there, and like there were, as my mother would say, that she she used to get to meet the people from the hotel side whom normally were not people whom she'd get to meet within the Bombay circle that they had, not for any other reason, but I think it's just the proximity of living you lived in an area, and when you have a large family and a house full of people all the time, anyway, it's not that you have leisure to go stuff on your own, you know.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

It's interesting, Ushaka, because uh Siddhan and his brother actually now in today's world go to Chinmaya every Sunday, and they called it his Sunday school, and it looks like whatever 50, 70, 60, 70 years ago, y'all did the same thing. That is so cool to me. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

Actually, because when you mentioned the Nidyaanda Sage sort of temple, uh, my dad actually uh mentioned that same temple recently because I believe he was telling me that a lot of buns that used to open up restaurants used to go and get blessings from this temple.

SPEAKER_03 7:43

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Um and then my grandfather had a hotel also in Bombay, so I'm sure that so every year on his death anniversary, they sponsor the food at that temple. He's like the guy with the big belly, and he's like absolutely the standard photograph everybody has of him. Yeah, I was just looking at my phone.

SPEAKER_02 8:03

So definitely your grandfather knew my father. I mean, there's there's no two ways about that.

SPEAKER_00 8:07

Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

And now this is a typical bunch thing of finding a connection. If you weren't online, I'd be quizzing Siddhantas to find out who they were and who his grandma. So let's see when we met, maybe knew his father. And if there are aunts, you may have known them as kids, you know, you never know.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

Yeah, who knows? You might have babysit in my dad, right? Who knows? Um, but yeah, so sort of moving on. You you mentioned you didn't go to Mangalo often. Um, something about your mom's own family. You wanted to tell us a little bit more about that. I think you mostly said in Bombay, right?

SPEAKER_02 8:42

Yeah, we did. We went, uh, I wouldn't say we went every year, like a lot of the ones used to go. I think it partly may have been, I mean, this is just reflecting actually now about it. It's because my mother lost her mother when she was very young, and she was raised by her grandmother, who raised, I mean, was must have been a fantastic lady because uh she lost a lot of her children. I mean, the daughters uh unfortunately all died young, and she raised this bunch of grandchildren all in the family house in Urpi. And uh, you know, so obviously she was not there by the time my mother was uh, you know, got married and had children and so on, because she was my mother's grandmother. Uh so there was never really a place that my mother could go back to, plus, she had this problem of arthritis after a while, and my father was exceptionally busy and not somebody who took annual leave. Like people working in offices that have the leave to go off. He was somebody who just had to decide that he wanted to do something and rushed off for a few days and came. Not really somebody, I would say, went regularly to Mangalore like other people did. So that was restricted. But like I said, our connections were very strong in Bombay within and outside the Band community as well. And there was the other thing I didn't mention earlier was that uh Sunday was a day of relaxation at our house when people would come over and my father and company would play cards, and they would sit around the dining table and play cards, and my mother would be feeding them regularly. And it's actually very funny. That seems to have been uh kind of an impression that has stayed with the people, the younger people who were there, because I've had several people tell me, Oh, yeah, I I remember we used to come to your father's place, my father used to play cards, or my uncle used to play cards, or I used to come there and I used to watch them. So it was it was just this pastime that they had on Sunday afternoons and they would sit, they were all friends and they'd just relax. And um, we as children, I think, had this. I think Ashok also mentioned how his father was called calling it Krishna T. But you know, we had this thing of calling, and my brothers were famous for naming people, so nobody was called by their name, but there were some reasons, some monica given for some reason. There was chocolate mama because he always called his chocolate, there was kurlu mama because kurlu is puff rice, as you know. I mean, because he would bring us things. There was this friend of my father who would come to sort out his problems at night, late at night. So he was known as 12 o'clock mama. So there were all these people, and for some reason.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

It's like we used to call him Urun Pama. I don't know what I'm telling you.

SPEAKER_02 11:17

That was that's right. Yeah, yeah. That was that was only your family who did it because thanks to your aunt who named him that, it's because his pet name as a kid was Gundu, which went round, and she said, No, I don't like to call him Gundu, we'll call him Urund. So, all of you, your generation, your parents' generation, everybody has called him Urund.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

Okay, okay, yeah. So, Ushaka, like you said, you did go occasionally to Mangalore, but most of the band uh experiences, everything kind of came to you in Bombay.

SPEAKER_02 11:52

And except to say that the bonding with the cousins, which may be first cousins, second cousins or more, happened in Mangalore because in the summer holidays and everybody people would come from Bangalore or come from Madras and so on, and we'd meet up over there when so we're not necessarily as I say be first cousins and be second cousins, and those bonds have always stayed. You know, it's always been something that we remember and talk about even now very fondly of having spent short holidays maybe together.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

So then thinking about all of that, would you say you have something or something comes to mind that equates to bunt for you? What would you say?

SPEAKER_02 12:31

Yeah, I I would say the sense of hospitality, the large-heartedness of people. I mean, they're always ever well welcoming of people whom they know or people they don't know. Like I said, we live briefly in Delhi, and it was the people we met was. I mean, then of course you sit and you talk and you get connections, which is again a very, very one trade. You find out how you're related or connected or who you know in common or are related to in common. I think it's something they thoroughly enjoy doing. So it's it's there's always a warm-heartedness, and of course, as everybody says, nothing to beat our cooking, our food, nothing to be one food, whatever it is. Now it's more and more popular. Previously, the would be restaurants had vegetarian food, but now there's this non-veg food coming in and so on. So people really learn to appreciate what we produce for the table.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

Very true, very true. Yeah, and uh also, like you know, our podcast called Chawdi, and it almost sounds like your home was its own mini chavodi. People coming, going, sharing things, everything was happening in your home in Mumbai, and now Mumbai, right? But uh growing up, you also had three brothers, yeah, and you were the youngest sibling. Any any memories? Were you the spoiled younger one? People keep telling me I'm a spoiled little one. So what's your do you do you think you're the spoiled little one, Lel? Definitely not.

SPEAKER_02 13:58

Siddhant is a big brother, so last time he would buy it. I think that's a myth. That's a myth that you're spoiled. You grow up with three older brothers who keep you in place, they don't even let anybody else spoil you given a chance. But no, it was fun, I would say. And though my eldest brother was almost 10 years older than me, but you know, so there was that almost a general. I mean, he was in college by the time I was in school, so there was that uh thing. But uh yes, and I said we very uh our father was that way, sort of very liberal in what we chose to do. So there was always this, we were a little different that way, too. My eldest brother became a doctor, which is traditional, but the second one joined the merchant navy, the younger one went through the NDA and joined the Air Force, so it was a little different. And the fact that I went on, I think in my days, it was a doing science was a little not that common. Secondly, going on to do my master's was again. I mean, you graduated and you waited to get married, frankly. That was really the pattern in the late 60s, early 70s. But no, but I think 90s, which is my time.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

80s and 90s, it was the same thing. You go to college, you graduate, you get married. Um, no, but you worked, you you did, you did teacher training, you were teaching, so it's not, I mean, you're but I was on the shelf, Ushaka, for the long time, longest time I was collecting dust on the shelf according to my parents, and I was only 24 when I got married.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

Yeah. Um, so looking at your teen years, I know you mentioned that your dad was very liberal um in in the medical space, and then your mom obviously was the CEO at home. But paint a picture in terms of your your relationship with them. Were they very strict with you growing up as a youngest of four and as the only girl? Or were they like paint a picture of their personalities?

SPEAKER_02 15:44

Uh well, I like I said, my father, I mean, there was never restriction in what we did. My mother, I think, would have preferred a stricter upbringing, I think, but I don't think she had much to say with that. That sort of a thing. I went to a co ed school, which was again, like I said, not that common. I went as he would very proudly tell people, and frankly, he didn't know what there was at that time. But she's the first Bunt to have gone to Bombi Scottish, the first bunt. That was repeated ad nauseum, really, to anybody who would listen.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

And you live predominantly in a Marathi-speaking area, right? Not a lot of buns around you.

SPEAKER_02 16:20

Yeah, there were a few bunt families. They were, and they were, like I said, they were good friends, they were close friends, and we continued to be second generation, third generation, continued to know each other and so on. But like I said, it was a largely Maharashtan locality in Shivaji Park. Lovely place to grow up because close to the sea, close to the big park, and and lots of friends of our age growing up together. So it's it's not a lot of very, very warm memories of growing up in Shivaji Park.

unknown 16:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:47

Got it, got it. And then sort of going through high school and approaching college, you eventually ended up focusing on biochem. But was there always a natural interest in sciences? Did you know that you wanted to go into biochem or um was that sort of pushed on in terms of medicine, or what do you what happened?

SPEAKER_02 17:05

No, I think my parents would have been very happy if I'd wanted to become a doctor and I would have gotten medical college. I had the marks, but I didn't want to. I mean, and I'd always say it is it's ironical actually. I'd say I'd see my father working so hard. I said, I'm never going to marry a doctor. I mean, this is not the kind of life that you go off in the morning and you come back at night and you have, you know, no time for the family and so on. And well. Anyway, that was part of the thing. But like I said, my eldest brother went off to England and I did I did biochemistry, frankly, with great ideals of doing research and so on. But uh my eldest brother went off to England. He was, he would have been somebody who would have stepped into the clinic that my father ran. And then the clinic was in a nursing home, so we were also partners in the nursing home. But no, I just felt I had to be there with him because I just felt he had too much work on his plate. So that's where I joined my father and continued to work in the lab for coming on 30 years. I think even after my father, who passed away relatively young, really, compared to what it was. I mean, it I'd not been working with him for more than five or six years when when the mantle fell on me to take care of things.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

Got it. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. But did you just curious, like before all that, did you have any ambitions about going internationally, or were you always someone sort of like, let me take care of my family and uh you wanted to sort of be in the Bombay space?

SPEAKER_02 18:28

I think at that time, uh, for a girl to go abroad was for education was not that common. I I mean I would have loved to. I'm not saying I wouldn't have. But having said that, I think I had to think practically and think, no, this is not something I wouldn't want to disturb them or upset them by saying, and because of my mother's health, I just felt I had to be around. That was part of it. Yes, perhaps I would have, perhaps my life would have been very different, but it is what it is, I think. Many things.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

But you met the love of your life at college, yeah. Well, yes. So I guess it uh I mean, you know, raised eyebrows at that time. Yeah, but before I talk, we talk a little bit about that, Ushaka. Because I know that Atte, whom that's what we call your mom, was in a wheelchair for quite some time. Do you feel a lot of pressure fell on you to be doing more? Um you know, because I know, like you said, Udana, your one brother was a doctor, went to London. The other two brothers went or were in the Air Force and the Navy. So you were the one at home when you were older. Do you feel was there a lot of pressure?

SPEAKER_02 19:43

Um I think I just took it in my stride. It is not something that I resented or felt, why am I doing this or why am I not doing what I want to? Because I don't think in any way, you know, it didn't come in the way of whatever I want. And just face it, those were not the days when you had great social lives with your friends and things like that. If you either went to your friend's place or your friends came to your place, or maybe once in a way you went for a movie together, you know. I mean, it wasn't this great thing that you felt that your movements were restricted or anything. Yes, there were there were certain things that I would have gone undone, which probably I wouldn't even ask them whether I could, is because I had friends who went mountaineering and I was really, really keen on going as being part of that group which went for training to the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute. But wow, I didn't even ask because it was no question. I mean, you know, one had to be realistic in what one could manage to do, and it was just that.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

It was okay. I mean, yeah, and and exactly because that was life, and it wasn't a big deal. She was always smiling and always you wouldn't think of all the problems that she had. She was just this person who had so much grit and determination, right?

SPEAKER_02 20:54

Yeah, and uh she was always smiling, always. I mean, she's a huge inspiration, and uh, you know, and and she'd cook and she'd make all these things for Diwali for every festival, whatever. And as I said, our influence was very largely. I mean, she absorbed everything from the people she was around with. So whatever we made for Diwali or Ganpati or whatever was what was actually made by the locals. So it was what she friends and so on. I mean, there was a lot of coming and going within the neighbors.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Okay. So then now moving on to college, you said you met Satya there. Like you said, back in the day, an intercaste marriage was just like wow. Even in my time, it was it still wasn't the done thing. When my sister married outside the community, it was a big deal. So, how can you explain some more about how it was for you?

SPEAKER_02 21:47

No, it wasn't easy, but um uh the thing is we also knew the families because uh my father in law was also a doctor. So he and my father knew each other well, you know, so that helped it yeah. So that helped help in the sense that he knew the family, he knew he knew it was. But no, I wouldn't say that this is something they would have, it was not their choice in more ways than one. But uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

So there were no dates, or it was all in college, and kind of like when did you tell your parents?

SPEAKER_02 22:19

No, I think I only told my parents after he went to the IM after he finished his master's, and then when he got a job and he was in Bombay, I broke into my parents and my siblings, and they knew him. They knew him because friends were in and out of the house. It's not that they didn't know who he was, but uh what it was, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

But the fact that you wanted to marry him, you told them after he was settled and ready to settled, so it didn't make sense otherwise, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

Um, and then sort of going and continuing on from sort of college and postgrad, you worked with your dad quite closely um when he was at the lab. And I know he passed away when you were quite young still, but maybe talk a little bit more about working in the lab, what it meant to your family, working with your dad, especially, getting some time with him. How cool was that before, obviously.

SPEAKER_02 23:08

That was lovely. That was lovely. And even after I got married, I got to spend the day with my dad. So yeah, so that that was really good, but it was a huge responsibility to take over. And because he died, passed away very suddenly. I don't think I was in any way ready for it, emotionally or even physically, to take over, but it was something which had to be done. So there's there's no there's no shirking at that. There was no question at that time. It didn't even pass through the mind, okay, let's shut shop, you know, let's let's give it give it away to somebody or whatever. Yes, we had we increased the staff working and so on. We had a doctor coming in like the basis and so on. So there was a lot of more management work happening for me at that time, but uh no, it it was something which had to be done and done so that I mean, you know, there's certain things in life I think you just take take as they come. Yeah, you have to write, yeah, you have to write with it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

Yeah, absolutely. And I think one other sort of thing that you're really passionate about is supporting people that that have cancer, um, specifically your brother and your husband, pastor with cancer, right? So it's particularly close to your heart. But maybe speak more about, first of all, how you've taken this passion and really implemented it in the world, whether it's working with a nonprofit, things like that, or about what that all means to you.

SPEAKER_02 24:30

Yes. Well, working with the uh first nonprofit. In fact, we set up, I was a founder trustee of an organization which still exists 30 years down the line. It was within a year of having lost my brother. He died very suddenly. It was cancer, but he was Hail and Hearty and he was gone within the year. And it made me realize what patients go through. Uh, despite the fact that we had medical connections, so things in the hospital were smooth. We didn't have financial problems, we lived in the city. We really did not face the physical problems that we could see people facing. In fact, he also said, When I'm well, I want to help all these people who are here. Because it was for us simple, yet I know how difficult it was for the family. Just facing the whole thing emotionally, just tackling it. And we just felt there's so much. I really felt it took me, it took me a while, it took me about a year after he passed away to actually even get to think about doing something. But I felt this is, you know, I mean, if we can help people in in some way, maybe this is what we should do. And there was somebody who was written about saying she was planning to start an organization. So I phoned her, discovered she lived in Kaff Parade, which wasn't very far off, and it was easy for us logistically to get together. And then we set up this place, and I continued to be with them for 10 years. And then at the end of that, it was around the time that we were having issues in the nursing home, in the sense uh the medical scene was changing. You know, it was getting very corporatized. It was difficult to run a medical practice unless you ran it like a business, and that is frankly not we were that's not what we it didn't match our ethics really. And that applied to all the other doctors who practiced in the nursing home as well. They were all very straightforward, all of them were parsi. So it was, you know, the culture was very sort of very, very straightforward people. So we sort of decided that you know, let's uh sell the nursing home, close the practice, and which is what we did. And so till practically that happened, I continued to volunteer, and then that needed the winding up needed a lot of effort on my part. So, which is when I actually I think took a break, and when I was ready to get back to doing something, my husband fell ill. So, to cut a long story short, it was you know, just when you thought you're willing to have a good time, things go a little wrong. And after he passed, I mean, he was ill for about two and a half years, and after he passed away, I said, I need to do something, which is when I sort of this organization uh called St. Jude India Childcare Centers, which provides accommodation and support for children and their families who travel to cities for treatment of cancer, underprivileged families. Um, they asked me to join as their CEO. I've I'd known the founders actually for a number of years, even before that. They were not based in India, but they used to be Satya sisters' neighbors, and that's how I met them maybe 20 years before that. But we knew of each other, I mean knew each other from that time. And yeah, and I think as I say, I feel my husband came back to me in another form, in the form of these children. And it was, I think it's it put together my skills of having run the nursing home and the and the lab and the passion that I had for working with people with cancer. It was for me a perfect match. And like I said, when I talked to people in my past life, I did this, but in my present life, this is what I think.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

And it was also like you could pull from the personal experience because, like you said, both uh Harunana and Satya passed from cancer.

SPEAKER_03 27:51

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:52

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's one thing, sort of things happen in our life, but transitioning that and taking those tragedies and actually making them a passion project to help people is really, really powerful and inspiring.

SPEAKER_02 28:05

Yeah, Nandu has done the same thing too.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

She raises money for breast cancer every year. That's that's pretty inspiring to see.

SPEAKER_03 28:12

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

But yeah, so one thing that we really haven't mentioned, one person we haven't mentioned is your son. So maybe, maybe we should fall over him, also, right?

SPEAKER_02 28:21

And I think I think I've rambled on and have to do a lot of editing of this.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

It's all good. I know he's in the US far away, but he's quite important. So maybe talk more about uh raising him, how your childhood may have influenced your parenting style, how seeing your parents also um in their more like liberal style has influenced your parenting style. So tell us more about that.

SPEAKER_02 28:44

Yeah, yeah. I well, it was it was again a very liberal, and it's because that they also came from a similar background, actually, with very, very similar upbringings as far as we had. Also, I think my mother-in-law was actually more religious than in the sense more into rites and rituals, which my mother it's a difference, it's a difference in how as Bengalis, what they did and what we did as Bunts really. But uh, I mean, I I I sort of, what do I say, participated and learned whatever would needed to be done? So that was very much a part of uh Shivane's upbringing of of being liberal also, but knowing his roots, he went to the school his father went to and uh did well enough in school. He and it was time to go to university, he went to the US and has been there now for the past whatever 20, 20 odd years. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:30

So did he ever want to ever um take over the lab, make make it a three-generation lab sort of thing?

SPEAKER_02 29:36

No, no, no, no. Actually, no, he didn't because he did uh he chose to do the humanities and actually then now he's an architect. He teaches actually, he teaches at Berkeley, his undergrad at Columbia was in architecture and uh and so on. So yeah, yeah, he's uh yeah, but you know, if anybody knows a lot about the Bunt culture, Bunt history, or interest in the ones is Shribian Bananji. It is quite amazing.

SPEAKER_00 30:02

Maybe up next in our in our show, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:06

He's very, very much, he's very much. I think it's because he has an academic nature and he's generally curious and historic minded.

SPEAKER_01 30:15

Did he ever want to live in Bombay? Did he have in Mumbai? By then it was Mumbai. Oh yeah, Mumbai when he was uh well I I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_02 30:24

I'm not sure because uh Annika, as you know, is American, so and their subjects are not. I mean, her specialty is Islamic art, which is really not something that she'd be able to find a job in India, unfortunately. So, yes, so I think that option of living in India now is not there. But yes, he he has strong roots in India, he has strong connections, obviously in Bombay, but it's largely family because I think a lot of his friends are away from here. It's not as if his school friends, you see, he went to the US at the age of 18. So it's uh people that his school friends in a while a bunch of them are here, a whole bunch are all over the world.

SPEAKER_00 31:03

Absolutely, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 31:04

Yeah, close with his cousins, he's close with family. I think he's close with uh Lalu's cousins and their children.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

I think he used to call dad when dad was alive. Regularly. Yeah, because he would always mention that, yes.

SPEAKER_02 31:18

He would call him like clockwork when he was in India, when he was in the US. He was he was he was very, very attached to you, dad.

SPEAKER_03 31:26

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:27

I don't know. I know I think these relationships just happen. It's you're not fond of somebody because he's related to you in a particular way, it's just that this there is a bond. And and that's with both with your parents and with your uncle and your aunt. He has it very strong, he had it very strongly with Ink Titiya and with Atan Deli.

SPEAKER_03 31:45

Yeah, yeah. Nice.

SPEAKER_00 31:47

Um, so sort of focusing on you, independent of your career, you as a mom, you as a daughter, specifically focused on you, right? So curious if you have any extracurricular interest, activities you mentioned, music being a passion, and your foray into Vedanta learning as a passion to maybe speak more to those two points and anything else may I may have asked.

SPEAKER_02 32:13

Yeah, I also enjoy travel, but let's not go down that road because that would need another episode altogether. Yeah, yeah. Vedanta came into my life. I would say around the time the Shivain went off to the US, I started attending classes with somebody who was again originally with the Chin Mea mission and then joined uh Sami Diana and who was again part of the Chinnme mission originally. And uh yes, I used to attend classes regularly, and I think opened a lot of vistas to my mind in every way. So I'm very grateful that I became a student of Vedanta and I continue to be. I attend now online. It started during COVID, attended online classes with again somebody from the same school who's based in Chennai, Swami Paramatananji. And I think it's it's been absolutely I'm really grateful that I had this opportunity of learning about our uh what did I say, culture, our spirituality, and what the world and what life is about, actually. It's a different perspective. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

So do you feel your lessons for on you know through the Vedanta, those topics, do they help you? Um mind, body, and spirit kind of thing? Or uh, you know, sometimes for me, I feel when I listen to some people talk, like when I listen to you, I don't feel that I never even knew this about you because you don't talk a lot about it. You're just this calm person that I somehow feel drawn to. But when I hear some other people who talk about their scriptures, they seem very, for want of a better word, narrow-minded to me, my opinion. So, how do you not make that?

SPEAKER_02 33:56

I would put that, I would actually put that to also my upbringing. Also the fact that I've, you know, I mean it doesn't, I'm definitely not narrow-minded. And I find it sad about I always think that this is not how we grew up, this is not the Hinduism that we grew up with, this is not how we understood it. And what I've studied as a student of Vedanta just reinforced what I grew up with, you know. I mean, it is it just showed that the world is one, you are one. Uh I don't know, I can't get into philosophical discussions here, but no, I definitely don't think. I mean, for me, it's live and let live. It's you know, it's things the way you want, it's okay by me. I mean, it's not as if uh I I strongly object, and if it's not exactly what I have learned, and I would never get into an argumentative uh discussion, if you want to call it that, with anybody who thought differently or had heard something differently.

SPEAKER_01 34:54

You would let them have their thinking and you have yours, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:57

If people have asked me, and I have recommended the person I went to physical classes in Bombay, the person I listened to online. I mean, it's purely, you know, this guy, I really like listening to him. We used to go on Vedanta camps sometimes for a few days at a time and so on, Rishikesh Kandala is nearby and so on. So it was eye-opening and it was so wonderful that we had this opportunity. The only thing that feel bad that not everybody gets that chance, but I would definitely not rub anybody's nose into doing something that isn't what they want to do. I think everybody has their way of living and everybody's time for doing something comes. It comes into their life at the time.

SPEAKER_01 35:33

Very true, when it's most needed or when the time is right. Yeah, when they're ready to receive stuff. Absolutely. Yeah. So Ushaka, continuing from that, uh, do you feel your life has been influenced by your Vedantic learning or by Band culture or both? Or any thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_02 35:54

Um, I think many things, many things. I think growing up in Bombay was a huge influence on me. Um my parents, my parents, yes, Band culture, which it was something which is ingrained, you know, you don't even have to think twice about it. But like I said, it was not, there was, I think, a little dichotomy in what it was outside and what it was within the community for you because our life outside was much larger. And that's because my parents were that way. I mean, if they had if they had 50 brunt friends, then 150 non-bunt friends, you know. So it was uh a very, very broad culture while growing up, and they never there was never any kind of differentiation based on somebody's religion or their upbringing or whatever when we faced. So it's not something which came, and it was exactly the same with, I mean, my brothers obviously were were were similar, but it was exactly the same with Satya's family. So there was never any kind of feeling of being different. I was totally accepted by him and his extended uh his cousins and so on, uncles, aunts, and so on, they're all extremely fond of me. So, you know, when you feel you're welcome by everybody, you also welcome everyone. It it just broadens the way you look at life because you've had a good deal. You people have been good to you. Why would you not be good to people?

SPEAKER_00 37:05

Yeah, absolutely. Um, and then one question that we always ask towards the end of the podcast is looking at your life. We've obviously done a full sort of inventory of uh all the way from childhood to now. Um, but curious if you have any values or traits that you hold close to your heart that you think has helped you whether the different waves of life. Um, and it can be anything. So curious if you have any points to share on that.

SPEAKER_02 37:34

I would say the fact that my father was somebody who helped anybody and everybody who came to him for help. It could be, like I said, the physical providing accommodation, having getting them treated medically through the best doctors available, helping people find jobs, generally and sorting out people's problems. He was pretty good at that. Like I said, he was a respected elder. So that sort of, I think this thing of going being there for people, helping people comes, I think comes naturally. It's partly, I would I would say it's largely because of the upbringing I've had, and which obviously is because of the upbringing my parents had. So it's um yes, a lot of what I am is because of what I was born and raised with and what I absorbed in my life. And yes, Vedanta has, I think, reiterated, enforced the values that I have, which may not, I mean, it may be a little different from what others have, but I think when your mind is open, you accept everything there is.

SPEAKER_00 38:35

Yeah, absolutely. Um yeah, who we are is sort of a reflection of where we came from, right? So that's a beautiful message. Um, thank you so much for the time. I know it was my first time meeting you today, at least for me, but it was a beautiful conversation. I really appreciate the transparency and authenticity. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01 38:53

Yeah, Oshaka, thanks. And before we go, like you said, who you are is what you came from, but also a lot of it is what you absorbed. What would you tell kids of today's generation? What would you want them to think about or follow as they lead their lives?

SPEAKER_02 39:13

To embrace life and to be open-minded and not be bigoted in your thinking. I would basically think that having the right values in life, knowing what is important in life and not chasing the superficial, you know. Um I'd always say money comes as a byproduct. Work well, do well, and you know, it'll follow. And you always will get what you want, provided you begin with the right aim in life. I mean, don't take shortcuts, do what you're meant to do in life, and I think that's lead a good life, be a good person. I think it's important to be a good person more than anything else.

SPEAKER_01 39:49

And you you do embody that. So thank you for being here, Rushaka. Truly appreciate it. And uh, you know, you did mention that you wanted to go mountain climbing back in the day. People still do that now, so maybe we'll see Usha Baneri just climbed whatever mount. Uh mountain. But thank you, Ushaka. Thanks.

SPEAKER_02 40:10

It was definitely serious stuff at that stage, which can't happen now. I cannot join a course of mountaineering in the Himalayan Institute of Mountaineering. No, I can't do that. So, anyway, thanks a lot. And I think you'll have to do heavy editing because I think we've I've babbled on a lot longer than.