I can remember it like it was yesterday. The Florida breeze sang through the windows of my grandmother’s small beach cottage as the smell of rice and curry powder danced about in the air.
I was with my Nana, and she was telling me the story of her journey to America.
My Nana was a small woman, with a ginormous fire in her soul. Her history was shocking, and could break any person down, yet in the end of it all, my Nana still found happiness. This is the story of my immigrant grandmother, who I deem the strongest woman alive.
My Nana was born to a poor family in the southern part of Kolkata, India. She was born far from the wealthy parts of Kolkata. She was not surrounded by marble palaces or revolutionary culture. She came from the “dirt” part of India, as she called it.
Her father died sometime after my Nana was born and her mother, my great grandmother, became a depressed, cheerless woman after her husband’s death. Left with seven children, my Nana included, my great grandmother found herself looking for options to survive.
“She was terrified for our lives,” my Nana said. “Since we were already poor, it was extremely hard to come by any help or aid… People looked at us differently.” It was not until months later that my grandmother had married a new man. This man was brilliant. “He took care of us. He kept us fed and worked long nights. He loved us and he made your great grandmother very happy,” my Nana choked out to me, as tears swelled in her eyes. “He was the reason we survived.”
The only problem with this man was that he was white and Dutch. “Being poor already gave us a bad reputation where we came from, but integrating cultures like that back in those days was very, very wrong. People began to perceive us as impure and abominations. We became outcasts.”
As my Nana began to grow up, she began to grow a free-thinking mind. She challenged the social norms that were cast upon her. She spoke up and spoke out to the people around her. She was against the grain. She was different. “I was everything a perfect woman was not at that time,” my Nana chuckled. “I was prideful. I realized I had a mind and I had a choice.”
At the age of sixteen, my grandmother found herself in a secret relationship with a very rich, very powerful full-blood Indian man. “His family was a big deal,” my Nana explained. “I remember admiring his sister’s red paisley scarves and brother’s gold embroidered Punjabi’s.”
“We didn’t care though. We loved each other. We were convinced we could be together.” It was then that something unexpected happened to my grandmother.
She got pregnant.
“We didn’t live in a time that allowed these sorts of things to happen. I remember my mother crying because she was scared for our family’s safety.” She continued, “You see, I was already poor and impure, and to have a child, unwed, with a man that was the complete opposite of who I was suppose to be with, was dishonorable and atrocious.”
I could hear in my Nana’s voice the resentment she held for the memory. The bitterness sprang off her tongue and right into the atmosphere around us. She hadn’t revisited this time in her life in a long time. I eagerly waited as she sat in silence remembering.
“One thing you always need to remember Ryan, is you have a choice. Nobody in this world, big or small, can make you choose something you don’t want to do.” She took a deep breath and continued.
“They wanted me to kill your mother. I couldn’t do that. I wanted her. I wanted her more than I wanted my family’s love and shelter. I wanted her more than people want the sun to rise the next morning. The moment your mother was conceived, I knew I had a choice to make. And I did.”
Pregnant with her life and the future life of her daughter in danger, my grandmother did the inconceivable. She ran to the shoreline, hopped on a cargo ship heading to England, and never returned to Kolkata again.
She had no money. She had no purpose. She just had my unborn mother and a new future ahead.
In England, she met an American soldier. He was tall, lanky, and not very strong. He had different thoughts about the world than the people around him. He spoke his mind and followed his heart. He was against the grain. He was different. My Nana found herself falling in love again, this time with a much more relatable figure in her life. Shortly after marrying my Nana, he adopted my mother. He is still my grandfather today.
“We lived in Chelsea, England for about four years with your mother, then your grandfather decided we needed to move to America for the benefit of our future. I didn’t question him. He seemed passionate about this decision,” my Nana explained.
Once they docked in America, my grandmother, grandfather, and mother all lived in a house in Philadelphia for about sixteen years. Soon after, my grandmother and grandfather divorced and my Nana bought a cottage in Orangeburg, Florida where she still resides today.
“I’ve never told anyone that part of my life before. It seems a bit unbelievable when you sit and think about it!” she laughed. As she sat there and reflected upon her life, I digested everything she told me. It was like I was meeting my grandmother for the first time. I always saw her as a tiny, chipper old woman who lived in her shoebox of a home. It wasn’t until after learning about the laborious pathway that got her where she is now, that I started to coin my Nana as the strongest woman alive.
Before ending our conversation I asked my Nana what lessons she learned from her journey, she responded with this…
“My journey still isn’t over yet, my silly grandson.”
