Learning about India is not confined to the hours of lectures. We learn from the lecturers, but we also learn from their younger graduate assistants. As a result, we get to know Uma and Shuba, the two women graduate students who spend hours each day with us. Through them, we sense some of the aspects of family life, and especially women’s roles and status in Indian society.

Both of them directly and indirectly reveal features of their life. Uma discloses features of her life. She is excited about pursuing her doctorate about the life of Indians in Malaysia. Yet, at home, she conveys that it is her less-educated husband who has more authority. Shuba, not Uma, discloses that Uma has had a prior marriage which was unbearable. Because of physical abuse, Uma has to leave that first marriage after only a couple of months. As a result, her parents move from Calcutta (Kolkata) to Madras (Chennai) to live with her. In their eyes, it is unacceptable for a woman to live by herself!

One evening several of us are invited to spend an evening with her extended family at Uma’s father-in-law’s home. Professionally, the father-in-law has been trained as a hospital administrator. Influenced by Gandhi, he did not pursue a career at a large prosperous metropolitan hospital; instead, faithful to the Gandhian ideals, he served in a small town hospital.

During dinner, we learn about the traditional living arrangement which includes several generations and several families living together. In this situation, there are two grandparents, the two sons, their wives, and the children. They eat together from the same kitchen; they share responsibility raising the children; they pool their incomes to provide for the whole family. Yet, as one of the sons says as he drives several of us to our hotel: “While we believe in the extended family, we probably won’t continue after the parents die.” My brother and I, and our families, will probably separate. It is hard for the sisters-in-law always to get along.” While I wonder about his attributing a future break-up of the family to the daughters-in-law, I sense that it is clear to him and others that the centuries’ old traditional extended family is coming to an end.

Our seminar arranged for other informal get-togethers. One night half of the seminar participants go to the home of a middle-class family. Before dinner, a daughter shows us a video of her doctoral work tracing the migratory pattern of Nepalese shepherds in western Nepal. The parents proudly watched their daughter’s work. Proud parents are proud parents the world over!

Family life in India. Relations between grown children and parents. The traditional pattern of family life is changing in India. The dynamics of parents being proud, or anxious, of their children, continues though around the world!