I
am writing this from a marble island counter-top, in a sunny kitchen in South
Orange, New Jersey. This is a home filled with love and laughter in the face of
many difficulties – a home to family-friends that has been a beacon of warmth
and care for me since I began visiting New York in 2005. This home has been my
happy place – my emotional release valve – since I moved from India to the US
in 2015. The man of the house attended St. Xavier’s College in Bombay with my parents
in the 80s and they form part of a jolly friend group that has stayed together,
multiplied and evolved over the last 40 years. There are five or so other
families in this family-friend cluster that I consider to be more family than
friends. Recently I thought about what has held their friendship together and
why I feel so at peace with myself when I’m around them. I realized that wherever
in the world I’ve lived, the aspects of my Indian identity that I feel most
connected to are reflected in the values that the Xavier’s gang lives by. The
Xavier’s gang of 50-somethings hang out with their Xavier’s friends’ kids –
just as their own kids do! Strangely, it is in the company of these middle-aged
moms and dads that I can be my authentic self. They make it so easy to be
yourself. What on earth did that college teach them?
For
the uninitiated, Xavier’s was founded by Jesuit priests in 1869 in South Bombay.
I have not spent that much time on campus but I remember the beautiful architecture
and the greenery and sense of space that surrounds it – a certain lightness and
airiness that I felt so rarely in the rest of the city. I think two things
happened that brought this Xavier’s gang together. The first was that the boys
all grew up in relatively educated, suburban middle-class households. They
did not grow up poor but they were not South Bombay elite in mindset or pocketbook
either. It seems there was a drive among them to learn about and explore the
world, rather than simply continue a family business and/or accumulate wealth. So there
was a self-selection into Xavier’s even before the Indo-Gothic halls
could whisper their magical hymns.
From
what I’ve learned about Xavier’s, the ethos of the institution is about critical
thinking, social activism, tolerance, diversity and inclusion rather than
simply academic or sporting excellence, for example. This is the second part of
the Xavier’s experience that I think turned the Xavier’s gang into the
progressive, kind, liberal bunch of wise-cracking air-guitarists they are today.
In many ways, it seems Xavier’s was ahead of its time since those are the same buzzwords
that schools, colleges and workplaces around the world seek to tattoo on their
foreheads today.
Perhaps
calling Xavier’s a ‘liberal arts school’ is going too far, but from what I have
gathered from smitten alumni, it was a university that attracted well-rounded
candidates and sought to round and ground them further in its core values. When
my parents and the Xavier’s gang recount college stories, they’re always tales
of music festivals, sports tournaments, rainy treks… not so much about the
classes or their career office. Somehow, while the rest of the city (the country?)
was striving for academic perfection, these brave Jesuits were trying to fill
young Indians with empathy. My parents talk about the university staff – ‘Father’
this and ‘Brother’ that – more as mentors and confidantes than professors or
teachers and have maintained astonishingly close bonds to those kindly old men
to this day. I could name on one hand the professors I remember from my undergrad in the UK.
And while I’m connected to my high school and undergrad friends, it’s not like
we meet every year (or our kids live in each other’s homes) the way the
Xavier’s mob operates.
When
my sister and I were young and our parents would introduce us to members of The
Gang, all they had to say was that these were “Xavier’s friends” and no further
explanation was necessary. That name and the friends who carried it hold
certain inalienable values that I’ve only recently been able to put my finger
on. They exhibit the form of secularism and tolerance that makes me proud to be
Indian. They live the Indian values that I most closely identify with.
Look
at this extract from the charter of the Xavierites of Bangalore alumni group:
“We cherish values such as
pluralism, liberalism, social responsibility and freedom of thought that we
have imbibed from St. Xaviers, and which in turn, we wish to propagate. We also
desire to champion worthy causes which reflect the values we cherish.
We,
the Alumni accept that there are a number of worthy causes which might meet the
desired criteria. We accept that the first such initiatives might be modest in
scope. We accept that more than the need to achieve width or scale of coverage,
is the need to make a beginning.”
I
was astonished when I read the charter. It felt like someone had distilled my
entire world-view and raison d'être – something I’d been trying to crystallize for years – into a 1-page word document.
It
seems I trace a large part of my Indian identity to… my parents’ college? This
is weird, right? I’m not saying everyone at Xavier’s is like this, but I do
think The Gang is the way they are because of Xavier’s. They have even
picked up friends over the years who never went to Xavier’s but in our minds
they are all part of the Xavier’s Gang because they share the same values.
Some
in the squad are more religious than others and those who practice, do so
privately and in a way that even this staunch atheist can accept and cherish.
When I heard them talk about social issues as a kid, they were always quick to
criticize religious bigotry or gender-based discrimination. (Jokes about their
wives do not count.) They hate politicians for being corrupt, not because of what
party they were from. They love India enough to call out its flaws; those who
live abroad pepper their homes with the country’s essence (plurality, debate, etc…
as well as a rogue Ganesh figurine here and there). They love Indian music as
well as Western music – they loved music because it was good, not
because of who sang it. While all of them have done well for themselves and
their families, they never ever ever ever talked about money obnoxiously or flaunted
their wealth; conversations around material possessions are always tempered by
Bandra-convent-school humility. It is so different to the energy in other well-to-do
Indian living rooms where people become experts at talking about themselves,
their newly acquired toys or the job their kid got with Goldman Stanley and Googazon
or Bainkinsey.
When
I look at my closest friends today – people in the late 20s or early 30s just
starting to get married and have kids – I wonder if we will make the effort to travel and see each other, to stay as connected, to use our friendship as a
foundation to build meaningful lives on. I hope so. Some of my closest friends are moving
away from New York because of Covid. I am sad that I won’t get to be in the
same city as them when their kids are born. I guess we have to trust that the
bedrock of our connection is solid enough that it will endure the stresses of
life on this curious planet. What work and sacrifice must have gone into
keeping the Xavier’s ties strong? Or was it effortless? I wonder how the
internet will impact my generation’s ability to cultivate family-friend groups.
My sense is that we’ll remain connected to a lot more people, but not as
closely as the Xavier’s mafia has stayed connected to itself.
What
a gift their friendship has been to my life. How grateful I am that my parents
went to a liberal, open-minded institution and built friendships with humble
humans who work across such different professions. How thankful I am that my
folks did not go to IIT/IIM – not that there is anything wrong with those great
institutions or the sacred friend circles they must have bellowed out over the
years. I’m just glad we’re Xavier’s kids who are as happy listening to Lucky
Ali with an uncle and aunty in Washington DC as we are listening to Dire
Straits with an aunty and uncle in Bangalore. Somewhere along the way the
air-guitarists all learned to play off the same hymn sheet.
