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English 112 Sec. #71

It is said that a person does not know what they have until it is gone. This ideology is quite true in several situations that happen in everyday life. Geeta Kothari it explains how this is true in her short story, “If You Are What You Eat, Then What Am I?” She came to America from India with her parents to start a new life. The whole story is based upon her trying to fit in with the rest of society while she is growing up. Her story progresses from wanting to adapt completely to the American culture, to realizing that she is losing her Indian culture, to completely losing that culture and wishing she had not tried to get rid of it. There have been countless other stories that are along the same lines, but this one is particularly interesting because she portrays her progression through the use of food.

I, like most other people, have had a similar experience. When I was quite young, my parents got me a rabbit for my birthday. This was my second rabbit, the first being one that I barely remember because I was so young. This second rabbit’s name was Tom. I went through phases that were quite similar to Kothari’s experience with her culture. Mine, however, went a little differently. The stages that I went through were not the same as hers which consisted of wanting to get rid of “it”, losing it, and then wishing she had it back. My stages were more along the lines of being amazingly happy that I had “it”, not being excited about having it anymore, losing it, and wishing I could regain it. Mine started with me being nothing short of ecstatic about having my own bunny. I would play with him all the time and go out of my way to make sure that everything was perfect for him. After a while, though, I got bored with this and began lose all of my previous enthusiasm. Eventually, he died, and I realized what a mistake I had made in not treating him the way I had when I first got him. It took me completely losing him to realize that I should have always treated him the way I did when I first got him. I resented myself for pushing something that was so important to me away. I did not know what I had until I lost it.

At the start of her story, Kothari explains how she is ashamed and fairly depressed because her parents will not let her adapt completely to the American culture that all of her classmates have. She explains, “I want to eat what the kids at school eat: bologna, hot dogs, salami…” (21). However, her parents will not let her because they know the food is processed and think it is repulsive. They are, in a sense, trying to protect Geeta from the unhealthy meat that the rest of America eats, yet, on the other hand, they are also trying to preserve Geeta’s Indian culture that she is so strongly trying to leave behind. Kothari explains her feelings in saying, “Indians, of course, do not eat such things” (21). She is expressing her thought that her Indian culture is what is preventing her from being a true American. She, again, isn’t allowed to eat the foods that she would like. She completely takes the home-cooked food that is constantly prepared her for granted. Not once does Kothari mention anything good about the food that her parents prepare. All she says is, “…they disappoint me and my sister” (22). Even though her parents are trying to raise their children well, Geeta and her sister are unappreciative. In that sense they are much like American children. Soon, however, this abandonment of Kothari’s Indian culture will come back to haunt her.

When I was very young, my parents first got me Tom. My porch as enclosed, so I was able to sit out there with him for hours just playing with him or doing whatever it was that made sure that his life was going great. I could not have been happier. When Tom got older, however, he was moved outside into a rabbit hutch that we built for him. I began to lose interest when I realized that I could not play with him anymore and had to go out to feed and give him water every day. I began to resist going out to do these things even when my parents told me to. I was trying to break away from him just as Kothari was with her culture. As Geeta and her sister get older, they actually completely break away from their Indian culture and begin realizing what a mistake it was. Kothari begins realizing her heritage more at this point and shows the reader by talking more and more about the Indian restaurants that were going in close to their house and inviting friends to try some of her food. Now, instead of trying to completely forget her culture, she is trying to spread it among others.

The first time Kothari notices that she is missing her Indian culture is when the family goes back to New Delhi, India to visit their relatives. “My mother talks about ‘back home’ as a safe place…” (24). By this Kothari means that the food prepared in India will not have a chance of harming them. Neither Geeta nor her sister argues with their parents about this statement. During the meal Geeta takes her orange Fanta and proceeds to drink the entire thing. Because her body is not used to the sensation of that much soda, Geeta spends the night vomiting while her mother holds her hair back. She says, “At that moment, more than anything, I want to be like my cousins” (24). This is a complete reversal from how she felt earlier in the story. Geeta now wants to have the Indian culture that her cousins have as opposed to the American culture that she has adapted. Kothari did not realize how much her Indian culture meant to her until she had completely gotten rid of it.

When Tom died, it was luckily because he was old and not because I did not take good enough care of him. However, I still feel guilty in that he might have lived longer had it not been for my care of him. I did not realize what an important part of my life my rabbit was until he was gone. I did not realize how going outside and seeing him hopping around his cage made me happy on a daily basis. Thinking about the good times I used to have with him gave me a feeling of content, and it still makes me happy to reminisce about it. I wish that I could have had more good times with him, but that is the way life goes. You learn from your mistakes, and, hopefully, you will not have to realize how much something meant to you until it is gone, again.

In realizing that she no longer had the Indian culture that her parents were trying to preserve, Kothari frantically tries to grasp on to anything that resembles it. She notes, “I will never make my grandmother’s methi roti or even my mother’s unsatisfactory imitation of it” (25). Kothari puts her mother in a completely different role here and accuses her not of being unsatisfactory for forbidding her children to have American food but instead for not being able to replicate a traditional Indian recipe. Kothari also says, “I attempt chapatti; it takes six hours, three phone calls home, and leaves me with an aching back” (25). She cannot, despite her efforts, regain the culture that she tried to hard to forget earlier in her life. Because of this, Kothari states, “My memory is unreliable” (25). Had she tried to retain her heritage when she was younger, Kothari could have made the dishes that she fails at now because she cannot remember.

Kothari emphasizes this point of not being able to remember by physically switching from past to present in the story. It gives the reader the sense that she, even now, is trying to remember what life was like and is reflecting on the different mistakes she made that led her to forget. Kothari realizes that there is almost nothing left of the life that she used to lead pertaining to her Indian culture. She notices how her boyfriend, “…smells different from me. Foreign. Strange” (27). Kothari later explains that this is because of the different foods that he eats that are American. The foods that she had longed for so much as a child, steak, roast beef, hamburgers, lead her to turn her head from her husband because of the “unfamiliar, musky smell” (27). Kothari knows that everything in her life that she used to hold in such high regard has been completely reversed and now is the cause of her despair.

It took an entire lifetime for Geeta Kothari to lose and realize her loss of her Indian culture just as it took me my rabbit’s enitre lifetime for me to realize what he meant to me. In both cases when we came to the realization, it was too late. She had already done everything that she could to disband it to the extent of her never being able to regain it again. I did the same with Tom. Kothari has to live her life knowing that she made irreversible mistakes that constantly cause her much pain. The point of her writing this story is to share with people in similar situations what could happen if they do not respect the culture that they grew up with. Kothari tries to make sure that nobody else has to go through the pain that she had to endure. I have to live with the fact that I had gone through that with my rabbit just as she did with her culture.

In each of these situations we applied our pain to make something better, though. In my case I took the experience that I had with Tom and learned from it. I knew that I would never again neglect any of my pets. I treat my dog, Riley, with much love and care. In the same respect Kothari treats all other aspects of her life with the same amount of care that she wished that she could have her culture. She is understanding of her husband when he goes out to other places to eat steak and other meals because he knows it bothers her. Also, she goes through the trouble of writing a story about her life so that the same mistakes hopefully will not happen to other people. While this story may be about and easily relate to the value of relationships, it is more about learning from one’s mistakes so that the future can be better for everybody.

Atshekleton 15:42, 21 May 2007 (EDT)