Casement

Parents in the US are trying hard to protect their kids from getting Americanized. I understand their concern. But, what I don't understand is how they plan to achieve that with funny exercises like giving Indian suffixes to names.

I think most of us grew up addressing women and men as "Auntie" and "uncle" respectively in the 1980s. Would that mean we were Americanised? I don't see a reason why desi parents try to make their kids address men and women as "mama" and "maami" irrespective of age, language, nationationality, to induce cultural heritage.

One of my cousin's son, like every other desi kid sports a natural American accent, and ends up confusing everyone including himself between Mommy and Mami! It is so absurd to hear him say things like - "Cop mama, Kroger mami etc. Out of vested interest, I decided to wean this kid from the habit of calling 20 odd year old girls mami and introduced the word "AKKA" to him yesterday.

During the forty minutes drive, I started like our Superstar mama "Akka sollu...Akka sollu...Akka sollu..." and ended up with Vadivel mama's "vendam alududuven" when the kid went "Inda mami peru akka"!!!