Motiba's Tattoos by Mira Kamdar

Motiba's Tattoos by Mira Kamdar

When Motiba died a whole world disappeared with her. Motiba-"grandmother" in Gujarati-was marked with mysterious signs from a lost era: geometric tattoos on her face and forearms. What did these symbols mean? When had they been etched? Why?

Haunted by the riddle of Motiba's tattoos, Mira Kamdar begins a journey down the hazy, twisting corridors of the past. The deeper she delves, the more she realizes that her family's story is part of a much larger saga. It is one version of the great story of the twentieth century-the story of leaving home, of severing roots, of losing one's tribe; the story of abandoning a rural life firmly anchored in traditions and rituals for the tantalizing prospects of urban existence in an increasingly global consumer culture.

Kamdar's journey begins in Motiba's birthplace, the tiny village of Gokhlana in Kathiawar, India. From Gokhlana, she follows her family as it emigrates from the feudal, rural India of 1900 to the bustling streets of Rangoon in the 1920s and 1930s. The family joins the thriving Gujarati merchant community in Burma, and quickly prospers. But their Burmese idyll is shattered when the Japanese bomb Rangoon in December 1941. After a harrowing flight out of war-torn Burma, the family returns only to be stripped of their riches and expelled by the Burmese dictatorship in the early 1960s.

They start afresh in Bombay. It is there, in Bombay's sumptuous Art Deco movie houses, that the children discover America. Seduced by Hollywood's fantastic portrayal of post-war American life, Kamdar's nineteen-year old father sets off for the United States. We witness his travails as a lonely Indian immigrant in the 1950's, and see how his children and grandchildren grapple with a multi-ethnic identity in the late 20th Century.

With rich, vivid details of her relatives' many fascinating lives, Kamdar deftly evokes the moods and atmospheres of lost times and places. She retraces pivotal historical moments- Satyagraha and India's independence movement, World War II, the "brain drain" years of a triumphant American military-industrial complex, the borderless, dot.com world of the Indian diaspora today-but never strays from the intimate experiences of her remarkable family.

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More Praise for Mira Kamdar's Motiba's Tattoos

"From the Bible to Homer's Odyssey to Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, the journey or quest has been a staple motif of Western literature. Mira Kamdar's Motiba's Tattoos is a welcome addition to that list." Thrity Umrigar, Washington Postx

"Kamdar provides evocative descriptions of the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of India . . . her family's story illuminates a much larger picture of the Indian experience in the 20th century." — Seattle Times

"The history of the Gujarati diaspora is one of the great unwritten narratives of pre-modern globalization. This finely written, well-researched memoir is not just an important first step towards the telling of this story: It is also a very good read." — Amitav Ghosh, author of The Calcutta Chromosome and The Glass Palace

"[MOTIBA'S TATTOOS] is the story of leaving home, severing roots, and losing one's tribe . . . a triumph of sorts for the family and yet another colorful addition to the complex cultural mosaic that is America." — India Today