Skyline Drive: A Little More Asian Than I Thought

Warning.

The following episode involves alchemy, treasure hunts, costco deals, palm reading on babies, and custom T shirts. Sensitive listeners, please take care.

Yeah, my parents are very demanding. They're very funny, but they are fucking tons of work. Am I l to cuss?

Yeah?

Okay, good.

For the record. I am not used to hearing any choice curse. In fact, I'm not really used to seeing her in person. I mostly know Any as an animated character from the show Brain Pop. And I'm not sure if no brain pop, but my family certainly does. Let's let my younger kid, Ruby explain.

Yeah. So it's like this really cool program where there's actually a boy named Tom or a girl named Annie.

And there's like this robot named Movie.

No Movie.

This isn't a gift for you.

I made it for Tasha. Well, you know we're doing the show about Annie.

Right, really?

Oh that's really cool.

How would you describe Annie?

She teaches us a lot about like math and reading and writing and stuff like that. Her pants are always jeans, and she is in pigtails and does she have glasses? Yes, she does classes. She says in one of the episodes that she is Korean. She's definitely like a very mellow person.

But real life Annie, she's about my age, with nerd cheek glasses, a warm smile, chunky jewelry. Yeah, she's It's definitely funnier and spicier than animated Annie.

I don't know where my mom picked up Jesus, but it totally bled into like a lot of the things that she does in terms of decor. Like you go to her house and it looks like a Catholic church gift shop. Do you need like this many crucifixes?

Can we just have one?

Instead of teaching me or a robot about the word responsibility.

Responsibility is something you should do, chores at home, homework, following the rules.

Today, she's trying to define responsibility for herself.

I see other friends whose parents are so independent, you know, and they're like, they're white. Their parents are doing their own thing, going on trips, and like my mom literally asking me to buy stuff on Amazon for them because they don't know how to do it.

Annie's brother lives near her parents in California, while she lives in New York, but because of her family dynamics, the brunt of caring for them falls to her.

I think It's like a dynamic of Korean family is where the older boy gets to do whatever they want and the younger girl has to literally do everything. It's like classic gender roles.

And while she hates the gender dynamic, these are still her parents. She wants to help them.

It's a pain in my ass, but it's sort of like time to return the favor.

I guess the responsibility is something you should.

Do, which I think is a pretty classic Asian upbringing thing too. I'm a little bit more Asian than I thought it was, I guess, which is kind of annoying.

It's like, ah, and as her mom and dad are getting older and a little more helpless, Annie is something she desperately wants to know who's.

Going to die first, my mom and her dad, because there's an answer that I want.

It's so dark. From Kaleidoscope and iHeart Podcasts, I'm Mongish Articular Welcome the Skyline Drive, Chapter one, an Ideal Boy. As a kid visiting Hindia, one of the things I remember were these colorful classroom posters that looked like they were pulled from an Indian version of Highlights magazine. Sometimes they teach you Hindi. Sometimes they teach you about seasons or bad behaviors to avoid. But the one I really remember was.

Titled an ideal Boy with Good Habits in parenthesis under it.

As I was trying to find the posters online, I ended up chatting about them with my kid Henry, And this one says an ideal boy gets up early in the morning, salutes his parents, goes for a morning walk, brushes his teeth, helps others.

He bathes daily praise to God, takes meals in time like I guess what it means is like he doesn't snack.

I'm not an ideal boy.

You are an ideal boy. So what do you think about a poster like this? Should we put this up in your room?

I mean it helped me a lot. Helps you do what salute my parents?

Of course, the charts and the posters make it all seem very easy, but as we all know, and Annie in particular knows, family isn't easy.

I've written two books. One is called Happy Birthday or whatever, and the other one is shut Up, You're welcome. They're both books about growing up with my crazy family.

Recently, her mom's fallen ill, which means Annie's been traveling back and forth more, and while her dad still works, he essentially leans on Annie's mother for everything else.

My dad can't even like make toast. He's like, how does this work. I'm like, it's a machine. You push the button. Like he can't. It's learned helplessness.

So there are day to day things Annie worries about, but she's also concerned about the future. One huge hurdle is figuring out what to do with their collection of random stuff.

Imagine never having thrown out a pair of shoes from when you were born. So my parents' garage there's like suitcases with broken wheels, a credenza, two giant filing cabinets, a desk, a sewing table. It's just like shit like that. Like a vacuum cleaner that's like that avocado green that was big in the seventies that like definitely doesn't work. And my dad has a duct tape it's filled with

In some ways, Annie understands.

You know, they grew up at the twilight of the Crane War, so there's very few resources and people were starving, and I get it, and we want to hold onto everything. It's like you save every single fucking thing, like you're never gonna see it again.

But to Annie, there's something incongruous about how the only truly American value that our parents seem to have picked up over the years was over consumption.

They shop at Costco, which is totally evil. There's only two people by the way, so like, you don't need like a twenty pound bag of flour, but you know it's such a good deal, Annie, Like you got to buy it. The upbringing of like not having enough and the americanness of like having too much, both of these are inhabiting them and me trying to be like, you don't need any of this stuff.

Annie's dad is a chemist. His job is to take objects like old electronics and jonkin estimate how much gold is in them.

It's like a super weird niche He's basically an alchemist, and.

That's led him to invest in gold. But because Annie's parents are so disorganized, no one seems to know where it is.

He just has gold. It's hidden. He told me it's hidden. I mean it probably in the garage, right, But he refuses to sell any of it because gold is down. But it's like, I don't know what he's waiting for, you know, because the man is old. I would like him to sell the gold and actually use that money to like live his life.

While making this show, I've been thinking a lot about what we owe our parents, what they owe us, our obligations to one another. So I asked my son, Henry, have we ever talked about the four stages of Hindu life.

I've not talked about Hindu life at all.

The first stage is called a brahmacharya, and that means like you're a student, and so it's like when you're a kid and your student and you're supposed to spend all your days and study and like really understanding things so that you have a grasp of knowledge.

I like that idea better. It's as good grades.

That actually brings us to like the second stage of life, being a householder. So it's like taking care of your kids, getting a good job, taking care of your parents, like that type of thing. What do you think about that?

That's a great rule.

I mean you also should like love your family and taking care of people is a very important rule in life.

And then the third stage of life is like, once you've gotten your kids married and settled and all that stuff, then you want to retreat from your life. Right, so this is when you're older. You want to start getting rid of your stuff. You want to start volunteering, want to start going to temples more or ostroums. What do you think about that?

It definitely makes sense because after your life has been like structured, you're gonna want to top it off with some icing on the cake and start to relax.

What's the fourth step?

The fourth step is is really sort of preparing for death in a way, And so it's spending a lot of time in prayer and meditation and quiet and forests and nature and how should we put in Yeah.

Like, after you've done all that, just take a minute to breathe in that fresh nature air, pray a little bit so that your afterlife will be nice and healthy. Sit back, watch your grandchildren play, and have last days that you have be beatingful.

Chapter two, Starting points.

She said, ooh, you still broke his coat up.

Not a boy as the fucking man. Just hold out. Yeah, man, I'm paying homs like I was from the.

Talent bit.

In Vedic astrology, Knowing the minute you're born is key to understanding your life because the planets and stars, they're all in constant motion, right, So like the difference of a single minute can dramatically change your personality, it can change your career, it can change your love life. All of your happiness comes down to which specific minute you were born. Henry, do you know what birth sign you are?

I'm pretty sure I'm a Virgo.

I also asked Ruby, I'm a aries. What does that mean to you?

They tend to be very cheerful and popular and feisty and tall, which is incorrect for our family because me and my mom were definitely not tall. But zodiacs are there to like tell you what this is who you are. It's not always who you are, and it's also like you could listen to it or you don't have to. Yeah, and I really don't care about all that, because you define who you are not the day that you were born on.

Of course, some people put a whole lot more stock in their star signs than my kids do, and these days it's become more and more common for wealthy Indian parents to game their children's life and their horoscopes through elective C section. They enlisted in astrologer and pick the exact sixty second window that an obgyn has to deliver that baby.

People who just come in and say, Okay, I want to delivery on this particular date, this particular time, or this particular hour, so on and so forth.

That's doctor Mccaishkua, a Mumbai based obstetrician.

With my primary focus on delivering babies.

Doctor Kopa is no ordinary obg yn. When I met him, I noticed all these things sparkling from his shelves. I look around this room and they're like forty different words. Can you can you tell me a little bit about just your achievements here?

Oh?

Okay, So I'm a hard core scientific person, but the patient wants this and we need to know about this.

Yeah, and we need to.

Learn about this and understand this astrology or But then I have to not forget about my core competency of which they are coming here.

Yeah.

So I cannot compromise this on that.

The awards are this visual reminder to patients that he clearly knows what he's doing. Beyond graduating at the top of his medical class, doctor Goupa has advanced degrees in psychological counseling and a strategy management degree from one of India's top business schools. He has up ethics boards and shared state boards for doctors. And when politicians in Mumbai were trying to convince the public to heed warnings about COVID and go get their shots, it's doctor Gupa they put up on the podium.

Now, what are these different type of masks.

There are simple masks which are available, which are one fly or two flying masks which are easily available.

Anyway, despite all these trophies and bona fides, doctor Guppa still has to contend with his patient's astrological ambitions.

The turning point k when there was a serious situation when I came out of the delivery room and I informed about the delivery and the good news, and the grandfather of the child was born was more concerned about the precision of the time and he was asking me the details and what time the head came out, what time the baby cried?

What time did you cut the cord?

The questions alarmed him, especially because delivering this healthy baby had taken almost a miracle.

If you want me to look at and keep track of all these things, and I should not deliver the woman.

Then I would just be watching the time man. I would read the time manager.

The situation would have irritated most people, but because doctor Guppa thinks deeply about patient care, he tried to look at it from another angle.

There is a window of one and a half minutes, okay, after which the things will change. So, whether it is a constellation, whether it is a joggadias, everything has a window of time.

Look, every part of parenting is hard. Bringing a child into this world as hard. Raising a child as hard. There are so many responsibilities. Parents constantly worry that they're not doing enough to advocate for their kids or to secure their futures. And you see the compromises people make all the time to give their kids a better life. And if you really believe in astrology, why wouldn't you adjust the time of your c section and give your

There was not exhibition that this couple had come and creaking for an abortion.

I knew I'd come here to learn about time births, but I had no idea that we'd be discussing terminating pregnancies and the role astrology plays in that. According to doctor Gupta, this couple came in for a consult. They wanted a family, They wanted to have a child. It's just they didn't want a child with a bad horoscope. Doctor Guppa shook his head as he told me the story.

You know the child is going to get both in this month and this particular data. I don't want to have a child at that time.

I mean, I'm pro choice, but I couldn't fathom the logic, like, if you legitimately want to bring a child into the world, a birth sign shouldn't matter.

If somebody tells me to put away all my instincts and information and knowledge, no I would not. We tried to accommodate everybody's beliefs without losing our primary focus of what is the right thing to do.

We finished our coffees and before I let him go, I asked Doctor gupa one last question about this sonographer from the Middle East with a peculiar side hustle. This specialist claims to read the palms of children in utero and then determines the best moment for their birth. Of course, he charges very wealthy families a bomb for that information, and he refused to speak with me on the record, so I got doctor Gupta's opinion instead.

I have an extremely costly machine, a sonography machine from one of the top companies globally, and even with the best of the machines, in the best of these, you cannot really read the lines on the bomb.

Most fetuses bawled their hands into fists. He told me, you almost never see a palm in the womb, so.

It's a myth.

So that is probably a very smart ass was trying to make money out of someone.

Re Listening to this tape now makes me think of Annie and this time in grad school, one of her friends just kind of grabbed her hand and.

She like, read my palm and she was like, you're going to die really early, and I'm like, why would you tell me that?

And then another friend jumped in the peak and.

She said, yeah, you're going to die early, and I'm like, why do people tell me this? I was like laughing because the lines of my weird ass palms, what does early even mean.

Annie jokes that she started wearing gloves after that, just to avoid another surprise reading.

You never know where they are lurking around the corner, these pom readers.

Chapter three, killing them softly. Wait, have you had any encounters with astrology?

Because I yes, of course I have.

You have?

Of course, Well tell me from the first time, like when what was the first time that you all know?

How much time do you have?

It's the end of summer. My sister and I haven't talked much since my dad's passing. We've been distracting ourselves in different ways. She's been busy planning her wedding, I've been traveling for the show. Our rare conversations have been around hence subjects, how to help her mom, how to deal with life insurance or close my dad's accounts. Shota's younger than me, and we're some in a lot of ways.

So Amama, our grandma, wanted me to get my horoscope read.

Our Amama is our mom's mom, and after Shanta was done with college, she sent shatas details off to this legendary astrologer in Dharwad and he was kind of an older man known for his skill at reading charts.

He died in the middle of reading this horoscope, which wasn't great.

Then my grandmom tried to send Shanta's birth details to the former astrologer's apprentice, and.

Then he got really sick while apparently like my horoscope was in front of him, and I heard about that. I was like, okay, no, like, no more people reading my horoscope. This seems like a really bad thing.

I didn't remember any of this, but it left a lasting impression on Shanpa.

So I've always been like, Okay, there's something out there that I'm not supposed to know my horoscope because I never get to see it. It's almost like you don't need to know more. That's how I interpreted.

I can't believe my sister was satisfied with not getting her reading back. That would make me crazy. I only want to know my forecast even more. It drove my mom's mom crazy too, because she really just wanted to hear someone tell her your granddaughter will get married by such and such a date, So she started pounding the pavement for other leads and dragging my sister across Bangalore. Or the various astrologers, they were.

Never very specific about stuff with me. So one of the guys he gave a lot of information about my health, but then when it came to when I was going to marry someone, he said, her life before thirty will be good and her life after thirty will be good. And IMMO is very dissatisfied with an answer old, How old am I now forty one and you're getting married? Yes, so my life before was good in my life after is good. It was accurate, just not specific enough.

When I hear this tape, it makes me feel like we're typical Indians, but we're really not. I mean, in American pop culture, the way Indians are represented, there are only two or three storyline tropes. There's the kid who secretly wants to be an artist, but his parents want him to be an engineer. Or there's a kid who wants to date someone of a different class or non Indian, but their family doesn't approve, or they think their family

I want my mom to live longer.

Whatever you might want or think you want, do you really want to know if you get it? Chanta made a really good point. Sometimes you don't really need to know the future anyway. That's in the back of my mind. As we get going one seconds.

You are a Virgo sun, a Virgo moon, and a Virgo rising. That's pretty rare for someone to have all three of their major legs sun, moon, and rising in one sign.

As usual, even through the screen, Janelle radiates warmth and comfortable energy, and.

I think about Virgo. I think about Beyonce right. Tireless practice. You never turn off your mind because you're always thinking about what do I have to do next, how do I plan?

How do I get ahead? Which is great, we could also be very tiring.

She does seem tired to me, tired of having to deal with these problems, tired of being the organized one who has to carry everyone's anxiety and swoop into solve issues that don't have to be issues.

Okay, So do you want to dive into the parent question first or are there other things you want to talk about before that?

Noah, I mean the parent question is certainly, you know, one that's been on my mind. My mom had a second open heart surgery, which meant the whole family had to go through that again, which we need, particularly as the only daughter, to be the one bearing a lot

As Annie makes these confessions, Janelle starts looking for Annie's parents in her chart.

So I'm wondering if you and your mom have somewhat of a complicated relationship in terms of her larger than life presence can also feel kind of overbearing at times, and I don't know if this is something where one parent or both parents kind of thrown kind of like cold water on your dreams in a way, and you had to kind of fight to overcome that. But at the same time, there's some really great career stuff happening in your life.

And today our company just got sold.

You do have Jupiter and Ares right now in the house of other people's money, so selling the business, so money that comes from the business, that's great, right, Yeah, But I do think financially it almost feels like in your chart right now, it feels like your money is disappearing in weird ways. No, not to make you scared, but if you're like, I don't know, like is it being siphoned off?

Anny had helped her parents out in a pinch, learning them money to buy a new car, but now they're probably going to need help with medical bills.

I mean, the thing is, we have the money, but it's in solid gold form.

You show up as someone who serves behind the scenes, or you do the work and no one really knows and you know you're not getting a lot of praise for it.

But that can also be a lot of frustration too.

Janelle sympathizes with any but she also lets her know she's probably been here before.

So for you, Saturn, moving into Pisces is going to be in your seventh house of relationships. So Saturn takes about thirty years to get around the wheel. You might want to think about, well, what was happening in nineteen ninety three to about ninety five ninety six, because this is a reup or redo of that story.

Oh no, don't make me re live the nineties again.

While Annie contemplates a time of too much flannel and bucket hats, Janelle focuses the conversation on Annie's life specifically, As it turns out, when Annie was in college, her mom was fighting off cancer.

Now we have thirty years, so mom's a little bit older now, right, So this might be a tougher go around because time has passed, and also timing is such if mom, and this is not to spook you at anyway, but if mom chooses that she's raided to leave, that's not something that you can control either. Right.

That line chooses to leave catches my ear, Janelle phrases it so delicately, it knocks me back.

So this is a very big existential crisis kind of Saturn where.

We're just like what is life?

Right?

Like, why is life? Why is this happening?

Like this is a situation that's gonna be very challenging emotionally for us. And are we going to lean into our analytical try to fix everything or are we just gonna feel it right?

Right?

Yeah, don't beat yourself up like this is not helpful, Annie, this is not constructive. Who cares? I'm tired, I'm sad. You know, I want to cry in bed today. Yeah, so if that comes up.

For you, try not to beat yourself up so much.

Okay?

Chapter five, She's a real beast, right, we got no stop. What do you think about when Mama and I get older?

Hopefully I planned to start family or like like you guys are my family, but I planned to get married and have a younger generation.

You want to be a debt?

Yeah, definitely. I love kids.

And what about what about with us, like when we are Onima's age?

I think we would definitely take care of you.

And if you were like a name, like a little money, can you retire you're not really working anymore? Would probably give you a sub Once you guys get around retirement age. I'll be like, you do you well you get over the age of seventy five.

You guys give a couple of about my place.

I smile when I hear this, and then I look around Henry and Ruby's messy room where we're taping. If I'm going to move in with them when I'm seventy five, we've got to teach them how to tidy up. Janelle's left the chat and I'm sitting with Annie for the debrief. I know Annie's a skeptic.

I'm not like a big astrology person. I'm too virgo for that.

And the reading was a little heavier than I was expecting, so I'm curious how she's feeling. Was there anything you heard that was surprising.

I didn't know about like the thirty years coming back to things. I thought that was kind of bizarre and interesting. So like my mom having cancer, I'm like, oh, yeah, and it's like coming back to her heart situation.

Now in that period, did you have to be as present as you've been now?

Not really, because at the time I was in college, so I didn't have the same responsibilities. They also like hit it for me, which is classic classic Asian family you just get a's at college. So I'm just not going to tell you that I'm like secretly in chemo and it's sucking for me.

Oh my god.

So I know, right, it's like the worst that to your kids. Please, So I think, like then, I felt helpless, So this time around, I'm feeling a little too helpful.

Parents hiding things from you to let you focus on your studies. Yeah, I know that all too well. When I was in college, my dad lost his job. My parents had never really saved for schooling, and when I found this out, I felt guilty about being at a school I knew my parents couldn't afford because I didn't really have a sense of how bad their finances were. At first, I knew they took loans. I took out loans.

Mom being six sucks, right, it's up the first time. It sucks a second time. It's annoying, it's frustrating.

It's scary.

I was so worried that Annie would feel like the challenges ahead were insurmountable, but she took it in stride from talking to her parents about finances and what to do with all this gold.

Yeah, yeah, you can't like go to Kaiser and be like, hey, here's a bully on Like, I don't know how much it's worth that.

Annie is so resilient. It's hardening to me. My real worry is that Annie knows she can deal with her mom.

She's a real beast. Yeah, I have no doubt that she'll like come out of this, you know, a new person or better, stronger, healthier, new heart whodys lady.

But her dad's another story. They don't see eye to eye. And while we never explicitly asked Janelle to tell us who might die first, the thing I heard in the reading was Janelle bracing Annie for the worst.

I mean, honestly, like, my dad has to die first. My mom literally does everything I think I just need to like get them to start smoking again, or you know, like yeah, like you should get in and out. I don't know what else to do this because I've never met an adult man more ill prepared to live in a penalty in my life.

Yea, The truth is, I don't think the years ahead are going to be easy for Annie.

Responsibility is something you should do.

There's so many health concerns that will ultimately land on our plate. There's so much stuff in that garage. There's a lot of gold Locate.

You know, crane Zone. Everyone say I'm happy, I'm having a great time, such an Instagram influencer thing, which I do not get, like, look at my great life. What I do is like, look how shitty my life is right now. I'm look at this piece of trash I found, you know, in my mom's house, Like look at this, Like that's like my whole vibe.

Chapter six. I can't make you happy, I can't make you sad. That night, when my sister and I were together, the conversation slipped towards my dad. I mean, how could it not. We told each other little things my dad had revealed in the hospital in his moments of weakness on those last few days. That's when she told me this.

Yet it was at that point I was trying to get him to go to the bathroom. Dad, you should probably try and go to the bath I can help you up and you have to walk and whatever. And I was like, kind of Mom had told me to be a little pushy, so it's like trying to get him to do it. And he looked to me and he was like, I can't make you happy and I can't make you sad.

My dad was an incredibly sweet and good natured man, but he could be hard to read. He didn't like to talk about the past. Most of what my sister and I know about his childhood isn't gleaned from him or even my mom. It's stories we've stitched together from family members in India. How he was so smart that he went to college at age twelve. How he was a really good table tennis player and used to be

And I said, Dad, I'm not sad about anything, and he was like, no, Shanta, I can't make you happy and I can't make you sad. And I was like no, Dad, Like I'm just asking you to go to the bathroom. It's gonna be okay.

But Chanta knows what he means. He's clearly not talking about the bathroom.

And I was trying to think like an analogy, you know, to help him put into perspectives.

I was like, Dad, when your dad died, it was probably.

Pretty hard for you. You were okay, and you bounced back and life goes on and you're gonna be okay. So I was like, yeah, I'll be sad when you die, but you know it'll be okay.

My dad, who could be so tight lipped in that moment, He's like, no, Shaanpa, my dad died.

I was sad and I was happy. I was sad because he was gone, but I was happy because I could never make him happy. And that was really heartbreaking.

The thing that's only occurred to me since having children is as a parent, you prioritize what you didn't get from your parents, and you discount the things you did. And for whatever shortcomings my dad might have had, he never hesitated to show us love. He couldn't walk past

Dad, you know, whether you tell us or not, whether you say it out loud, I know you're proud of us, and I know you're proud among Ish. I know you're proud of me. And he shook his head and he said.

That moment got me wondering do we show our kids enough love? Do they know how much they mean to us? Do you think you and Henry make me and Mama proud?

Yeah?

I do.

I do think we do. Thank you, Goad. It's like also like a Jew's father was a hard parent.

A Jew is what my kids call my dad. It's a company word for grandfather.

Like his mom died at a very young age, but his dad was just like, Oh, you look like my wife, but you know I can't have you around here.

I'd forgotten about this until Ruby mentioned it. It's true. My grandmother, who I never met and died just a year after my father was born. Famously had this warm and magnetic personality. My granddad was so in love with her he could never bring himself to remarry, and her face haunted him. He could see her in the children, and as much as my grandfather loved my dad and his sister, his heart broke over and over each time he looked at them.

So I think if you had like a dad like you, he definitely would have felt like the way you mean, Hanno did, were like, we do feel like we've lived up to the expucitations, and we do feel like we've made you fad.

As I talked with my kids about life about my dad, it became apparent how I'm not the only one feeling the loss. In fact, Henry still wears a shirt that says a jew power. This T shirt my father in law made for all of us to raise my dad's spirits. What does that mean to you?

So my grandpa on my other side made a T shirt for my grandpa who was dying from cancer, and.

I love that shirt. Guys.

My grandpa was a great man.

And that shirt showed we were there for him. He is now deceased, but hopefully he's looking down at us. I'm looking at that shirt and uh he's happy.

Henriam, I love you so much, kiddy, I love you too.

Out the Deep by your team, the Bigger, the Hot, the Deep by the Strong, oh lousing, my bad, bad Sway.

Skyline Drive is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeart Podcast. This show is hosted and written by me Mungas s articular, but I'm whooping you know by now. A show is not one person, and so I've got a million people to thank. Mary Philip Sandy is our incredible supervising producer. Thank you so much for finding Annie Mary Metapha. He somehow made time to produce for us in between dealing with her frisky new puppy. Mark A. Lotto is the