I've started a new thread as this is going off on a different tack from Arvind's "Adopting to the Indian life-styles andhabits" With the object of provoking even more interesting and profound thoughts from the List, I'd like to consider the post Indian Raj era (1940's 1950's) and what those that left India did, specially those of us with mixed blood (call it what you will - Indian + something) Basing my thoughts on what I have read on the list, as far as I see there were several different kinds of emmigrant of those times: - Those that went to other countries and have kept up their contacts and continue to have AI meetings, large family units (i.e. keeping in touch and meeting up) . From what I see on the list this has happened in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. There was no shame attached to being Indian or Anglo Indian - you were just another immigrant. - Those who moved away from the original emmigrated family nucleus, married someone local and conveniently forgot about their origins, never telling their children. This was my case. My mother stoutly denied any Indian blood, never had any photos of her family (specially her father) on the dresser or in the album. I never knew that there was possible Indian blood until I investigated the family tree. An Uncle of mine came to the UK about 10 years after my mother and was shunned because he had married a "darky" No mention was made of the fact that great grandfather was more than a little dark and that there were a couple of aunts who looked asian. Of course, these were signs of the times. Because immigration of foreign nationals is/was the acceptable norm in the Commonwealth, those going there could show their origins. However. In the U.K. in the 1940's 1950's, having mixed blood was completely unacceptable. It was on a par with illegitimacy (how many of us have discovered during our investigations that some of our ancestors were born "on the other side of the blanket"? My paternal grandfather for example. His wife knew (I think) but his children didn't.) Speaking of the British Raj, don't forget those, unmixed blood, white colonial types who went "home" after 3 or 4 generations in the "East" (be it India or any of the other colonised countries in Africa or the Middle East) and filled their houses with trophies, talked endlessly about their lives there, etc. They were usually military men and were called "the Captain" or "the Colonel" by their oh so correct wives. A lot of them emmigrated to Spain from the UK in the 60's and 70's because their blood was accustomed to warmer climes and their pension didn't go very far in the UK.. They would treat the "locals" as if they were "natives", never bothering to learn the language and, in short, behave just as I would imagine they did in the colonies. Luckily most of them are no longer with us. Food for thought! Denise Hughes Weston (an emmigrant herself, living in Spain for 40 years)