Seattle Snapshots

— Bharat Pathakjee

Bharat Pathakjee has been bicoastal for a while now, and we asked him for his take on life in Seattle compared to life in Tampa Bay. — Editor

I have had long relationship with Seattle, starting with the Boeing jet that brought me to the U.S. in the early 1970’s. Hindus always strive to reach Nirvana, but who knew that it was in Seattle? Not all Indians have been so fortunate here. In 1907—well before my time, of course—a white mob violently targeted a group of South Asian immigrants, most of them Sikh laborers from Punjab, who were working in the local lumber mills. Sweeping aside the feeble efforts of local law enforcement, they completely drove them from the community.

South Asian immigrants to Canada—just a bit north—fared no better. In 1914, the Komagata Maru (not to be confused with the Kobayashi Maru), carrying 376 Indian passengers, was denied entry to Canada due to racist immigration laws. After two months in Vancouver Harbor, the ship was forced back to India. Upon arrival, British authorities clashed with passengers, killing nineteen. The event fueled anti-colonial resistance and diaspora activism.

As I have mentioned in the past, I grew up in India and came to the U.S. at the “mature” age of 23. Thinking that all Americans had the same beliefs (Mom, baseball, and apple pie), I was initially astounded at the extent of the North-South divide a hundred years after the Civil War. In a diverse country like India I was well aware of North-South differences in appearance, language, culture, diet, and religious practices and expected geographic friction. But in the United States?

We rediscovered Indian North-South differences here in Seattle when we went to the local Indian grocery store. Instead of the usual Bollywood tunes, the piped-in music fare was in Tamil or Telugu, both of which are beyond my ability to understand. The linguistic difference between Boston and New Orleans is one of accent and dialect. Hindi, Tamil, and Telegu are completely different languages. Think Icelandic, Finnish and Hungarian.

The US has moved forward in race relations in the last hundred years, and we were not threatened by unemployed lumberjacks when we arrived. The City of Bothel where we moved has a 23% Asian Indian population, many of whom are H1B workers who will wait for decades for the coveted green card.

While out on my daily run, I have to smile when I see signs like this one compared to Florida’s MAGA messages.

My run also takes me past the Hindu Temple, which is ironic for a nonbelieving atheist/humanist. I did not know whether to chuckle or roll my eyes when I saw a young South Indian couple getting their new cow–sorry, “Car” —blessed by the priest.

Despite signage purporting that “Love is love” and “Kindness is everything,” there is a social meme called the “Seattle Freeze” that I can attest is real. Seattleites are polite but distant, making it difficult for newcomers to form deep friendships or break into their established social circles. People moving to Scandinavia or Switzerland report encountering the same thing, though, of course, they don’t call it the “Seattle Freeze” in Stockholm. Debate about the cause of “Seattle Freeze” is endless. My theory is that much of it stems from the huge sub-population of 25-to 35-year-old Tech workers, many of whom are on the autism spectrum.

While we avoid rush hour traffic, the other drivers’ consistent politeness and their habit of observing the speed limit came as a surprise from natives who can find a Starbucks at every corner. So much caffeine and so little road rage! Perhaps it’s balanced out by the cannabis shop at the local mall.

Another novelty for drivers accustomed to Tampa Bay traffic is that cars have turn signals. And they work even in the rain!

The local libraries have books in half a dozen Indian languages plus several Middle Eastern languages, Chinese and Ukrainian. Alas, the wait for odd nonfiction science books is a lot longer here than in Florida. Seattle has many more nerds per square kilometer than Tampa Bay. I am glad they share my interest in arcane subjects, but I wish they didn’t want the same books I do at the same time I want them.

As a nod to a Pacific Northwest tradition, instead of cremation I am now seriously thinking about composting my body in the absence of “Towers of Silence.” They are a Zoroastrian custom I just rediscovered. It is still observed by the Parsi community in Mumbai. A Tower of Silence (dakhma) is a circular, raised funerary structure where the dead are laid out for exposure to the sun and scavenging birds, ensuring the body’s decomposition without polluting sacred elements like earth or fire. Seattle has fewer vultures than Persia but makes up for that shortage in crows. I hope to have more success with this than I did with own attempts at composting, from which I was driven away by an immense swarm of aggressive fruit flies. Zoroastrian literature does not mention this as a problem.

History sometimes repeats itself. Seattle is experiencing that now with the Microsoft layoffs which are reminiscent of the mass layoffs and economic despair of the Boeing turndown of 1971 when this billboard appeared.

When we moved here, neighbors and friends warned us about rain, which is ironic to one who grew up with an annual Monsoon season. But weather does matter, and after being away from Green Bay for so long, I enjoyed true fall colors but kept my options open for short winter days by returning to Tampa in November. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is taken seriously in Seattle. Doctors diagnose and treat it and confidently bill the insurance company for their work.

Bharat Pathakjee MD, is a retired cardiologist who earned his initial degree in his native India and took additional training in Michigan and at the University of Louisville.

Dr. Pathakjee enjoys reading, running, and learning history, science, and philosophy. (Well, actually, Bharat enjoys learning about anything and everything.)