Indian Born Confused Desi

I’ve been living in the US for 10 years now and beginning to reach a saturation point. Living away from home can make you love and judge your country at the same time. You are privy to social and political differences every day and it is only human to compare them.

As a Delhiite and curious about other peoples’ businesses, I’ve always compared social-cultural differences the most.

Initially, I couldn’t help but notice the dress wear of other women – inevitably checking them out and staring. It was second nature to me and I just didn’t know how to hide my curiosity. As Indians, I think we wear our curiosity on our sleeves.

It was only after a first few months that I realized it was rude to stare in the US. People checked you out through side glances or sun-glasses, and with polite smiles when caught red-handed. I mastered the skill of “hidden stares” and started to feel it was uncouth to stare openly like I used to. I judged my culture, and therefore, I judged the old me. 

The judgements spanned from small social nuances to the way traffic etiquettes were mismanaged back home, to the way women were treated in the society. I started to feel grateful to belong to a “better” environment and live the American dream.

I transformed as an individual and adapted habits to fit into the culture. My sense of style and fashion changed, I became interested in art and history, my English accent changed, I became more punctual, etc. etc. The bottom line was -- my identity transformed significantly as a result of living and breathing another culture. When the time came to visit homeland, it was my 15 mins of fame. I was the celebrity child who lived in America and therefore, socially superior in some weird respect. I never got so much importance when I lived there.

However, after exactly 10 years of living in the US, I lost sense of what it took to be Indian. What did it mean when I said I was an Indian? Only a few constants had remained – religion, my love for Bollywood, and a sense of nostalgia and remembrance of childhood. Otherwise, it was clouded with judgements about corruption, gender gaps, hideous weather and lack of freedom for women in the society.

I realized that I’d lost pride as an Indian – and therefore, my pride as an individual. After all, I can’t disassociate India from my identity - despite Western penetration into my subconscious and confidence.     

It took me six weeks in India to scratch the surface of what it meant to be Indian. For the first time in a decade, I wasn’t comparing but hoping to understand people from a fresh perspective, the “why” behind actions and dig deeper beneath the surface.

Every day, I practiced to reform perspectives by talking to strangers and acquaintances, what motivated them and the challenges they traversed – real struggles of money, education, poverty and self-esteem. The hardships that were often underestimated in the entitled world of West.

In the next few write-ups, I will share those experiences and interactions with people in north India that made me realize what it meant to be Indian. I am grateful to them as they reinstated a sense of real pride.

While certain issues still persist in my heart such as the way women are treated in our society, but I’m no longer judging the problem as an “outsider” and hoping to change as much as possible over time.

For now, I am very happy not trying to fit in. With a renowned sense of pride, I am thrilled to wear salwar kameez, Indian junk jewelry and palazzos whenever I want in the US, embracing where I come from wholeheartedly, and therefore – embracing my own identity.