Lets call the first girl Sunitha. She is nineteen and was born in a suburb of an East-coast city where she grew up. She wears her unbranded Nylon churidars without being conscious and eats with her hands in public. She is a vegetarian but does not consider tofu or mushrooms vegetarian because they are not “Indian”. She went to her high school prom dateless in a sari. She has never had a boyfriend and has no confidence in talking to boys. She divides her entire world into things “Indian” and everything else. Of course, being Indian means being Tamil (the best language in India, according to her) and being Hindu. She is a pre-med student who puts oil in her hair and her mother has told her that conditioning is a bad thing for the hair. Her jeans and tops are shapeless and functional. She adores Tamil actors and watches Bollywood movies once in a while, but Hollywood films offend her. The only music she listens to is Tamil film music. In fact anything that is not “Indian” is not kosher, a value system instilled by her parents forbid her to experience the life around her, and she obeys without questioning. India is an abstract concept for her that means a set of values when it comes to dress, gender relations, song and dance, food and religion. She probably doesn’t know anything else. But if you ask her, she will say that her country is India, a country she has no real connection to.
Her parents work in a setting that entirely services the Indian Diaspora. Their house is decorated as if they still live in an Indian village (not in the furnishings per se, but a certain aesthetic sense or lack thereof guide their decisions, such as the series of black and white framed pictures of dead and living relatives on the wall.) She was molested at thirteen or still is being molested (no one can get the straight story out of her on the details) by a “respectable” member of the Indian community as a result of which she has contracted herpes. But she cannot tell her parents or go to the Police.
The other character is Naomi. Naomi lives in Bandra, and she too is nineteen. She goes to college in the city and comes from a rich broken home. She wouldn’t be caught dead in a churidar or a sari. She is the product of a union when her father left his wife and three children to marry his secretary. Her stepbrother killed himself and her stepsister is battling a drug addiction problem. She is sexually active but not in love. She drinks, smokes and is frequently in night clubs where someone her age should not be. She is Muslim or Christian but does not practice her religion all that much. She adores Kianu Reeves and even though she watches a lot of Bollywood movies, will never admit that in public. She knows she is Indian, but it not something she spends any time thinking about. Her facebook lists her musical interests as Oldies, Hip-hop, Jazz, Latino Salsa and TV shows as Oprah Winfrey, The Apprentice, and Sex in the city. And she likes Japanese, Indian, Thai, Chinese, American and Goan food.
Naomi is not political and has no political views. She doesn’t seem to think a lot about India as a concept but lives India as it evolves and changes. She probably will move to the US someday only because that is where everyone moves to but she will miss the Bombay social life. But she has a strong opinion about where the one-way streets should be in Bandra and about the Police shutting down outdoor parties after 11:00. She thinks that Kingfisher airlines is “way too cool” and strongly believes that “everyone from Bombay parties in Goa for the New Year’s.”
I wonder which one of these girls is a true desi. Does it matter? My personal opinion is that Naomi is a true Indian as she lives and breathes the air of India and intrinsically have it in her. She may not be a typical Indian, but there are no typical Indians. And I feel sorry for Sunitha for all she is losing out in her country, which is the USA.
I have met Algerians and Moroccans in France who are a lot like Sunitha. I wonder if this is universal, this quest to belong to something old when you feel marginalized by the new.
I know this is a controversial view. But that is how I feel.
