No explanation is necessary; here is mine

I woke up to a barrage of concerned emails today after I'd made the decision to shut my Facebook fan page and YouTube page down. Some of my friends were worried about me; others thought it was their fault.

The fact is, there's nothing to worry about. I just made a decision I'd been thinking about for months, even years now.  

I have sung Hindi songs for over eight years. I've performed all over the US, and some in India. I even got audiences with three music directors, but I never pursued those avenues further. I have sung for crowds as large as 10,000. I ended up being able to move to India because of it. I'm very appreciative of all those things.

But I have come to a realization over the past few years, and that is that I can never really succeed at it. And by "succeed," I mean "meet the standards I have set for myself."

My first show was October 30, 2004. That night, I had said to myself I did not want to be known as "that white girl who sings Hindi songs." I wanted to be known as someone who sang Hindi songs well. The first is easy to achieve. The second is much more difficult. I don't want to be a parrot who sings unknown words without understanding their meaning, good at imitating but no originality. It's been done. I don't want to be a pretty face, a gori who sings Hindi songs, Carefree White Girl jaunting off to India for "adventure" and singing for the novelty factor. It's also been done. 

I have, over many years, come to the understanding that I did not grow up with these sounds in my ears, do not have extensive Indian classical training or exposure, and so the beautiful songs of yesteryear are inaccessible to me; I cannot do them justice. I can only give a mere shadow of their subtle beauty.

And to tell the truth, the more Hindi I know, the less I like the modern songs. Turns of phrase that seemed romantic at one time (tere saath jiyoon, tere saath maroon) are so incredibly cliche, and some songs are just so stupid and immature (Mere jaise laakhon mile honge tujhko piya, mujhe to mila tu hi - seriously?). Not to mention Hinglish lyrics like "Zara zara touch me touch me touch me" which have absolutely no literary merit and don't do anything for the gori stereotype I constantly have to challenge. 

I've become quite disillusioned, to say the least. By the songs themselves, by the vocal brick walls I run into, by the fact that people are so okay with my doing this just because I'm white that I don't get any sort of constructive feedback but lots of empty praise, by the fact I have sung for eight years and I still cannot solve the vocal issues I started out with. 

I had been feeling this way for a long time, but finally realized I needed to make an actual decision about what to do with these feelings when a friend Liked one of my old videos on Facebook, which made it pop up in others' feeds, and suddenly I had 39 Likes and 38 comments in the span of a few hours. My reaction was not to be happy at all, but to cry all evening and wish it would just go away. I didn't want to be associated with that three-year-old video. It was Andrea -- nay, Adriana, the one-trick pony, the party novelty, the girl dragged, protesting, over to Vishal Dadlani at a club in Delhi and being commanded to sing on cue. The person who doesn't need to improve even over three years or eight years because HOW DIFFERENT, SHE SINGS HINDI SONGS.

Those are not the standards I set for myself. I didn't want to be appreciated for being different, or for 'just trying.' I wanted to be good at it, to sing what was really in my heart. But it's a far-off goal, unreachable as long as I cling to my quotidian life, which I have never been able to let go of, nor do I think I should. I can think of many more ways to spend my waking hours than to beat my tiny wings on this particular pane of glass. I know there's another direction I can go in. Spend more time at the gym. Cook good dinners. Translate some Bengali songs. Pick up the phone and call my friends. 

You want to hear a white girl singing Indian songs who is actually good? Listen to Nicki Wells. And then close your eyes and just listen and forget she's not Indian. Because you can. 

Now, I'm not quitting singing forever. I still take Rabindrasangeet lessons - that place I fled to when the Bollywood illusion proved itself to be so. But I do that for me, on my own terms. I'm not spreading myself too thin, trying to be everything to everyone; I am concentrating on one thing and doing it for my own love of it, not for others' admiration of me. 

I am thankful to all of those who supported me along the way and am glad for all the good things in my life that have come from singing. I know those friendships and those good things don't need the excuse of my singing to exist, and those are things I hope to keep forever.

Why I do not identify with the word "gori"

"Yeh gori kahaan se mila yaar?"

With a wink and a nudge, this was the first time I'd heard the word 'gori' actually spoken out loud. I'd heard it in songs referring to the color of a pretty Indian girl's cheeks, movie dialogues talking about the village belle, but this time it referred to me, and it wasn't complimentary.

From the tone of voice and the body language, the speaker saw me as his friend's latest fling. I was not his fling at all; simply a platonic friend. But the implication was evident, and I shot him a dirty look while my friend explained that I actually knew Hindi. He didn't say another word to me the entire evening.

So what does gori mean, anyway? Shabdkosh.com says it is an adjective meaning "fair." Even Urban Dictionary describes it as "a word used by Indians to describe white girls...not particularly offensive." And we've all heard it in songs like "Yeh kali kali ankhen, yeh gori gori gaal" to describe a woman's beauty. The male equivalent, gora, I've mostly only heard in relation to white men, not to a fair-skinned South Asian man.

So the denotation isn't too bad. But the connotation can vary. When it's used in a purely South Asian context, to describe a South Asian, it is generally a very positive term, albeit because of the shadeism present in South Asian culture, which is a separate issue. However, from my experiences in India, when the subject of discussion was a white woman, I never heard it used with a positive connotation. Sometimes it would be neutral, albeit objectifying - "Yeah, the gori's coming with us." Sometimes patronizing - "It's so adorable to hear a gori speak Hindi." And certainly negative - "This club is full of goris, you'll definitely get laid tonight." Gora also carries a similar neutral to negative connotation, but without the sexual promiscuity connotation of gori (which merits its own post, but I won't be the one to write it!).

And then there's the reaction of the dadi (grandmother) in this video:


Having experienced all these not-so-glowing connotations of the word when it refers to people who look like me, it is just not a term that I use to refer to myself. It's not something I think I personally can "reclaim" from the onslaught of stereotypes that come along with the term as it refers to a non-South Asian woman. And it also follows that it makes me uncomfortable when I'm referred to as gori as well, by people of South Asian descent or not. It gives me a feeling that I am not being taken seriously by the person referring to me as such, that because of my inherent 'gori-ness,' there is no way I can or should be respected as a person separate from my skin tone and all the baggage that goes along with it. Gori is a term that trivializes me as a woman with ties to an Indian family and community. It gives off wrong impressions to people about who I am. If I was Indian, it would be a different story, but I'm not, and it isn't.

Plus, defining myself via my ethnicity, particularly through the lens of someone else's ethnicity, is not very appealing to me at all. I don't believe in colorblindness and a post-racial society does not exist, but at the same time I don't need to perpetuate divides by labeling myself in ethnic terms. It Otherizes me with white people, assuming to remove privilege that is not actually removed. For South Asians, it serves to underscore my privilege as well as imply everything else about 'gori-ness' - sexual availability, lack of culture, lack of respect for elders, egalitarian to the point of embarrassment, etc. And for everyone else, it signifies nothing anyway. What am I trying to prove, and to whom?

So what should I be referred to as, then? I don't mind referring to myself as a white woman in contexts where race is important. American - sure, why not? It's the term de mode for a United States citizen, which I am. I've used the terms non-Indian and non-Bengali in particular contexts as well. I have certainly taken on some aspects of Bengali culture but I don't consider myself Bengali or Bengali-American; my future kids will be, but I'm not. Does a Punjabi who marries a Bengali take on an entirely new ethnic identity? If not, why should I?

I guess if you want to refer to me as anything, 'that big nerd who writes about culture' is pretty apropos. 

The eternal quest for the perfectly poofy roti

This post is for Ria of Me and India, as reassurance that you don't have to have the absolutely perfect cooking implements in order to make rotis! Here, I am using a plastic cutting board in place of a marble chakla and a nonstick pan instead of a tawa. Basically you just need a small rolling pin, a flat surface, a nonstick pan of some sort, and a wire rack. You can do wonders with that. 

I'll skip the dough-making part in pictures. You need to make a springy dough that doesn't stick (too much) to your hands when it's all mixed in. Some people add salt to their rotis. I usually forget. I don't make them with oil either - for me, it's just flour (here I am using regular whole wheat flour from any grocery) and water. 

Take a ball of dough about the size of a small lime and roll it in your hands until it becomes round. Then squish it in a little bit of flour. The rounder the squished ball, the rounder the roti will be. Dip the other side in flour too, then place on your rolling surface. 

Don't kill the dough. Roll it gently. You may find it 'spins' underneath your rolling pin; that's good. Try to get it an even thickness. Evenness is more important than thinness. My mother-in-law's rotis are thicker than mine and much tastier. 

Now it's flat.

Pick up and immediately place onto your preheated tawa or nonstick pan. If you have an electric stove, set it at about 7 or 8. You'll know if it's too high. Make sure you also have a second burner turned on and preheated to about 8 or 9. Put your roti rack over it so you remember it's on and don't burn yourself.

Let this sit until a bubble or two starts forming. This will be maybe 10-15 seconds. Then flip it over and let the other side cook for about 15-20 seconds. Not too long. You can use a spatula to flip the roti or use your hands. I always use my hands. Don't burn your wrists on the side of the pan though, like I often do.

 The bubble means it's ready to flip over. 

Once both sides are cooked, take the roti off the pan and place onto the wire rack. Mine has a handle on it, so I'm holding the rack in one hand here. DO NOT set the rack directly onto the burner with the roti on it. I find about 1 cm off the burner is the best place for me to hold it in order to get the heat to puff it.

 A handheld rack also allows you to move the roti to the 'hotspots' on the burner so that it puffs evenly.

Your roti should puff within a second.

 FWOOM

Once it puffs, carefully take it with your hand and flip it to the other side, and puff the other side.

Again, the rack is NOT TOUCHING the burner. You can do that if you like eating burnt rotis. 

Take the roti off the rack, put into your casserole dish, and start on the next one.

If it doesn't puff, don't despair. Just put it in the casserole and start on the next one. It's still edible. Practice makes perfect though, so obviously the only way to get good at this is to make and eat a lot of rotis. Tasty practice. :)