A Valentine's Day tradition

Okay, maybe it's just MY tradition. But when I was an unattached freshman in college, all my new friends around me joining sororities, meeting guys, pairing off, I wasn't really looking at Valentine's Day as something particularly exciting to celebrate. But I didn't want to be bitter.

So I went to the local toy store, bought beanie lizards for all my single friends, and gave them out with ribbons tied around their necks. Ever since then, I've given little beanie lizards to my friends -- single or attached, Valentine's Day or not -- as expressions of love. Like flowers or chocolate, but cuter.

Happy Valentine's Day! Here's a lizard.

I never thought of Valentine's Day as a couples-only holiday anyway. My parents would always give me Valentine's gifts - heart-shaped earrings, chocolates, cassette tapes. And I would always make cards for them. A religious group in India has declared 14 Februrary to be Parents Worship Day so that the youth aren't tempted to celebrate Valentine's Day with their 'premik' or 'premika' ... but why not both? Love isn't just for boyfriends and girlfriends. We love our parents, children, siblings, friends, and pets too. Why limit Valentine's Day to just expectations of romance and extremely expensive roses? Don't we need more love in the world; less hatred and division? Why not have a day to commemmorate love, of all kinds?

Life is short and we don't know if we're going to be here tomorrow. Tell those you love that you love them. And, if you're so inclined, give them a lizard. 

Exploring the local culture - Pacific Northwest edition

Memorial Day Trip to Mt. St. Helens, 2013
Photo courtesy Jayanta Mondal

I have been in the Pacific Northwest now for three years and I absolutely love living here. At times I wish I was closer to Seattle, or Portland (Portland. Yes. Please?) but as my dad always said, "home is where you hang your hat." And I certainly need a lot of hats here!

Being a "Ph.D. wife," I'm aware that we may not be in this area much longer. It could be another year, maybe two; likely not more than that. And one of the things I regret the most about my short time in Louisiana was all the things I didn't do. I was always an outsider and never really integrated into the culture there -- I never even did the stereotypically touristy things like swamp tours or visiting the Tabasco factory in Grand Isle! Of course, I didn't expect to ever not be an outsider, but I admit I didn't really try very hard to meet people or build relationships there until right before I left.

I don't want to make those mistakes here. It's very easy to get caught up in the web of Life, of chores and cooking and work and internet and not really experience a lot of what the area you live in has to offer. It's easy to not put yourself out there, be vulnerable, make friends or at least acquaintances. I don't expect everyone to roll out the red carpet for me, but I want to put myself where the people are and live here, not just exist here.

So here are some of the things that I have done, or want to do, in the short time I have left here:

The only tomatoes we were able to grow!
They weren't supposed to be grape
tomatoes, but that's what happened...

• Get involved in outdoor recreation. We've done this, in part. We biked a lot in 2011 and 2012, but A's bike was stolen when we went to India this year and he's not interested in getting another, so we may need to change up our activity. Hiking, perhaps? We went camping with some friends over Memorial Day weekend last year and it was one of the best trips I've ever been on. I have also just started cross-country skiing and want to keep it up as long as there's snow on the ground. I can go weekly with a small group from the college. I don't think I'll ever be one of those people who goes rock climbing one weekend, kayaking the next, and runs a marathon the following month, but I would like to make outdoor fun in the fresh air a more regular part of my lifestyle, be it cross-country skiing, the occasional camping trip, or just taking a walk at the arboretum. 
• Buy our food from the local farmers market. We do this when the market's in session and we love it! We joined the university CSA in 2011 and although we probably won't join again due to uncertainty of when we will leave, it was great to be able to pick up local, organic, fresh produce on a weekly basis and then have fun trying to figure out what to do with it. Once we get settled somewhere, I'll look around for similar programs in that place. The farmers market is also good though. It's really an all-morning event. This year, I'd like to go weekly if possible.
• Volunteer on a farm. Our local co-op has a program where members (of which I am one) can go volunteer on local farms and really see where our food comes from, up close and personal. I just found out about it this winter, and am hoping to be able to do this in the spring. I have gone apple, cherry, and raspberry picking which is always super fun and economical if you like eating a lot of fruit. 

  

  picking apples at the Organic Farm

  
  
• Sing in the local chorus. Done, and done. Concert is May 3 and 4. Please come!
• Join a spiritual community. I am involved with our local Sanatan Dharma center, but not regularly. At this time in my life this is something that is difficult to work in for many reasons, most of which are not bloggable. I do think after I have a family it will be something I will want to be more of a priority in my life. 
• Attend collegiate arts and sporting events. I have not done this yet but 2014 will be the year. The local universities have so much to offer. I already sing in India night events but I think I should be more of an attendee and not a performer as well.  As far as sports go, I'm not really a big football fan, plus that's already got a lot of support, so perhaps I will come out and support the tennis team? Or baseball? Or women's basketball! I also just found out that the university is putting on Die Fledermaus on the one weekend I'm not singing in April so I will likely be attending that too! 
• Sing more. The problem with college towns is that everyone moves away, and most of the people I sang and played music with when I first came here have done exactly that. But just yesterday I talked to a girl at the other university who knows a guy who plays guitar and wants to have a jam session... so let's see if we can get Round Two up and running!
• Go to local wineries. We've already done a lot of regional trips when A's parents came to visit us - Portland, Seattle, National Parks, local attractions. There are a few other places I'd like to go, but the Columbia Valley wineries are at the top of the list. This is a big to-do for this spring.

So that's really my Pacific Northwest Bucket List. Anything else you think I should add? 

Why did you learn Bengali?

I saw this question float through my Facebook timeline today. And was surprised to see so many responders who had learned Bengali or Hindi! Most for religious reasons. Some lived in India and picked it up that way. I didn't really respond except to post links to Let's Learn Bengali, the Facebook group I admin. But that is my way, isn't it? When confronted with a question, I take the intellectual route. If I can examine something, analyze it, then I don't have to provide a narrative. I can easily tell what I know, give you the right answer, get an A+, but I don't give away my stories, my motivations so easily.

So to correct that lapse, I shall answer that question here.

I have always loved languages. I started learning Spanish and French from childhood, majored in French in college, started learning Hindi while finishing my French degree, and had a brief foray into Norwegian before I realized I had no one to speak it with. I have been told I have a natural talent for language, and found that the one thing that my extremely right-brained orientation was good at was translation. My only real problem was that I was casting my net too wide, trying to learn too many languages, when it makes more sense to dive deep into one. If I had known then what I knew now, I would have chosen Bengali from the start. Its rich literary and film traditions would have been enough. But they do not teach Bengali in school, and so I went with French instead. Je ne regrette rien, but it would have been nice not to have to wait so long.

I suppose if I had paid better attention, I would have started learning years before I actually did. Here are some snippets of conversations I had throughout the years:

2004:
A: You should learn Bengali.
Me: LOL, no, Hindi's hard enough.

2005:
P: You should learn Bengali.
Me: What for?

2006:
F: You should learn Bengali.
Me: Maybe later. Let's practice singing.

2007:
S: You should learn Bengali
Me: I don't understand why people keep telling me this.

Or maybe I could have started learning in 2006, when I went to Mumbai amidst the glowing reviews of all of my closest friends and found it left me cold. In the airport, I began reading a book about Kolkata and said, "Well, if I ever come back to India, maybe I'll like that place." I could have prepared myself, but I didn't.

Or I could have started learning once Hindi started making more sense, and I began listening (on 2006's recommendation) to Bangladeshi rock music, just to listen to music whose lyrics I didn't understand once more. But that would have defeated the purpose.

But I did go back to India, and upon invitation from a friend, I did go to Kolkata, in a rare monsoon weekend where the clouds gathered angrily, then dispersed to reveal the most brilliant blue sky without a drop of rain falling. At the risk of sounding like a second-rate travel novel, everything seemed to fall into place. Yes, the roads were full of people, full of monsoon mud, animals roaming the roads - everything you would expect from having read all those other India travel novels. But there is a palpable difference between Kolkata and Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi. Those two metros, they move quickly. Business gets done. The trees do not have time to really be green.

Kolkata was different. It was slower; it seemed more concerned with the things that matter to me. It revels in nostalgia. Art and music were important, not just resume-fillers and networking opportunities. As in other cities in India, I did attract attention as a foreigner and people approached me, but simply for a minute's chat at a store counter or crossing a street, then they said goodbye and we went on our separate ways. I felt safe there; I felt home. Of course I wasn't; it was my first time in a city I have, as of today, spent less than a total of thirty days in. But it felt the same way it did the first time I went to Dallas as a child, enthralled by the streetlights; my heart settled there and the Life I Had Always Wanted found an ideal setting.

In some ways, I suppose you could say I fell in love. With the humidity, the tree in my courtyard, the house behind mine. With turning the pages of Tagore and reading the words of Gitanjali for the first time. With Music World, where I deciphered characters round, angular, and elegant and vowed to learn this alphabet. And so I bought a book.

But love did come later, and with it even more reasons. In-laws, naturally, but there is also another reason. We communicate in my native language. English has so many twists and turns of phrase, hundreds of synonyms, dozens of ways to say the same thing, each variation carrying its own shade of meaning. I speak various dialects, including Texan and LOLcat, switching effortlessly between them. I write songs and poems, drawing upon the richness of the language. But Bengali is just as rich, with words carrying so much meaning, connotation, and power in a way that is not like English at all. Learning Bengali teaches me another way of thinking, and that way conveniently happens to be my husband's native way of thinking. How can I know the context that shapes him, how can I comprehend his hopes, dreams, and fears without knowing his language? Even if we don't speak it together, I find that the more I learn of it, the more I understand of him.

The more Bengali I learn, the less I know. I realize with every new thing that there are a thousand more things I wasn't even aware of, and it is quite unlikely that I will ever speak like a native or near-native. But I really don't care too much about that; as long as I keep learning, I'll know more than I did the day before, and those small moments of learning, those light bulbs of comprehension, the songs you listen to and feel without the need to translate, the times when you realize that you've just had an hourlong conversation in your fifth language and people understood you and you understood them, those moments are why I learn.

The one about the bindi

I have been asked a few times to write about bindis - can white women wear them? Should we? Or should we err on the side of caution and never wear anything from other cultures? Do the rules change if we are Hindu? Or if we're married to an Indian?

So many questions. The problem is that I'm not really qualified to answer them. I can only tell you that I sometimes wear them in certain situations, why I do, and why I don't in others.

I don't wear them on the regular just because I can and it's a free country.

I do wear a bindi when I go to the temple and when I go to certain Indian festivals and cultural events - Durga Puja? Yes! International Day street fair? No! University's India Night? Sometimes. It depends on the context.

I also wear them in India because in the area my husband is from, it is ubiquitous. The day after my wedding, my mother-in-law gave me a small packet of bindi cards; I did not wear them right away as our wedding was in the US but I made sure to wear the ones she gave me daily when we went to his home. It is one small thing that can help to put his family at ease, a marker that I accept and embrace his culture (he makes no secret of the fact he accepts and embraces mine). 

So why don't I generally wear them in the US? Aren't they fashionable? Aren't I connected to the Indian community here? Aren't I married to an Indian? To tell the truth, it is exactly for these reasons that I don't.

Apparently the bindi has been "on trend" for about a year now. I am not terribly on the up-and-up regarding such things; my utilitarian approach to fashion is limited to finding things that look good on me, aren't dated, but will last me twenty years; and to check and see if skinny jeans are over yet. But generally I have seen that when something becomes "trendy," a lot of license is taken with it. Fashion is both art and business; a couple years ago when biker chic was all the rage, you could find rivets on everything from handbags to shoes, none of which need rivets in the first place. It started as something artsy and novel, and then suddenly it was everywhere because it sold. The same has happened with bindis. The predominantly white fashion industry took a very visible marker of Indian tradition and culture and removed it entirely from its cultural contexts. Perhaps because it isn't as jarring to the average white person as, say, a leather mini and pasties accessorized by a white tulle Catholic wedding veil, bindis became accessories to cutoffs and see-through shirts, not just on the ramp but on the streets of Brooklyn and Seattle. And somewhere, gestalt in the world of fashion design died a slow and painful death.

As someone with a self-described utilitarian sense of fashion, I could not get behind the bindi trend for the simple reason that it makes absolutely no sense. But then there is a question of the morality of the trend. I find it odd that someone who would likely never wear fur because it hurts animals would wear a bindi in such a way that it hurts an Indian woman. (It can and does; I can link you to narrative after narrative after narrative.) Is this the cost of my self-expression? I think this is one trend that I can't afford to partake in.

Just one example of this: Have you seen some of the pictures in the bindi tag on Tumblr? Vacant-eyed, nubile girls wearing little more than a bindi with #exotic and #indian tagged...the orientalist stereotype of the oversexed, dark, exotic other is pretty played out in 2013 but these girls are jumping right on the "exotic=sexually available" bandwagon without even realizing it. I certainly do not want to reinforce a stereotype of a "bindi-wearer" as an object of lust, especially when I know and love many women who wear bindis as an expression of their culture or their faith. I am not interested in making their lives any more difficult.

So yes - the (white-dominated) fashion industry has taken the bindi, stripped it of context, and reduced it to a sign of exotic Otherness. And the ambassadors of this trend? Gwen Stefani, who has silent Japanese girls follow her wherever she goes? Selena Gomez, who doesn't even know the bindi is Indian in origin? Not exactly my role models. 

I said earlier that there's another reason I don't wear a bindi in daily life, and that is because I'm married to an Indian and have many Indian friends. This isn't counterintuitive. My Indian friends, with the exception of a religious few who wear kumkum, not sticker bindis, generally do not wear bindis themselves, except to temple or cultural events. What reason do I have to do any different? There's another reason too; I do not wish to invite unfavorable comparisons between me and my friends - "Andrea is more Indian than you! You have become so westernized." "It is nice to see a foreigner embracing our culture that others choose to reject." I have heard these things said in my presence. Awkward. Not every Indian woman wants to wear a sari, bindi, sindoor, glass bangles, toe rings. Many have fought their families, school principals, and surrounding culture to leave these things aside. Am I, by my choosing to embrace certain aspects of Indian culture, making it more difficult for the Indian women I know to make their own choices? I will be happy to remove my bindi in solidarity with them.

This is not to say that I think that white people should stay away from other cultures entirely. I do wear bindis in certain situations. I also choose to wear a wedding ring, loha, and sindoor, and choose not to eat beef, in the interest of carrying on family traditions and making my family members more comfortable. There are those who will not be okay with this; I deeply regret this but consider my commitment to my family to be paramount. I believe that there is a place for cultural sharing and syncretism, and that place is within community. Intercultural families, religious communities, close circles of trusted friends. And this sharing happens naturally, just as you would share information on what wine to serve with chicken or the best cloth diapers for your baby. It's other-centered, relationship-centered; not self-centered. The more involved I got with my local Indian community, the more I learned about various aspects of Indian culture from Indians and not from Wikipedia, the less inclined I was to just participate in the sparkly, pretty parts of the culture just to do it. Those parts come in context - for me, it is as the White American wife of a not very religious Indian Bengali, living in a small college town and all the good things and problems therein. 

A final criticism some will have is that this is a tempest in a teapot; this is an election year in India, the US government is shut down, and people have a lot more to worry about than what carefree white girls are wearing on their faces. I disagree; I think that first of all, white people have done a lot of taking and appropriation and we need to recognize that fact. We are products of our history and as such, even this issue of something as small as a dot requires a need for understanding on the part of us white girls, doing things that may not come naturally -- listening to the narratives of those whose culture we have embraced in part, learning about the context of that culture through a living community and true relationships, and accepting that even as we are individuals who make our own choices in life, those choices do affect others and we need to be aware of the consequences and our impact. In this light, we may not always get to wear whatever we want. And we may not always be able to please everybody. But pleasing people was never the goal; it's not about us. It's about how our actions show respect to others who generously share their culture with us, and how we can do our part to bring about more justice in this world. 

(Note: much of this was inspired by, and indeed written first in, a series of comments I made on Reddit in October 2013.)

Why it doesn't matter that I might have a Native American ancestor (and why it does)

Many white families have a family legend of sorts that a far-off female ancestor was a "Cherokee princess." Mine does too, although to our credit, the word "princess" has never been mentioned. The Cherokee did not have princesses.

This relative is, by varying accounts, either my great-great-grandmother Hannah, born 1851, or my great-great-great-grandmother Susan, born 1829. Great-Great-Grandma Hannah has been described by living relatives as "full blood Indian," but other written histories of the family have noted that her mother, Susan, was Cherokee Indian. Beyond her, there are no records.

Because of the early dates, my relatives are not in the Dawes Rolls or any other archival records of Native Americans that I have found. There are other records though -- records showing that regardless of whatever my family members say, Great-Great-Grandma Hannah was listed as white in the census. So even if my family was Native American, they've been passing for white since the early 20th century and receiving all the privileges thereof. And in case you need to brush up on your history, that was not a very good time to be a "colored person" or an "Indian."

A lot of people, myself included, have gone on genealogical searches to find that long-lost Indian relative. We think it will explain our high cheekbones (got those) or our olive skin (not that though). And there is also the goal of Triumphant Documentation - the proof that will turn our family legends real. The name in the Dawes Rolls that shows, among all the families who say they have Native ancestry, that we make a legitimate claim. Perhaps there is also the idea that it will lend us a certain "minority cred" or an absolution of self-imposed white guilt - "I'm part {insert non-European ethnicity here} so I can't be racist, I can't have white privilege," et cetera.

But if we are even 1/8 Cherokee, or Peruvian, or Mongolian, aren't we still 7/8 European in descent? Does this one ancestor in our past (who may or may not have been matched willingly; love marriage is a relatively new phenomenon) negate our whiteness? That's the one-drop thinking of the racists of the past and I don't subscribe to it. I have grown up in White American culture. I guess you could even call me a WASP even though polo shirts don't look good on me and I've never summered at Nantucket, or however you're supposed to say that.

But this search has not been in vain. I have learned incredibly interesting things about my family history, including:

• My family goes back at least ten generations in the US on both sides
• Both my maternal and paternal lines (mom's mom's mom, etc. and dad's dad's dad, etc.) come from Ireland Way Back In The Day
• My family history is almost all English and Irish, with some French via Quebec in more recent days, which may or may not explain my love affair with Canada
• I had ancestors who were mercenaries in the Civil War; they decided to fight for the Confederacy because it paid more
• I had another ancestor who led a rebellion against the Confederacy and got hanged for it
• It is true that cousins married each other in the 1800s
• Tales of mystery and intrigue that will remain in the family and not on this blog

I have gotten in touch with family members I never even knew I had. (When your grandfather is one of nineteen children, this is really not very surprising.)

And just as importantly, if not moreso, I have learned about issues facing the the Native Americans of today, and keep myself informed. I visited Tahlequah, Oklahoma twice - in 1998 and 2000 - and saw what life was like in the Cherokee Nation. I learned more about the Cherokee and about the issues they faced, from people who didn't have to do genealogy work to know their heritage. In more recent years, I have learned about the Idle No More movement in Canada and the US and have read about current events and issues that affect the Native American community closer to where I currently live.

I have been hesitant to involve myself too much, as I don't think I know very much at this point and want to educate myself more on the issues before becoming involved, as the goal is not "look at me, I'm one of you" (because really, I'm not) but rather "how can I be of support, quietly, in the background?"

I, like most people, began this search in search of what I could get. I wasn't looking for college scholarships or tribal lands, but maybe a sense of connection, of belonging, of being able to say that my claim to Native heritage was correct. But if indeed I ever did have a Native American ancestor, I suppose the best tribute to her memory is what I can learn, and bolstered by that knowledge, what I can teach.

Money doesn't buy happiness, but happiness doesn't bring money

Apparently I am now at an age where I am expected to give Good Advice to Young Adults. I didn't expect that so soon, but after over a decade in the working world, I guess I should have.

During the last month or so, I have read numerous posts on Facebook (perhaps relating to graduation?) that sound a little like this:

"I refuse to sacrifice my happiness for some soul-sucking job!"

"We have a choice: We can make money or we can find meaning in life."

Rarely do I hear the other side spoken out loud, perhaps because blind pragmatism isn't as popular a trait among the newly-graduated as idealism, but I know plenty of people who have, indeed, done the opposite: gone into medicine, or law, or business, because they knew it would pay well, not because they had much interest or aptitude for it. Whether those people actually ended up becoming doctors, lawyers, or businesspeople is a mixed bag.

There is no direct relationship between financial stability and meaning in life. Nor is there an inverse one. They are two separate things and must both be considered when making a plan for the future. Money vs. Happiness is not a zero-sum game -- or at least, it doesn't have to be.

I was one of those idealistic college students myself. I changed my major midstream from religious studies to business due to outside pressures -- and I hated every second of it. I cried in the meeting with my advisor where I told him I was changing. I attended just enough of my business classes to make the grades I was accustomed to. And I did succeed; in fact, I even won a cash award for Outstanding MIS Student. And I was a complete jerk in my acceptance speech, making sure to mention that I didn't even want to be a business student. I look back on that now and cringe.

I followed the typical path of a BBA overachiever, and that was to the Big Five accounting/consulting firms, which is now the Big Four. (Guess which company I joined.) My four months there were awful. I was a fish out of water. I carried the wrong purse, drove the wrong car, didn't keep up with sports, and found it abhorrent that people were upset over a memo that they could no longer take their clients to strip clubs. I guess I can thank Enron for getting me out of that environment and launching me back into what I enjoyed - educational technology, corporate training. I now have the best of both worlds - a job that I am good at that I truly enjoy that also pays my bills. I would have been a terrible consultant. I'm where I need to be.

So looking back at my own mistakes, here's my advice to graduates and soon-to-be graduates:

• Do what you love. Know what you love, and do it. But make a plan. Know what the career options are in your area of interest. If you want to be a WWE wrestler, be the best WWE wrestler there is. The more "unconventional" your field, the better you have to be at it. 
• If you want to go into academics, keep in mind that academics has as much politics - perhaps even more - than the corporate world, and that the main goal of universities is to make money for itself, not necessarily to educate students.
• Get a job, even if it is just to fund your social life or keep you hanging in there while you "find yourself." The routine will also keep you sane. No, it won't stifle you.
• It's better to be a first-rate botanist or writer or teacher than it is to be a third-rate lawyer or brain surgeon.
• And if someone wants to give you awards and money for hard work or what looks like it, be a nice person and smile and say thank you.

There is money, and there is happiness. Why not both?

Speech is near the heart

I know this blog is not even about my personal life and I try hard to sound academic when I write. I am not intending to do that today. It's not appropriate to my topic.

Where do I start? Fourth grade, where Richard told me on the playground that despite being born and raised in these United States, I "talked like an Englishman" and so I got angry at him and told him he farted too much?

Or when I moved later that year and Niki and the other mean girls would tease me by telling me to say "New York" and surrounded me with cruel laughter since I couldn't pronounce the letter R when it followed a vowel?

Or the one day I went to the school speech therapist, then folded the practice paper up as tiny as I could and hid it so my parents wouldn't find it and realized I'd had to go to special ed? I had taught myself to read when I was two. People considered me smart. Mom and Dad would get angry at me for not being smart anymore, or so my eleven-year-old mind thought. I was ashamed of myself, of my nonexistent R.

On that paper was the trick I'd searched dictionaries to learn but never found. You touch the tip of your tongue to your hard palate. Once I realized it, the problem disappeared. It's easy to fix this stuff when you're motivated. And eleven.

It's a lot harder later on, even if you're motivated.

My job in India was creating training materials for accent neutralization. I went back to the source, to these simple mechanical tricks that I had myself used to sound "more American" as a child. Tongue goes here. Lips do this. Smile a bit more. No, not that much. When testing these new techniques, I could see the same frustration in the eyes of my trainees that was in my own back in the day. Some nailed it. Others struggled. I realized that now we needed a lot more than mechanics. My training had to be coupled with massive amounts of encouragement and positive reinforcement, as it's hard to be told "you need to speak like this to be understood better." It's hard to hear. Because the way we speak is who we are.

I grew up in an environment where certain patterns of speech were considered "uneducated" and it was not okay to talk like that, and despite Texas, grew up sounding more like NPR than country music. I had a Canadian neighbor I idolized as a child and hearing my voice today, I know some Vancouver crept its way into my voice. Upon returning from India, I was asked on multiple occasions "where I came from" because of my "beautiful accent." I have even been accused of "code-switching" into an Indian accent around second-generation Indians even when I was using what was my regular everyday I'm-not-thinking-about-how-I'm-talking voice. Who knows -- maybe because I am so isolated here and the main person I talk to is my husband, I'm beginning to pick up his speech patterns? I think I pick things up fairly quickly and unconsciously --unless I am told not to-- but my accent has never been Canadian, or Indian, or even pure GenAm. I don't know what it is, but I've made peace with it in the years between self-conscious preteen and now.

Well, at least I think I have, but I am certain that it is one of the things that is holding me back from expressing myself fluently in Bengali. I remember the giggles of my classmates, my own horror at hearing older girls in my French classes in college speak French with American accents, and of course the hesitation and terror of a former "gifted kid" - I can't mess this up. I can't get this wrong or else it proves I'm really not that smart. So my mind stops; I freeze, and I say nothing.

I know a lot about Bengali. I can read and write with little problem. I'm still expanding my vocabulary and trying to solidify grammar, but I'd say I'm at an advanced beginner or beginning-intermediate level. I can wax poetic about the order of the alphabet and how it all makes sense and conjugate verbs and put together simple, grammatically correct sentences if I have the time to write them out. But when it comes to practical usage, I slip back down into the novice level. I tell people I talk like a toddler but I know toddlers who speak better than me.

It feels like math class; I know the equations. I can plug numbers in and get the right answers. But I'm not entirely sure of how those equations are derived, if that matters at all, and you certainly don't want to get in a rocket that I built using those equations.

So I am trying to break through this impasse. I am doing this by trying to speak daily, then recording myself and actually listening to what I recorded. I'm not up to extemporaneous speaking yet, but at least reading from a book and getting the sounds in my ears and mouth seems to be helping. And since I either have no more shame or just a lot of bravado (not sure which), I will share a couple of recordings with you.

This is the last recording from the first book of Sahaj Path, Lesson 1, after a week of recording and listening back.

This is the first recording from Lesson 2. 

You can tell the difference a week of practice makes. (I got frustrated and deleted the first recording of Lesson 1, which is why I didn't post it.) In Lesson 2, I read the story ahead of time so I could understand its meaning, but I didn't with the poem. This recording is the first time I have encountered the poem, and I'm reading the Bengali script.

This is my life, my study, my fears. You should do one thing every day that scares you, they say. So I speak. Maybe one day that won't be scary and I'll have to do something else.

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. 

Happy Diwali!

Happy Diwali! It snowed today for the first time this year. At least three inches of snow on the car this morning and the snow fell all day. It's not what you'd expect from Diwali but it is beautiful all the same.

 Here are the lights I put up today, against a backdrop of snow.

These are our 14 diyas. I have more clay ones, but they didn't fit on the plate, so I used tea lights. The two colorful ones were shaped like flowers; I got them from the Asian market. I want to find more of those! They are so pretty.

For dinner today, I made Palong Shaaker Ghonto, courtesy of Bong Mom's blog, without which I would be completely lost in life. I also made masoor dal the way A's old roommate taught me, and gajar ka halwa because, well, it's Diwali!

Tomorrow I will go to Lakshmi Puja at our local temple. Not sure what I'll cook tomorrow. Any ideas?

One of those girls

I've gotten used to that feeling now. It's the Inward Cringe. The eye rolling, slightly sinking feeling when a politician doesn't know the difference between Muslims and Sikhs, a celebrity thinks it's okay to use brownface, a movie star shoots a film about India and converts to Hinduism as a result, and most recently, when a magazine prints a feature full of embarrassing cultural appropriation.

And it's weird that this makes me uncomfortable, because I'm not even Indian. Or maybe it is because I'm not Indian. I'm married to an Indian citizen, have lived in India, and have been acquainted with Indian communities in the US for over a decade. And every time one of these stories pops up, I'm a little embarrassed and frustrated - how come people don't have even basic intercultural knowledge when it comes to South Asia? - and at the same time, I wonder if I am perceived in the same way as Julia Roberts or Anja Ploetz -- as "one of those girls." A cultural dabbler; a dilettante; the girl who, wearing a sparkly salwar suit in the convenience store, tries to strike up a conversation in Hindi with the Sri Lankan working behind the counter; someone who flippantly talks about how Americans don't really have a culture so is it so wrong if I like yours? It's so spiritual. So colorful.

I feel I have to justify myself in some ways, so here's my story, in short form: I'm married to an Indian, who I met because I was learning Hindi and he thought it was weird. I was learning Hindi because I had recently started singing in it. Singing in Hindi happened because a few of my friends from India would listen to their CDs in my car and I learned some of the words so I could sing along, then one of them entered me in a talent showcase and it spiraled a little out of control to the point where I had 1-2 singing engagements a month. Plus, I wanted to learn Hindi so that I understood when these same friends were talking about me. :) They taught me to cook, we'd hang out together, we'd go to cultural events together; making Indian food and wearing bangles to appropriate events quickly seemed normal to me, not weird or special or exotic. We'd make vada pav and then go watch an independent movie at the Angelika in jeans and halter tops, or we'd go for a Diwali celebration dressed up in sarees and then have dinner at an Italian restaurant. I was brought up in multicultural cities and understood that "different" from one point of view was "normal" from another one, and that nothing was really "different" once you got used to it. Cultural mix was just a part of life.

And when I was singing, I tried to be especially careful. I knew I didn't understand everything, and I wanted to make sure I was appropriate, not appropriating. Even when in Indian dress, I refused to wear bindis for the longest time, mostly because of the impression Madonna and Gwen Stefani gave of white women wearing bindis. It was not until I was at an engagement and a woman huffily stuck a bindi on my forehead in the bathroom that I actually wore one on stage. Eventually, my rule of thumb became "do appropriate things when appropriate." And to do this requires a lot of listening and not very much talking, a lot of observing and as little "look at me" as possible. It requires humility, gratitude, and the constant need to 'check your privilege' and realize that you can be both a guest and a part of the group all at the same time. It requires building relationships, building trust, and - this is the tough one - being okay with however others choose to view you.

But I still bristle when someone asks me "why I am into Indian culture" because even though Indian culture is a fairly major influence on my life, culture isn't something you're "into" like knitting or river rafting or the complete works of Justin Bieber. I know this, but I don't know that other people know that I know this. And although I certainly accept that I can't change anyone's first impression of me, I still do not want to be viewed as that silly dilettante, as one of those girls. I've spent ten years deconstructing stereotypes, trying to not become a stereotype, and every time something like this hits the news, it seems it's back to square one. It's almost like I have to say something about Julia Roberts, Gwen Stefani, Anja Ploetz, in order to distance myself from them, to prove that I am somehow different from them.

But at the same time, am I?

What do I know about Anja Ploetz other than what the editors of New York Magazine decided to include in their 100-word article? What do I know about the blonde girl in the magenta sari at the farmers market?

Does being married to an Indian or living in India or having a basic understanding of intercultural communication make us superior to those who do not have that kind of connection?

Does it give us the right to judge?

Is it appropriate to try to distance ourselves from those we perceive as dilettantes?

Does it give us the responsibility to educate or deconstruct stereotypes?

Let me know your thoughts.


(This post is in part inspired by Jessica Kumar's article "Conversion vs. Covenant: White Hinduism - a Religion of its Own?")