“Im Just Indian” Part 2
Tags: Role Models, Bollywood, Cultural Heritage, Hip Hop, South Asian

“Im Just Indian” Part 2

“No role models and I’m here right now,

No role models to speak of,

Searchin’ through my memory, my memory, I couldn’t find one” — J. Cole, No role models

As I continued my journey to uncover my cultural heritage and identity, I couldn’t help but contemplate if I had any role models to look up to.

I vaguely remember glancing at a few Bollywood movies and not really getting into them. Even though I can understand my mother-tongue (Urdu which is like Hindi), the concepts and story lines portrayed in these movies didn’t resonate with me, and if anything, they made me dislike parts of my Indian culture.

Some Indian movies were hard to digest lol

Alternatively, when I thought about ‘Western’ society, there weren’t many celebrities or public figures who looked like me in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In terms of pop culture reference to ‘Indians’, most TV shows and movies with an Indian character were more likely to stereotype them with the classic ‘Indian accent’.

Russell Peters iconic line i still repeat to this day

I was excited to see an ‘Indian’ face in mainstream media when Russell Peters blew up and whilst I am a huge fan of his work, it didn’t impower or influence me in the way you would expect from a role model. I think I appreciated that at least the narrative was in our control because it was one of “our own” making fun of Indians.

Another challenge I faced, was growing up around cousins, who had (whether on purpose or by accident) renounced their cultural heritage, due to probably the same reasons as me..

And so this is what I was exposed to as I was growing up — I didn’t like Indian culture, society influenced me to make fun of my own people and I had no one in my family who could help me navigate and understand the mixed cultural heritage that I was born into…

So, where do I go now?

Like most white-washed Indian males, I gravitated towards African American culture.

White-washed: Having dissociated oneself from one’s ancestral culture by adopting or attempting to adopt an western lifestyle

They kind of looked like us, had ancestors who had settled in Western society, were cool and easily accessible in mainstream media. Hip hop was the avenue that introduced it all — 2pac, Dr Dre, Biggie, J. Cole, Ludacris, Snoop, NAS and so many others. I think back and can thankfully say I didn’t make too much of an ass trying to appropriate a culture, but there were plenty of times I was called out on trying to be ‘Black’.

As the years went on, a few people started to break barriers such as Lily Singh (aka Superwoman), Priyanka Chopra, Kal Penn, Aziz Ansari, Hasan Minhaj, Kunal Nayyar, Mindy Kaling, Dev Patel to name a few. Currently, some of the South Asian (SA) community shun a few of the people I’ve mentioned, due to their life choices or the type of content they share. However, whether you like it or not, this cohort of people laid the foundation to where we’re at now as a community — I call it the ‘Brown Wave’.

I call it the ‘Brown Wave’

In the last 5 years or so, there has been a surge in SA personalities and people who looked like me started to establish a presence online, in business and politics. We started to share our stories in different ways and realised that we aren’t all that different. For SA’s living in the west, it impowered us to reclaim our culture, to laugh and cry about our upbringing, and understand why our immigrant parents are the way they are.

As mentioned, hip hop was a huge influence in my life and a few years ago I was introduced to an Indian movie, “Gully Boy”. When I read up on it, it gave me an ‘8 mile’-esk vibe. I watched the movie with very little expectation, as I assumed it would be a cringe-fest. Holy doly I was wrong!

The movie presented the realities of living in the rough parts of India, socioeconomic issues and interfaith relationships in the modern era, all the while playing a beautiful homage to hip hop by displaying the 5 pillars of hip hop: MCing, DJing, Breakdancing, Graffiti, and Knowledge — with a sprinkling of Indian culture. I started to dig further and discovered artists such as DIVINE (who the movie Gully Boy was inspired by), Siz1, Emiway.. and I know I’m only at the tip of the iceberg of Indian Hip hop.

One of my favorite DIVINE songs —’ Punya Paap’ (Virtue and Sin)

This was it, this was the bridge linking me to my Indian culture, in a language that I could understand — hip hop. The connection to my Indian culture started to grow and it encouraged me to improve my Urdu as well..

To be continued in Part 3

Few of my favorite brown creatives & groups on IG you must check out:

- @subtlecurrytraits — Online blog

- @brownhistory — South Asian history

- @browngirlgang — Online blog

- @blindianproject — Home of black and brown culture

- @vivianakadivine — Hip hop artist

- @haseebthefew — Hip hop artist

- @lfreshthelion — Hip hop artist

- @mangorehma — Singer/songwriter

- @auntyskates — An aunty who loves to skateboard

- @fitkaur — Personal trainer

- @anikkhan — Hip hop artist

- @everyday.like.this — Digital creator

- @everydaypakistan — Showcasing the real Pakistan

- @cyberwithaarati — Cybersecurity consultant

- @thefproject.nepal — Feminist Nepali story telling

- @deepica — Founder & CEO badass

- @jayshetty — You already know

- @pranavpannala — Music Producer

- @silvercheel — Hip hop artist

- @saintlion MMA athlete

- @indian_mma — Indian MMA

- @nimsdai — Mountaineer

- @totheculture — Showcasing hip hop scene in India

- @rowisingh — Digital creator