ANON- I grew up in a very conservative Indian family. The kind where my parents told me that I can date after marriage, without even a hint of humor...and then clarified that I would date my husband. I think much of my awkwardness and inability to interact normally with the opposite sex stems from the fact that I was raised in this stereotypical Indian mentality. For those unaware, girls are supposed to be pure, meaning:
​

1. No boys

2. Get married:

​I remember my parents giving one of many lectures - usually cautionary tales about the pitfalls of other Indian youth in America - that demonstrate this mindset.

The story was this: a girl was friends with a boy. They spent a lot of time together and a picture of them with their arms around each other ended up on social media. Now, when it came time for the girl to get married, her proposed suitor apparently found the photo and ended the engagement. After hearing this, no one else wanted to propose to the girl. Shame and disgrace rained upon their family, and it was all her fault. The moral of this story, my parents told me, is to not get close to boys. "Don’t even greet the boys at church with a hug," they specified. "Someone will take a photo and your life will be ruined."

Listening to this story, I was enraged. “What happened to the boy in the picture?” I asked my parents. “Did he ever get married?” They did not respond, but the answer was clear. Why does the girl always bear the blame in our culture? I wondered. I sassily told my parents, if that girl were me, I would be thankful that I didn’t have to marry that man. If he is so insecure that he excavates a photo from years ago, and can’t let it go, what kind of marriage would that be? If a person cannot accept his or her significant other’s past, and leave it in the past, there is no future for their relationship. This story also contradicts my feminist ideals since it implies that a girl’s entire goal in life is marriage. Now that the girl’s “prospects” are gone, her life is assumed to be ruined. She cannot truly ever be successful without a man.

This is where the cognitive dissonance begins for me. My parents have always dissuaded me from spending time with boys. Growing up, they encouraged independence, explaining how unnecessary a boy is for my success. Rather, boys were distractions. Yet, at the same time, there has always been the expectation that someday, I will get married (to the boy they choose). It used to be easy for me to push aside the anxiety brought on by this idea, but now that I’m getting older, the narrative has changed. I am no longer the capable, independent young woman they were raising. Now, “medical school is difficult and you will need someone by your side.” What happened to the idea that boys are distractions? What happened to the idea that I can do anything I set my mind to?

“Can you believe we’re going to get her married in 3 years?” my mom remarked when I returned from my first year of college. I just laugh these comments off, but the worry nags at me. From a young age, I knew this was coming, but it had always seemed so far away. I thought I had plenty of time to change their minds. While I have tried, it is futile. I thought perhaps my parents might mellow with age. From my vantage point, they haven’t. The clock is ticking and there is nothing I can do. My parents are good people and I’m blessed to have them. It simply hurts me how narrow-minded they can be; as reasonable as they seem, they are very much still set in their ways. This same stubbornness has led to many disagreements in our house. I have spent many nights upset about seemingly unjust decisions my parents made. Trying to cope with the combined stress of school, friends, and general teenage angst, I spent many nights imagining my fantasy future. One day, my prince would come and whisk me away from the nightmare that was my life. One day, I would look back at all my troubles and smile because they led me to him. One day, everything was going to be okay. I would be happy and married to the man who made them okay. But then I would remember how upset it made me when my parents discussed getting me “married off.”

​One of the Malayalam words for “married” literally translates to “tied.” I had always thought marriage was simply another way for my parents to tie me down. Yet at the same time, here I was, looking at it as my escape. These conflicting views used to make me hate myself, and then hate my parents for making me hate myself. Now, it simply makes me sad. I think I have come to a point of understanding them. They grew up in a culture where everyone did as they were expected to. Their parents grew up in that same culture, and so did their grandparents and great-grandparents. Here they are raising their children in a foreign land, struggling to pass down our culture without it being watered down by the deluge of American ideals. I think this makes them cling more stubbornly to the culture they were raised in. They are simply trying to preserve their sense of identity in a society that is trying to erase it. But at what point should the respect I owe my parents stop overshadowing the respect I owe myself? Must I be tied down by their expectations simply because tradition dictates it? Perhaps they will change someday. I hope it’s soon.

​But for now, I remain in this boy paradox.

illustration credit: hatecopy

RAGINI- Growing up, I watched as many saas-bahu serials as I did Disney Channel shows. My iPod was an even mix of Jesse McCartney and Sonu Nigam. Both pizza and daal-chawal were staple foods in my household. Fortunately, my peers were very accepting for the most part, so I was never made to feel inferior for my background or culture. Because of this, I never felt the need to hide or suppress my desi heritage; instead, I flaunted it. As a childhood diva, I eagerly awaited World Week in school so I could show off my lehenga cholis, and I raised my hand more than usual every year around the festival of Karva Chauth so everyone could see the mehendi designs on my hands. In a school full of white students, I was the token Indian girl, the unofficial authority on all things South Asia.

Because I was so in touch with North Indian culture, I was ecstatic to finally see the real deal after eleven years last fall when my dad and I made plans to visit four Indian cities over the course of three weeks. Along with excitement though, I felt a hint of insecurity. Here in the US, my heritage was my defining quality, my unique thing, often even among my Indian friends. I was afraid that in my homeland, I wouldn’t be considered Indian enough. My suspicions were confirmed the moment I stepped off the plane as the relatives welcoming us at the airport spoke to me in English rather than Hindi. This continued throughout the trip as people made special arrangements for me, like making sure I had bottled or filtered water and providing me with utensils for dishes usually meant to be eaten with one’s hands.

From shopkeepers to family members, my behavior surprised everyone I interacted with. When I greeted elders by touching their feet and saying pranam rather than giving them a ‘sup nod, spoke to waiters in Hindi instead of English, and offered to show family friends the classical dance I was teaching back home in Dallas, it caught everyone off guard. No one expected a girl brought up in America to be so familiar with Indian customs or have such an adequate grasp on the language (listen, my Hindi was impressive for a US citizen, but that still doesn’t mean it was great). It was clear that I was out of my element in India, but it was not nearly as foreign to me as everyone had seemed to expect.

August 15 is a very special date to me because it’s the day that I celebrate my native country’s independence as well as my own. On this day in 1947, India was freed from the British, and in 1998 my mother and I made the journey from India to the United States. Although I left India at a young age, my parents spent my formative years instilling traditional Indian values and a love of my culture in me. Because I’m not just American and I’m not just Indian, it’s easy to feel like an outsider in both countries sometimes. However, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. It’s the blending of the values of both of my countries that has made me the unique individual I am today.

she's not the same colour
​as ivory and pearls

what a shame.

she looks of the night sky
​instead of the moon

what a shame.

she should have stayed out of the sun
she should have done whatever it takes

what a shame.

​it's a curse

i can't be beautiful
i can't be comfortable
i simply must endure

the mistreatment
the judgment
​the criticism

even to dark men
dark girls can't win

even if he's darker than the skin i'm in
​to be with a dark-skinned girl is a sin

in their eyes
​i'm only almost pretty

if i weren't so dark
i might be worth
​love and appreciation
​care and admiration

instead i'm just
tolerated

i want to be taught how to love myself
not to better myself

​
​my complexion

not a definition of my character
my accomplishments
​my being

my skin

the color of a chestnut seed
coffee with no cream
dark toffee
bubbling caramelized sugar
earthy mahogany wood

my identity

much more
​than the pigment of my skin

​
​on the outside

you're porcelain
frost
​cotton

i'm cocoa
buckwheat honey
gingerbread

on the inside

​we're both

nothing but blood red.

illustration credit​: almondmilkchild

PRANEEKA- 

"If any part of our body is sick, we go to the doctor
But no one goes to the doctor when their mind is sick
As if the mind is not part of the body at all." --Shah Rukh Khan as Dr. Jehangir in Dear Zindagi

On January 27, 2013, Shreya’s parents informed my friends and me that Shreya* had “passed away due to unknown causes.”

What her parents did not tell us is that Shreya attempted suicide and succeeded. She killed herself.

Oh sorry, did I say the “s” word? Is it hard for you to stomach? Does it make you flinch a little bit? My question to you is: why? Why does it hurt to say words like suicide, depression, self-harm, and therapy? Why are we silent on these things when they are becoming increasingly common in our culture?

My friend was every Indian family's poster child; she was a beautiful, bright student who had plans to pursue a career in medicine and knew how to make everyone around her feel good about themselves. Everyone thought, why would such a perfect girl even think of ending her life? I read a news article about my friend’s mother answering a similar question and the following was her response:

“My daughter never told me anything. She never said anything about being depressed or any of that nonsense. The only mildly concerning thing she ever said was that she didn’t think her career path in becoming a doctor was right for her. That was solved though because [my husband and I] told her to keep going and push through. She was doing well the last time I checked, but now it’s all gone. We don’t know what to do or say. Our family back home [in India] doesn’t know about this yet, and we don’t know how to tell them. What are they going to think?” She fades off to a mumble, tears forming in her eyes.

I hope you found many problems with what this woman said. One. She dismissed the idea of depression in such a condescending manner. Two. Instead of properly addressing their child’s request for help, the parents continued to push the girl into doing something she did not wish to pursue. Three. She prioritized family reputation over her own daughter.

A few days after Shreya committed suicide, the police found Shreya’s journal and went through the text messages left on her phone. Her diary consisted of dark poems and doodles, and texts with friends included statements such as “my mind feels blank,” “I feel trapped,” and “I’m scared of my parents” scattered in their conversations. None of this evidence came as a surprise to me; I knew all about this side of Shreya. This girl was far from perfect! She regularly had panic attacks. Instead of becoming a doctor, she wanted to become a journalist. Her parents had more control of her life than she ever did. She didn’t magically change her outlook on life just like that, as her parents had claimed. Her mental health gradually deteriorated until she could take no more. It is horrible to say, but it all added up.

You might ask, why didn’t Shreya just ask for help? The answer lies in the ingrained behaviors that make up our community’s lifestyle. Mental health did not become a concern for many immigrant South Asians until they moved from their respective countries. In a 2004 study, an immigrant Indian woman subject exclaims, “We didn’t know what the meaning of depression was. We only heard about it, now here we know what the meaning of depression is.” The woman went on to explain how there is more accessibility to mental health services in the western world than there is back home: “In India we would only visit the doctor when we are sick. Here [in North America], even if you are healthy we still go for a checkup.” She also discusses South Asians’ affinity with using home remedies instead of seeking traditional medication because they are “uncomfortable with the notion of seeking medical help more regularly,” and would avoid burdening others. In a report from the US Surgeon General, it has been found that Asian Americans are “more likely to exhibit complaints of depression than are African Americans or whites, but Asians are thought to deny the experience and expression of emotions.” Due to this restricting stereotype, Asian Americans have “the lowest rates of utilization of mental health services among ethnic populations.” Rather than being emotionally honest, we would rather prefer silence and internalize our pain so we won’t be perceived as weak.

South Asians also subscribe to what is known as a model minority stereotype. Our community includes some of the highest-income, best-educated, and fastest-growing individuals in North America and places higher value on marriage, hard work, and career success compared to other Americans. High expectations are forced upon and extreme success stories are thrown as unrealistic comparisons at the future generations of South Asians. My brown friends, you know what I’m talking about. Vidhya got a National Academics Award for getting a perfect score on the math section of the SAT in seventh grade. Abhi took the MCAT two years early and is already in medical school. Sanjana got an MBA at Yale University and now earns $250k a year. Due to these sorts of extraordinary examples, their understanding of what most professions entail is skewed and now anecdotal. Raziman, a nanophotonics postdoc, states that South Asian parents “hear that so and so professions have good job security, earn enough money, and are well respected in society. Money, security, and status are buzzwords that every parent drools over. As a result, they tend to disregard their child’s passion as the stupidity of youth, and enforces their wishes on them.” Parents force their children into becoming cookie cutter copies of their exemplary peers, all eventually becoming doctors and engineers. They fail to understand that not all children can be thrown into this mass manufacturing of STEM career-focused professionals. Other jobs not relating to mathematics and science are looked down upon and are thought to not hold as high of a reputation in society. Much to our community’s disbelief, there are outstanding South Asian individuals in non-STEM fields, too! Just to name a few: Aziz Ansari, Mindy Kaling, Hasan Minhaj, Dev Patel, Sameer Gadhia, Anchal Joseph, Pico Iyer, Padma Lakshmi, Norah Jones, Nav, Fareed Zakaria, Pooja Kumar. The list goes on and on. It is important for parents to realize and guide their children to do something they would enjoy for a long period of time. If they are forced to pursue a career they are not passionate about merely for the status and security, they will not be true to themselves for their rest of their lives and will eventually emotionally burn out.

In South Asian cultures, there are beliefs that drive this stigma of mental illness. For instance, it is presumed that mental illness occurs because individuals are too weak to deal with such problems and can be cured by free will. However, mental illnesses are like any other medical disorder: they cannot simply be controlled by the suffering individual. There is no way humans can attain perfection; we all have mental struggles. There is no value to you in staying silent about your pain and no shame in asking for professional help and/or medicine. Even if you may be perceived as weak or you are putting your reputation on the line to save yourself, I highly advise you to take action. My friend Shreya deserved the world in return for the things she did for me. Every day I regret not offering help when she needed it most, so this post is the least I can do for her. I use her story to shed light on how ignorant our community is in terms of aiding those with mental illness. Listed below are some online resources available for South Asians who need helpful information regarding mental health.

Please take care of yourself, my friends.

RESOURCES (thanks to reclaimthebindi):

• Self-Care Masterpost
• Suicide Prevention Lifeline
• SAMHAA
• MySahana
• SAMHAJ
• CHAI
• South Asian Network (SAN)
• Heart Mind International
• MannMukti​

*Name has been changed to protect subject’s confidentiality.

PRANEEKA- 

"Hey, look at that girl. Isn't she pretty?"
"Oh yeah, but too bad she's dark."

These are words that two boys whispered about me when I passed by them. Too bad she's dark. Wow. What started out as an uplifting comment crashed down in an instant because I possessed what they believed to be an unappealing skin tone. Imagine being constantly belittled because of a characteristic you cannot change. I am a victim of a type of discrimination that many people are not aware of. I am a victim of a sort of prejudice that the media advocates by barraging our society with notions of what it believes is desirable and undesirable. I am a victim of what is known as colorism.

Colorism is the practice of discrimination based on skin color. It provides disadvantages to dark-skinned individuals and advantages to light-skinned ones. Recently, this form of oppression has been getting more and more prevalent in economic, social, and cultural institutions. Dark-skinned people are commonly viewed as less capable and beautiful. In South Asia specifically, lighter-skinned men and women are more favorable in many aspects. 

The discrimination began due to the implementation of the Caste system and Aryan traditions practiced by the British during its imperialism in India. Now, colorism is regularly seen in Indian pop culture, such as Bollywood films; the relation between dark skin color and ugliness or evil are evident in many South Asian movies and cultural commodities. Advertisers regard it as an effective marketing strategy for selling skin bleaching creams. Men take it into account when choosing their brides for arranged marriages. It is even seen in Indian school textbooks and other sources of curriculum. It is time for this persecution to come to an end.

​Because of our peers, magazines, billboards, and advertisements, we are ingrained with the notion that having light skin would be an ideal advantage in every situation. But why are fairer desis praised for their appearance when darker desis who bear the same features are considered ugly? In a social experiment I came across, five men were shown two pictures: one of a light-skinned Indian woman with a rather plain appearance and one of a dark-skinned woman with a stunning visage. They had to choose which one they considered more beautiful. ALL five men selected the light-skinned woman. This absolutely disgusts me. This bigotry has been cycled down for so many generations, and I am amazed that it is not tiring for us to idolize the same type of people.

An opposer of colorism in another blog beautifully asks, "You all claim to be so progressive, to consider every skin tone beautiful. But where is that mindset when you benefit so much from being fair while your darker sisters get torn apart every day?" You see, our worth is degraded. We are at a social, or even an economical, disadvantage. Society will give us a certain level of privilege based on skin tone, which is, once again, an inalterable trait! If you believe that a dark person cannot be successful, go educate yourself right now. Look up Mindy Kaling. Aziz Ansari. Suraj Sharma. Archana Kumar. All of these notable people have stated in interviews that they hard to work twice as hard as their light-skinned competitors to earn their positions as actors, singers, and other careers they pursue in. But they do not regret having dark skin; it helped them move forward with more confidence and determination in achieving their aspirations. So for my fellow chocolate-skinned friends out there, don't take Priyanka Chopra's or Shah Rukh Khan's tempting advice on using fairness creams and skin bleaching products. Don't fall into the hands of societal pressure. Most importantly, don't apologize for your skin tone. God would not have created different skin tones without a reason at hand. Think of your gift of melanin as a blessing, because it truly is. 

This began as a post-finals playlist but it's actually perfect for any gathering, car ride, or solo dance party. Whether you're celebrating or looking for a way to ease your worries, do it the Indian way: by blasting some mast or kuthu songs and dancing your heart out. Remember, abhi to party shuru hui hai (the party's just begun); it's kondatta neram (time to party)!