Are Indians ashamed of their roots and culture?

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Opinion - Are we ashamed of our Indianisms? About a month ago, I was at a conference and one of the delegates from the beautiful small town of Clarens asked me: “Are you from India?” Without pause for thought, I immediately responded by vehemently denying I was from India and emphatically and proudly declared I was a fourth generation South African. I am a South African. I informed her that I had never been to India. We started chatting and she told me about her beautiful and spiritual experience in India on her visit with her sick friend. Listening to her, I felt ashamed of myself. Then I started questioning why was I so eager to dispel the perception that I was from India. Some of us proudly wear our traditional attire, dots, stings of different colours to mark religious observances, etc, while some of us try our best to act like we are not Indian and it’s a foreign race to us.

The wife of my husband’s friend once told me: “You are the only Indian friends we have.” I looked at her perplexed.

She was Indian and so were some of the friends in the gatherings we attended.

She went on to elaborate and told me we were the only Indian, Indian friends that they had.

I silently asked myself what were the others and her family for that matter. Are there different levels of Indians?

Are some more Indian than others and if so, what makes one more or less Indian?

I have travelled to many countries through my work and often people ask me if I am from India.

In Mauritius I was given royal treatment in comparison to my husband and daughter just because the locals thought I was from India.

I clearly remember wandering into a bookshop in San Francisco harbour market and an American woman wearing a dot and traditional Indian outfit took one look at me, she smiled and to my consternation hugged me and asked if I was from India and if I was a spiritual mother who gave blessings.

She said that I looked exactly like this spiritual mother that she met in India.

It boosted my ego and I laughingly told her I was from South Africa.

But I have come across many people who try hard to hide their Indianisms.

A relative also had this strange way of denying her origin by saying that when she wants to see Indians she goes to Bangladesh Market.

I realised that these people were ashamed of their ancestry and wanted to create the impression that they were more cultured if that means anything by claiming to be more Westernised.

I listened to the Adventures of 9 Boy, who is actually my beloved nephew.

Now if this 22-year-old young man can use our idiosyncrasies with humour to express what makes us so special in our Indianism and he has a following of over 20 000 young and old people, who enjoy this, why do most of us strive so hard to deny our birthright?

I love the fact that I am Indian, my cultural roots wrap me in bonds of love and specialness that I revel in.

I love our music, our way of expressing ourselves on certain issues and just the way some of our family members and friends speak.

Most of us can identify with Preshen and his mum’s views and ways of expressing themselves on daily happenings in Indian homes.

These conversations that Adventures of 9 Boy shares actually revives our memories of childhood and growing up in our Indian communities, of a certain aunt, uncle or cousin and those words and expressions sound familiar to us.

It happened and is happening.

We should be celebrating our specialness, instead we are ashamed of it and try hard to hide it in front of other race groups less we be stigmatised for our ways and cultural upbringing.

We don’t appreciate the humour and become self-conscious often resorting to anger thinking that we are being mocked when in actual fact it is an acknowledgement of our specialness.

I often wonder why we are so ready to accept a person of a different race saying that Moringa, or turmeric or yoga, etc, is the best and it has health benefits yet when our grandmothers or mothers told us the same, we refused to believe them and did not acknowledge their intuitive knowledge about such things.

I can recount many such instances when we don’t believe our age-old remedies and yet if another race group proclaims it as beneficial to us, we will not hesitate to pay more for it and use it just because someone else other than an Indian told us it was good.

Yes, as an Indian we love to eat certain things that only we remember was made with love by our families and extended families, we have a certain way of expressing ourselves and behaving.

What is wrong in that?

Our roots and ancestry are an integral part of who we are. It defines us, giving us a rich and colourful history and upbringing.

Should we lose this just because we have migrated to places that are considered more upmarket such as Durban North or Westville or Cape Town or Johannesburg for that matter and look down on the once familiar communities we lived in where neighbours were family and we all lived giving credence to “Ubuntu”.

Our local television network had a locally produced comedy show featuring an African family moving into what was considered more upmarket to the township.

If I remember correctly, it was the Moloi family and the wife so desperately denied her authentic roots in her quest to be more accepted in a formerly white community.

This is exactly the way some of our Indian families behave in order to deny their Indianisms.

Families that have moved up in life into a more economically stable lifestyle have the habit of assuming they have now become more superior to their families and try their best to deny their Indianisms.

They slowly start losing their link to their cultural and ancestral roots in their quest to become more Westernised.

Indianisms go out the window and twangs walk in. To those of you who still appreciate your Indianisms and being authentic, good for you.

To the rest of our Indian families, don’t walk so far away from your Indianisms that you cannot find your way back.

Celebrate who you are. Our Indian ancestry is filled with colour, rich and wonderful stories, laughter and love.

As we celebrate 157 years of our forefathers coming to South Africa as Indian indentured labourers we should be proud of their achievements and their legacy including the legacy of our Indianisms.

* Karen Pillay is an independent development practitioner.

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