I grew up in a very multicultural part of London, filled with different colors, cultures, and smells. I went to a school where 40% of the kids looked like me, and some didn’t look like me at all.
Most of the kids in my school were from the local council estate. Nearly all of us were on free lunches. In primary school, I never really felt poor; I just thought some people saved money, and others spent it. We were in the saving category. I remember going with my mum every week to the bank, where she’d deposit cash into each of our accounts. She used to tell me she was saving money for our future so none of her daughters would ever need to look at a man’s hands for money. We were going to stand on our own two feet. Financial freedom! I thought my mum was really clever.
Every morning, my best friend’s dad would pick us up to take her to school. Every Thursday, we’d stop at a shop, and she was allowed to buy a Just Seventeen magazine. I thought she was SO lucky. My mum thought all magazines and comics were the devil’s work; we weren’t allowed them in the house. She believed they were a gateway to prostitution, or worse—an acting career, which in her mind meant taking drugs and dying. She could be very melodramatic—standard Indian mum. When she was mad, it would always end with her screaming, “If you wanted to do that, you should have killed me first.” The other favorite was, “What will people say?”
When we were younger, my mum would take us to Punjabi school every week without fail. My sister and I would piss about, get our chewy sweets, and piss off home, none the wiser. I mean, I know more German! I speak Punjabi like a 5-year-old. The only word I know how to spell in Punjabi is “red.” I don’t know how to recognize any of the alphabet. The first time I went to the motherland, I was 25, shopping for my wedding. Not knowing Indian numbers past 20 made it very difficult to negotiate a good price. Another difficulty was not knowing the difference between yesterday, tomorrow, and the names of the days of the week. So, agreeing on a day and time to pick up clothes became a living nightmare!
I did experience low-level racism at school. “Low-level” meant I’d hear people say, “Go back to where you came from,” usually during fights in the playground. The first time I was really upset by racism was when I was 18. As part of my university course, we traveled to a small coastal town in France. We all decided to go clubbing in a nearby town. Fifteen of us queued up: thirteen were white, one Black, and me, Brown. The bouncer came up to us and ushered our group in. When he reached me and the Black guy, he told us we weren’t allowed in and should leave. I asked why. Genuinely, I had no idea. They told me they didn’t want “my kind” in the nightclub. Oblivious, I said, “A woman?” (Forgetting he had stopped both of us). The bouncer told us to get out of the queue; otherwise, he’d call the police. At this, the French students in my group got scared. Eventually, we left. My university friends were outraged. They wanted to go back to the nightclub armed with bricks to smash the place up. One of them said, “I have never even thought of you as Indian; you’re not a normal Indian girl.” I think they meant this as a compliment.
The community I grew up in never asked me where I was from—they knew. The first time I was asked “the question” was two days into a new job at a blue-chip company. While in the kitchen area making some tea, a colleague tried to engage in small talk. “Where are you from?” I replied, “I live in West London.” He persistently kept on at it, “No, from?” Eventually, I revealed my door number and the road I lived on. Then he rephrased the question and asked, “Where are your parents from?” I said, “India,” and he was like, “Oh, how very nice—whereabouts in India?” Like, honestly, who the fuck knows? I’ve never asked them. So I said “Punjab,” hoping this would finally be enough. He then proudly told me his grandfather used to be based in Punjab during the days of the Raj. By this time, I was done and wanted to leave the conversation. I pulled all my historical Indian knowledge and said, “What, your family was involved in the oppression of Indians that lasted nearly 90 years?” I know very little about the history of India; all my information is from programs like Indian Summers and Gandhi. He stopped asking me questions after that, both personal and work-related.
I found my first journey “to and from from-land” incredibly annoying. I was born in London, brought up in London, and educated there too. If you’re asking where I’m from, accept “London.” That’s where I’m from.
In India, the prejudice against UK-born Indians is just as bad. I would be dressed head-to-toe in Indian cultural garments, and even with my mouth shut, men would constantly accost me. They knew I wasn’t from India. I was told it was because of the way I stood. Another thing to be more conscious about myself in India. If anything happened to me, it was considered that I was asking for it. Mental note: forget the Pilates stance. Adopt the “beji hunched” one. Being from the UK, I was already considered more promiscuous than the homegrown Indian girl. A little touch-up was fair game.
I knew it was bad, but I was 25—I couldn’t change a culture. One time, I even took advantage of it! It was Valentine’s Day. I had spent two weeks in India wedding shopping with my sister. On Valentine’s Day, we decided to treat ourselves to pedicures, an Indian head massage, wash, and blow-dry. By that point in our trip, we were barely talking to each other. We weren’t used to spending that much time together, and we were getting on each other’s nerves. As soon as I sat in the beauty parlour chair, I pretended I was asleep. She began talking to me, but I continued playing dead. The beauticians were both men. We sat next to each other, and both men started to roll up our trousers. Mine were rolled all the way to my mid-thigh, my sister’s to her knees. It all started with the massage. My beautician ran his hands all the way up my thigh. The tops of his fingers went into my rolled-up trouser legs. It felt inappropriate, yes, but fuck, at the same time, it felt good. Now, I could ask him to stop, cause a scene, and forgo my Indian head massage. Worse still, I’d risk having a conversation with my sister. Or I could just shut up—he wasn’t going to make it to my pants and impregnate me. I let it happen. Then I heard my sister say, in her best Punjabi to her beautician, “Do it like he’s doing hers.” Through peaked eyes, I could see her gesturing towards me and my beautician. The fight for equality!
“Where are you from?” is a fine question to ask. “Where are you from from?” No, just no. Where I am from is my identity.
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