Prologue
So most of this piece has been written over several days and was subject to some intense editing. Wifi-less Meghana has been very productive. Over the next few days, I am going to be posting all the pieces I wrote over the course of my 2 week vacciones. I am having the BEST time and want to sincerely thank my parents for making this trip come to life. You are superheroes, and we would be nowhere without you! Danke Schön, Mamma & Papi.
xxxxxx
Funnily enough, Slumdog Millionaire is an accurate representation of how India is (WHOA MEGHANA SO OFFENSIVE right at the start of your piece. That’s racist. Well, you know what? Just stay with me).
Are you laughing? HAHAHAHAAH because I am. Are you shocked? Oh you are? Well, pish posh get out (lol I spend 2 hours in London & start using terms like pish posh).
*Carrying On*
When I first watched it, I lived in India & we were almost about to move out to Canada. I did not understand what it meant to have a “western outlook” on things. I did not know what the hell “white privilege” meant. I was just used to people poking “fun” at stereotypically Indian attitudes – things like ‘running on IST’ ; curry lovers, movies with actors engaging in intense song and dance numbers around trees and stuff like that. But this whole white privilege and racism and blah blah were things I had NEVER experienced. (Sexism, yes. Racism, literally never).
I landed in India at about 6:30AM on 12th June 2016. Damn. I mean, damn. A part of me felt guilty for instantly “Slumdog Millionaire-ing” (yas bitches) my reactions towards walking into a muggy, crowded and odd smelling international airport in Hyderabad, India (city where my parents were born & raised, met, were made to marry [hahaha love u guys & arranged marriage rules], I was born [yas] and spent a majority, if not all of my summer vacations here eating mangoes, biriyani and homemade potato chips). I felt really guilty. This city, was my home. I used to love coming here. This was my escape. Now, the familiar smell of pee (ya my dudes) upon exiting the airport & my reaction of “Wow that’s so gross” surprised me. I used to be okay with it, because pre-Canada Meghana (& the rest of my family) treated that as one of the many idiosyncratic aspects of living in India (why? Men pee on roads in corners. There, I said it). My Slumdog Millionaire reaction prompted me to start writing as we drove to our hotel from the airport.
Remember when I said India was accurately portrayed in Slumdog Millionaire? Well, to tell you the truth – it wasn’t (ARE YA SHOCKED AGAIN, that I tend to lie at the start of my pieces..ok carrying on). It was an over-exaggerated, overrated, white privilegy, hands off view of India and its people. It was an account by someone who received too MANY accolades and praises for ridiculing an entire country and its people. A country, whose ancestors were the ONLY ones who non-violently ejected Britain from its borders, and embarked on an insane path to technological advancement and redevelopment (we also had a female President before US and a female Prime Minister way before Canada could say EH).
I get it, ok. Indian people have the tendency to never be punctual. I joke about the whole IST thing all the time. Ya, we love our curries, but SO DO YOU (HAHAHAHA you are so trapped). We love being loud (literally, my aesthetic) and we enjoy being, obnoxiously Indian by speaking our native languages out in public. I get it. It can get annoying as hell and you might get to a point on your tolerance meter that on a scale from 1 to cant, can’t even anymore. I get it.
But look at the big picture.
If my ancestors weren’t brave enough to set a precedent of immigration overseas, for the rest of us to follow, you would have none of these (compiled in an eloquent list):
– Real Butter Chicken (no not with that stupid ‘sauce’ crap. Real, Creamy, Indian Butter Chicken.
– Naan “BREAD” (honestly, naan is bread. Stop it).
– Chai tea (I am serious. Chai is tea. STOP)
– Bollywood music (you know how you guys make fun of tree dancing and whatever? The minute a bollywood song comes on, it doesn’t matter where you are from, you are GONNA GET DOWN WITH THEM MOOVES)
– Me (let’s be serious. Most important item on this list)
I could go on, and that is the beauty of evolution and development. Each one of us serves a purpose, and most of our lives would have been extremely different if we had never met each other over the course of this beautiful thing I call lifey (ya lil lifey). So, just take a minute and rejoice in the fact that you met me, and how that has greatly contributed to the betterment of your otherwise boring lives (wow I suck).
Upon some deep reflection (by which I mean, me thinking during all this free time I seemed to have without wifi) is that it doesn’t matter how many times I see garbage chucked in the wrong place or dudes peeing in corners, I am never going to be THAT person who isn’t proud of where she is from (I promise this sounded WAY more patriotic in my head hehe)
Its weird isn’t it? I am okay with that. I now realize, on the last day of my trip that I complained about the heat a lot. I mean, a lot…almost to the point of annoyance & that really sucks on my part. Canada has made me a little weak, physically. I was someone who could play outdoors in 50 degree weather for hours, come home, completely dehydrated and tanned, and all I needed was a cold shower.
Now, new Canada me can barely stand outside for more than 10 minutes without uttering a “holy shit this heat I NEED AC”. And, my entire family has become like that. Wow thanks Obama. Jeez (I am kidding. I am going to miss you like hell pls dont leave).
My entire family has become a little weak. We have almost become privileged….ah see this privilege thing is so tricky. And, funnily enough we do not have/cannot exhibit this privilege in Canada.
I call this “brownish” privilege. We come back to the Motherland with all these dollars and are helped immediately because store clerks can tell that we are “not from here” by the way we talk, dress and behave. We are what this wise person I know would call “URR” (Ultra Richie Rich) or RR (Richie Rich) for the sake of sounding ‘classy’ when they make an observation about NRI (see below) spending power in public.
Our spending power as NRIs (non-returning Indians …lol Bollywood loves making movies about NRI sons who go off to college in the States, come back all fancy and douchy only to fall for a simple, yet stunning Indian girl and then there is a bunch of extravagant song and dance numbers shot in Switzerland?!?? and they fall in love, get married & have kids. The end). But our spending power here is insane. Despite cost of living rising here on the reg, we are able to continually match the increase in prices of food, clothing and other goods and services. This is where our ‘brownish’ privilege kicks in & we become these unstoppable forces of nature that no one can say no to.
I love that feeling. I hate being stared at but I love that feeling of never being said no to. Does this make me selfish? I guess. I mean, when I walk into Holt Renfrew or any other luxury store in Canada I encounter URRs and RRs (heck I encountered them at QUEEN’s, so what am I even talking about).
When we have discourse surrounding privilege, a lot of the times we forget that most of us, who moved overseas at whatever age will have the potential to exercise a “privilege” at some point in our lives, whether it be when you travel back to your country of ethnic origin or when you are able to afford more than just the basic necessities of life. I don’t have the financial privilege in Canada or the “brownish privilege” because a) I am a student and b) I am a minority.
My ability to exercise this privilege was part of my identity in India, as a “tourist” (lol tourist). Or rather struggling to make sure that my Hindi did not sound accented (my brother asked someone for cold milk & they gave him a fork instead idk how ok but true story). I had to struggle to make sure that my new found privilege did not impact the way I dealt or conversed with people.
Sadly, it did. I expected to be treated differently and ‘respected’. Oddly enough, in India, people treat you like a child until you move out of your house on account of your marriage (lmao). And since I am planning to never conduct/attend my own nuptials, FOREVER A KID Y’ALL (more on this later).
India is a land of everything (I am not sure what I mean by that, but I needed to use a grandiose term, to convey my feelings). And, my ability to exercise this privilege or complain incessantly about the extreme heat is NOT why I loved visiting India after seven years. Apart from having been able to visit close family, reuniting with cousins I grew up with, and spending every waking minute with them, I realized something.
I realized that I had missed watching India grow, and somehow stay the same, retaining its classic “you will only find this in India” traits.
And that’s what part 2 of my holiday blog will be about.
Happy Reading and Namaste!
#Views From My Laptop 