Hello and salam, everyone. I just have some things I'd like to share with you.
This is completely candid. Usually I write everything on a Word document, edit, and then post on here. But today, I just went straight to Wattpad, because I just wanted to speak about what's been on my mind as if I'm sitting next to you and telling you all this.
Before we start, grab yoself some tea or coffee (no soda, not good for you) because gurl, this is a heart-to-heart conversation.
For those of y'all who don't know, today, August 15th, is Indian Independence Day and of course, I'm Indian so I care. Lately, while observing American foreign policy, I came to a number of observations and conclusions on cultural imperialism and just the state of the world in terms of race relations.
So when I woke up today, I really wanted some roti (Indian flatbread). My mom didn't have any atta (dough) so she told me to go ahead and make some myself and then cook the roti, etc. As I got out the powder for the dough and started adding some water (Indians don't do precise measurements; we totally eyeball everything), it just kind of hit me how amazing that whole moment was.
Just hearing what's been going on in countries like Syria, South Sudan, Palestine, Pakistan, Malaysia, and more, I've been so disheartened but so blessed at how fortunate I am to even be living the life I'm living right now. My family isn't rich or anything; allhamdulillah we get by and can afford some luxuries here and there. But even though by American standards we're "middle-class," we are still so unfathomably rich in comparison to the rest of the world.
But today, it wasn't just that realization that blew me away. I think it was a little deeper than that. Me, just standing there in my kitchen in America, wearing a shalwar kameez (traditional Indian clothes ayeee) while kneeding some atta how my mother taught me, that's so amazing. I'm so blessed to still have my culture after Western imperialism had threatened its existence for so long.
India has been colonized by the British, stripped of its resources and cultures, its people made sub-humans in comparison to the British, yet India fought and regained its independence. My parents managed to leave India around 1991, live in two countries after that, and still retain that culture and that tradition thousands of miles from home.
And then I just thought of the dough, the roti, the cooking that was taking place in that kitchen. I was taught how to make roti by my mother. She learned it from her mother, who learned it from her mother, and so on. So really, even though I've never met my great-grandmother and although I haven't seen my grandmother in so long, a piece of her still lives in me. That tradition and that way of doing things still resides in a home I've carved out in a country that still does not fully accept people like me.
That's so amazing to me, just how much has gone into preserving that culture and the precise moments of fate that landed my parents here and the way they had to parent to retain a balance of Indian and American culture. So even though it seems like nothing, standing in a kitchen in America in shalwar kameez making atta to make roti, it's a product of such a unique set of circumstances. One little change could have altered the way things turned out today.
And no matter where I am, it's like there's this innate part of culture, this tradition that lives inside of me that's now established itself. And for Sanya, my cousin in Chicago, who was taught these things by her mother, my mom's sister, a line of tradition will begin in Chicago. Same goes for Humera, who has carried that tradition and that common root and brings it into her own family with her two daughters.
Truly, that kind of just blows my mind. So as I was rolling out my roti (it came out in a near-perfect circle btw), I was just thinking about how even though India has gotten its independence from Britain, has it really gotten its independence? So much British influence still lingers in India and it has crept into the culture that many non-residential Indians carry.
