I am proudly a resident of the tiny Middle-Eastern country, Bahrain, a citizen of India, and a current immigrant to the United States of America.
Diagnosed with the many cultures that I was exposed to, I became more cognizant of my identity as an Indian woman in a globally enriched society, over the last four years. I am a third culture kid, whose life has been shaped by very different perspectives. This became even more confusing, when I found myself immersing in a new pot of diversities in Ann Arbor. I was pushed to think about my own culture, my background, and where I am really from?
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This identity crisis did not start in college. It started a little before Grade 10, when I realized how much I despised visiting, let alone living in India. My parents were very protective of me whenever we would visit India for our annual summer holiday. I never understood why but navigated into concluding that perhaps it was because I was the imperfect Indian, despite being perfectly brown with a little less than perfect spoken Hindi (my mother tongue).
In Bahrain, I had a very close community of my best friends who were all Indian too but had lived in the Middle East for a long time just like I had. Our lives were almost the same, where we would be exposed to different cultures in an Islamic country, but never fully exposed to the Indian community either. With diversity around us, our thoughts became multi-dimensional too, and India's homogeneity felt very different to my heterogenous mind. To top it off, Bahrain was/is relatively safe, as compared to the continuous jeering and staring from the men on almost every street in India. This difference in my surroundings made me realize how different I was and am from my cousins, people on the streets, and family members - who all looked like me, but were nothing like me. With this restriction to do things, and inability to go places by myself, made me more distant from my birth country, and after a point, I stopped trying to convince my parents and myself to be out there.
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Truly, this identity crisis became a real crisis when I struggled to answer the infamous question: "where are you from?" in Ann Arbor. This made me more aware of my background, race, and ethnicity, and took me to wonder why I couldn't be both Indian and Bahraini - without losing either identities? Why do I feel so attached to Bahrain yet I feel attached to India in the many ways that most non-resident Indians are? Whether it be my absolute infatuation for Bollywood, the many cravings for Indian food that I had in college, my love for the big fat Indian weddings and my very own favorite festival - Diwali, or my affinity for donning the sarees, lehengas, and the salwar-kameez whenever I have a chance, I was still Indian at heart. At the same time, I cannot let go of the massive happiness that my home in Bahrain brings to me, with my balcony looking over the pool, the 5 holy prayers of the day heard from the nearby mosque, or the waves of salty water that swept across the sands of the dunes. With the best of both worlds that I grew up in, how could I make myself just be one without the other?
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Over the past 4 years, while my mind and heart played the constant battle, I took more notice about the many ways that cultures, religions, places, and backgrounds affect my identity as an Indian woman of color in business. Navigating the various dynamics of belonging to different places, and not having one place to call home, I reflected on my fear towards India - not because of the country, but because of the people. The people in India scare me, the society scares me, the way that people look at you as if you are an outsider reinstills that I am an outsider. Speaking to this, I also grew interested in the many ways that I, as a woman, felt more conscious of my image and body type to the Indian community in India, Bahrain, and the US. This led me to have conversations with the real Indian women who too belong to different places and have different family, lingual, community histories that make them who they are today. Every Indian woman has different experiences within the realms of the three themes, and those experiences matter, so much for our communities to know and grow from the many faults that exist.
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WHY CAN'T I WEAR SHORTS?
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During the many times over my 11 years of life in Bahrain (prior to Michigan) that my family and I took our annual summer holiday in India, my curiosity to know why my parents wouldn't let me wear anything that didn't cover my shoulders and/or didn't reach my knees, grew and grew every year. To be honest, that question was never explicitly answered, and after a point, I stopped trying to know that answer. I made myself appear as if I was trying to assimilate and become one of the Indians in the neighborhood where my grandparents' house lived, but I internally always felt that I was missing something, for I never could really be the "Indian" they were. With such tensions in place, I normalized that my wardrobe for those annual summer holidays would remain standardized. Even if I wanted to wear shorts or dresses that didn't cover my knees or tops that had deep necks, looking back, I realize how I withdrew myself from the community around me, succumbing myself to be at home, or indoors, where I didn't feel like stepping out at all. I would often tell my parents how I didn't want to go outside at all, and just be at home watching TV, eating home cooked food, or sometimes, food delivery, and just doing my summer homework from school, or as Grade 11 approached, preparing for the SAT and IELTS.
I felt they were excuses, perhaps valid ones, but the real reason was that I was afraid. Afraid of the jeering and staring that I felt I was constantly being watched and looked at - not in friendly ways, of course. That fear made me feel restricted and that I couldn't do anything but shut myself in.
As Grade 11 and Grade 12 rolled around, and I became slightly rebellious, and began to see this as a game. If I would see anyone staring at me, I would stare back at them - not for long, but perhaps a minute or two, and give a fake smile or grin as if this was just a staring game. Of course, most of those instances felt that this would be quite dangerous for I did not want to put myself in a risky situation, but at other times, I enjoyed this game. I do not know if it solved the problem or not, but it certainly affected my fear and resentment that I developed to those people around me.
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After I joined college, my visits to India started declining. As of today, I have not visited India in over a year, and I feel that I have this fear instilled somewhere inside of me. I am not sure when will I free myself of that fear and the many childhood memories that I have associated with that to realize that perhaps the society is changing and that the people around me won't be so bad anymore.
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WHAT IS THE CORRECT BODY SIZE?
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When I was about eight years old, a friend of mine came up to me, and said "We think you have a big butt," indicating that she was speaking for all my other friends too. I didn't react when she told me, but cried like a baby when I got home and told my mom. She was clearly very upset and wanted me to stay away from that one girl who said this. Fortunately, that girl and her family moved to Dubai for good, and I couldn't have felt any better.
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Middle school also meant that girls developed faster than boys, so being the tallest girl in my class, I naturally appeared 'big,' but also grew bigger - with chubby cheeks, bulging stomach, and big butt. And so began the many comments about my weight and appearance. My best friends were tinier, and skinnier than me, but they never really made specific comments about my weight since they saw that I am more than my weight.
High school was when I actually started understanding the way I looked on the outside. Over the summers, I grew more conscious of my weight whenever I traveled to India, and meet my grandparents, cousins, and extended family, since they were clearly more interested about my body. Whenever we would go shopping, I constantly evaluated myself regarding which clothes would suit me best and which wouldn't, as an attempt to "make" me appear something that I wasn't. I realized that I too started thinking about choosing clothes strategically that fit me in the best ways to hide that fat.
Only after Grade 10 did I take an active step to changing and reforming my body, because after my year-end finals, my weight was the highest that it ever had been. I began working out, occasionally swimming or playing basketball, and saw my body change. Alongside, I gave up dessert, chocolate, all fried foods, and switched to everything cooked in less oil. Bam, I was skinny over the last two years of high school, and I never felt any better before. I also internalized that I was ready to start college, with a new body shape, and size, and that I could wear clothes like "everyone else," without realizing that not "everyone else" had one standard size.
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Freshman year, I was really conscious of Freshman 15 and watched my diet - ate salads, cereal, maintained a diet, and avoided junk food and dessert. I didn't gym but danced a lot through dance groups on campus. My weight was "fine," until sophomore year rolled around, and my sleeping, food and drink habits became unhealthy. My weight started increasing, and I sort of went into this delusional state that I was fine, I looked fine, and that my body was not going to gain weight. I survived on salads and lots of Cheerios, but did not meet all my nutritional needs. Weekdays saw me sleeping late and waking up early, and weekends saw me making up those lost sleep hours and indulging in drinks. This lifestyle was not good, and I found myself more tired, and more out of energy leading to a weight gain at the highest.
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After summer of sophomore year (2016), I wanted to cleanse myself. I didn't like the way I looked, and internally felt ugly and disgusting. I felt the urgent need to get rid of the excess fat that made my size go up and brought back the chubby cheeks.
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Since junior year, I have been exercising almost everyday at the gym. An obsession, a desire, and a need to look good and look right grew over me and I was determined to lose weight, and removed all dessert and sugar from my diet. I indulged in them very rare, but stuck to healthier foods. The result: weight loss! People complimented me, and I felt proud. However, I also heard that I may have lost too much weight that makes me look weak and energy-less.
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As I look back on this journey of my weight gains and losses, I realized that I was only truly happy when I felt clean on the inside. But what does being clean really mean? Today, I do gym to appear and look good, but also to give my mental health a little break from the stress that school brought me over the past two years. In my job interviews, I occasionally like to share that I exercise for myself, for my brain to be healthy, and for channeling all the emotions to take everything one day at a time.
Over these past 2 years of constantly watching my body, I have also realized that body size doesn't really matter until people around you make it a big deal, and for me, perhaps, deal-breakers came from the community around me where they were looking for a specific standard size from me, and I couldn't give it to them.
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TANNING EQUALS DARK SKIN?
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I am ethnically from New Delhi, that is in North India. The place where historically people are fair, or fairly lighter shades of brown, almost light-skinned. Maybe light wheat-ish or the color of oats! So, by that mechanism, I am fair, correct?
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To be fair, growing up, I was never called out for being light or dark, or for anything. However, there always seemed to be a norm that being fairer was always the path to go - sort of like it was highly encouraged, but not mandatory. I watched a lot of Indian television during my formative years, and was curious about the magic behind Fair & Lovely, the infamous skin lightening cream that magically made women fairer and lighter. In my experience, I was never forced to apply it, but I chose to do it by myself. When I did, I was disappointed, as it did not do anything to my face - and so I concluded that this was indeed a fake product that deployed fake advertising to sell it to the large masses in India and abroad.
This past Spring Break I was really excited I was to visit Miami, get away from the Ann Arbor cold and rain, and just soak in the sun and enjoy the warm weather, and maybe get a tan (and I meant it as a joke since I have never enjoyed tanning). To that, people's very first response was "Don't get tanned since you will become dark." At that moment, I was so frustrated as I couldn't believe that that was the very first thought, and perhaps not the fact that tanning could potentially cause cancer. When I thought more about this, I was brought closer to understanding how Indian communities have historically been passing along the love for light skin to one generation after the other, for that is what makes a woman beautiful. As for the comment about not getting a tan? It isn't the first time that I heard that, but perhaps the first time that I recognized how much it shouldn't matter, and to let the skin colors be appreciated for what they are.
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After that, I spoke to more Indian women around me, including the conversation in the podcast, which made me realize that maybe, just maybe, I appeared privileged to be blessed with a lighter shade of brown, which seemingly fits into the "acceptable" skin color in the Indian community. But why am I privileged? Why should I be privileged because of my lighter skin color as compared to any other Indian woman? Why cannot the Indian society accept that all shades of brown are beautiful? Quite clearly, I condemn the many advertisements that Indian media pompously shows off where the boy gets the girl only when she becomes lighter from the dusky appearance that she previously had.
In my Indian society and community, I realized that they have for long wanted for their women to have the skin colors that they all wished. Unfortunately, or fortunately, that is something that we are all (literally) born with, and that is something that any of the artificial skin care products or treatments cannot truly fix or repair. Hearing other women's experiences empowers me to be proud and comfortable in the skin that we are born with, because that is something that we and only we own, and no one can take that away from us. As for dealing with drama and comments? Meh, I might as well just own it, and strut my way through my values and beliefs, for I know that I am comfortable in my own skin and that it is something that I would never want to change.
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GOING FORWARD?
Moving to Michigan certainly exposed me to a greater community of diversity, people, and backgrounds, and that also includes the many clothes, shapes, sizes, and the wide spectrum of skin colors that I see around me everyday. I stand at a point where I love people around me for who they are irrespective of their appearances - both physically and the colors they don. More importantly, I realized it is essential to love yourself, and to accept the way you are. There are only some things that I could change about myself if I want to, but I am not going to do it because the next-door Aunty said, "Lose some weight beta," or "Eat some more, you are skinny," or "Make sure to put that sunscreen to protect your skin from getting dark [and not cancer]."
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So what are you going to do?
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