This topic just popped into my head as I was waiting to watch a play.
The number of Indians there. Some dressed in traditional clothes, mostly the older ones, but the young ones were your typical modern day Indians. We were all eagerly waiting to watch an English play but one produced by Indians.
I'm really proud to see how far we have come..producing not only really good plays in perfectly fluent Tamil but now even in English and the actors did an awesome job.
Being an Indian girl growing up in an English speaking family, I have always struggled with the Indian language. Malayalam and Tamil, two languges i understand and speak though not very fluently. I hardly wore indian clothes unless there was a wedding and hardly celebrated any Indian events as mum was Catholic, so it was Christmas at home.
Now that I'm older, I try to be as Indian as possible in a day and age when most are getting more westernised.
Being Indian is a beautiful thing. Being a girly girl I love the clothes! The food is great and the numerous colouful festivals which bring all this together to share with family and friends. There're just no words to describe it.
Look at all the world renown Indians like Mahatma Gandhi, Aishwarya Rai, Arundhati Roy, Deepak Chopra and locally Sundramoorthy and Philip Jeyaratnam- all the Indians in different fields, doing so well.
I definitely want my children growing up to appreciate being Indian and not be ashamed of speaking the language (which they too are struggling with for now) and knowing their culture and following the traditions.
I have heard words very similar to your from friends who grew up away from India and I find it strange. Why is there such a big identity crisis for people of Indian descent when they grow up outside India? Why do they struggle to accept their Indian - ness? They accept it later in life (usually around their 20's) I grew up in India and I don't relate to it. But now that I am raising a Australian residing, American citizen who lived in Singapore for a couple of years and is of Indian descent I worry about it. As a parent should I do something to help her accept her roots?
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