Neither Here, Nor There - A Particularly Lonely Kind of In-Betweenness

Jaayein toh Jaayein Kahaan?

I moved out of India right before the 2014 elections, right before the arrival of the Modi regime. So, I haven't seen firsthand the damage this government has caused within the country. I've read about it, watched the videos, heard from friends and family, and kept myself informed from a distance. 

For eleven years after that, I lived somewhere with very few Indians. The interactions I did have with the diaspora left an impression I couldn't shake: an unofficial competition to prove who was the "true" torchbearer of Indian culture, who remembered it best, who performed it most zealously. Back then it stayed contained – in basements, temples, rented halls for someone's celebration – all very private. It had, to me, an irritating vibe, and I stayed away and went on to build friendships across every kind of background instead, based on the plainest, simplest thing we shared: our common humanity. 

Then, after eleven years of that cushioned, comfortable distance, I tore myself out of the community I had created, and moved to Texas, right in the thick of the anti-H1B narrative, which lands on Indians whether we like it or not. It was surreal to suddenly be surrounded by so many Indians again. Surreal, too, to see how many cultural events there were, and then to hear about what was happening not just here but across other pockets of Texas with dense Indian populations. And it turned out that everything I'd found embarrassing, crass, worth avoiding back then was all still here. Except now it was on steroids. 

An abhishek for a film star, with gallons of milk poured onto public streets. Ganesh Chaturthi processions blaring through residential neighborhoods with no thought for the people who live there. Poojas staged in public spaces. People bathing in rivers and lakes with soap and shampoo. Reels of people dancing in the strangest possible locations, including, at one point, the National World War II Memorial. These aren't rumors; there's no shortage of footage, and some of it has made the news. Until a few years ago, this stayed private. Something shifted. With Modi, and the rise of Hindutva, we seem to have decided that being obnoxious in public is not just tolerated but protected, maybe even desired, as though it's supposed to inspire awe and respect in the people watching us. We should be proud of our culture. 

I want to say clearly: this is not my culture. My culture does not inconvenience people at busy airports. It does not pollute the rivers and lakes we claim to revere. Even if, historically, some of this was demanded of people like me (and I know the whataboutery is coming), I'm intelligent enough, and wise enough, to not repeat what can be completely avoided. 

For the nearly thirteen years I've lived in the US, I've mostly kept my distance from the diaspora, for exactly the reason I realized back in 2014: it so often becomes a competition over who's "more Indian," who's more devoted to a version of the culture frozen in the moment someone left the country, sometimes decades ago, still living in an India that no longer exists. I was perfectly happy losing that competition. I'd rather live in the present than try to resurrect somebody's idea of the past. I found people, Indian and not, with whom I could have interactions that meant something. 

Not anymore. Now, when someone who isn't ethnically Indian looks at me, I know part of what they might see. "She's probably one of the ones who dances at airports." I wonder if I've been filed away before I've said a single word. Categorized as a cultural exhibitionist, which is the furthest thing from who I actually am. It's a choice I made a long time ago, deliberately. That sting is real. It affects the opportunities that come my way. It shapes the kind of social interactions I get, and don't get. 

I don't blame the people who are ethnically not Indian and are native to this country for that. In any minority-majority dynamic, the burden has always fallen on the minority: to acculturate, to figure out which parts of our identity can coexist with the dominant culture and which can't. That's not new, and it's not unique to us. But it doesn't make it easy to carry. 

I wonder if the less-than-warm, sometimes prickly nature of interactions here, is a Midwest-versus-South thing, or a direct reaction to the anti-H1B rhetoric, or simply a response to the behavior I've just described. Perhaps it is all three. What I do know is that we, those of us who never wanted the exhibitionism in the first place, seem to have lost our footing on both sides. Not quite comfortable with the diaspora around us. Not quite given a fair chance by the culture we live in now. 

A very particular, very lonely kind of in-betweenness.