Dear friend,
When I was in the 7th grade, my family spent a year living in India, as you know from my Holi post. This was the same year my brother Siddhartha went to college, so he moved from Paris to Cambridge, Massachusetts, while my parents and I shifted from Paris to Bombay (now known as Mumbai). It was, for many reasons, a hard year for me, not the least of which was that I was 12, which tends to be a rough time for any kid. And I was blindsided by how much I missed my brother. But I had a wonderful gaggle of friends in the housing colony in which we lived. All of them were children of the mathematicians and physicists who worked at the Tata Institute for Fundamental Research where my father was spending the year. They were a smart, mostly nerdy lot. Every day after school, I would throw off my grey and white striped uniform and so-hard-to-keep-white canvas shoes, change into a skirt and T shirt and chappals (flip-flops), and clatter downstairs to run around with my pals. They were all girls; at that age and in that time and place, social groups were pretty gendered.
I learned a lot of old-fashioned games and ditties with this group. By old-fashioned I mean passed down from the British through colonization. (Much of why I had a tough time at the school I attended was the antiquated teaching style, but that’s a whole other story.) There were chants and lyrics that I recognized, even then, as being completely incongruous coming out of the mouths of my brown-skinned friends who had never left India. The words were colorist, and many were sexist, too. But I played along, not knowing how to point all this out to my friends, and happy to just be with a bunch of girls who were fun and not snooty like my classmates, and who accepted me as fully one of them.
One moment stands out vividly in my memory. We were gathered on the flight of 6 steps or so that led from the parvis of the building down to the garden. There was a metal banister that we liked to climb, and for the entire year I had two matching sets of bruises on my shins from where I kept banging my legs on the parallel railings. We were playing one of these games—I don't recall which one—and at one point someone called out "bow to the prettiest, kneel to the wittiest, and kiss the one you love best." And next thing I know, in the pause that came after "bow to the prettiest," they all bowed to me.
I didn't know what to do with myself. It was incredibly awkward. I knew instinctively that the reason they were bowing to me was that they were equating "prettiest" with "fairest." I had the lightest skin of the group. The idea that this was beauty was ingrained in their upbringing. I wanted to pull them all up by the shoulders and say No! Don't do that! You are all beautiful. But then they were all moving on and kneeling to another one, and I don't even remember what happened with the kiss-the-one-you-love-best part. I was still stuck in my outrage and embarrassment.
Years later, I am aware of how my lighter skin protects me from most of the micro-and-not-so-micro-aggressions that many of my peers in some of the groups of which I am a member—Boston Writers of Color, The South Asian Women's Creative Collective, and others—have to contend with. I try to exist in those spaces respectfully, and only chime in when I have something truly useful to contribute. But I listen. I watch. I observe. And in many instances what I hear resonates. I can walk into a room and immediately feel unsettled because everyone is white. It's not a concern for my personal safety or anything like that, but a discomfort with being in a fully white space. A deep frustration that it doesn't seem to matter to the people in the room. Although... who knows? There might be others like me in that room, people who blend in physically but might, like me, feel out of place.
When I first thought of reviving my newsletter and giving it some kind of theme, I was going to call it Mixed Messages, and include interviews with writers and artists of mixed heritage. And then I found out that someone else had JUST launched such a thing! I signed up, of course, and I've enjoyed reading the interviews. You might enjoy them, too. The women she interviews (it's been mostly women, it seems) make up all kinds of fascinating mixes, and have varying perspectives on how this has influenced their lives and careers.
Here in the US, May is Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) month, and I'll be moderating a talk at the Cary Library in Lexington, MA with four really wonderful women writers: Grace Talusan (The Body Papers), Rishi Reddi (Passage West), and Weina Dai Randel (Night Angels). Grace, a Filipino writer, is, well, grace personified, and a woman of strength and insight with a powerful, haunting memoir. She and I spoke some years ago at a local high school to give students different perspectives on what it means to us to be Asian American (Asian-American, Asian/American). You can watch her give a wonderful account of her family's arrival in the US on PBS Stories from the Stage. (Her piece is at 18:31 but I highly recommend watching the other two as well.) Rishi, who was born in India and lived in Great Britain before the US, is an environmental lawyer, a wonderful writer, and a warm and lovely person. Weina is a dynamo, recent to the Boston area but already making waves, with several works of historical fiction set in China. I hope that if you are in the Boston area, you'll consider joining us at Lexington's Cary Memorial Library on May 15th for a great evening of culture, literature, and conversation.
Warm wishes as spring is finally springing in Boston. (Above are some of the flowers in my yard that the very cute rabbits have spared so far.)
Anjali
Dear Anjali,
I've been reading your newsletter every time you post it, but don't usually find time to respond (or indeed have much to say by way of response...) This time, however, I am inspired.
What a lovely picture! If you have a higher res version you can share, I would love to have it.
It was interesting to read your perspective on some of the strange colorist, sexist chants and games we played at that age, but I think your implied assessment that we were unaware of their meaning is a bit simplistic. I think it is more that we were not yet at a stage where we had a framework to reject them. I mean, there was this game, that had come from somewhere. It is a little weird, but how do you get from there to saying that you do not want to play it? Or at least, perhaps I should not speak for the others, but that was how it was for me. It was all part of the same package as "don't say you are an atheist" and "don't say you like math" and so many other such things. Because then, suddenly you might find yourself with no friends... It took me a long time to shed that baggage (to the extent that I have shed it.)
I also found your story about "bowing to the prettiest" quite interesting. I do not remember that incident, or even that particular game. Was I there? Anyway, once again I wonder whether there is more at play than your interpretation. It is certainly very true that Indian girls are inculcated with the idea that fair is beautiful, and there was probably at least some of that going on. But keep in mind we had all known each other nearly since birth. We had our politics and our shifting alliances. As a newcomer, you were exotic. everyone would have wanted you on side. And everyone would have wanted to make you feel welcome. (Probably everyone would also have been told to make you feel welcome, but that is a separate matter.) In support of my theory, I'll mention that there was a Korean visitor another year who received similar adoration.
Anyway, thank you for the trip down memory lane. I look at the picture and realize that I don't really know what has happened to any of those girls (except one who died young in tragic circumstances). You are the only one from that group that I am even remotely "still in touch with", even if that only means exchanging birthday wishes every three-ish years.
Looking forward to your next newsletter, and honestly, your next book!
With love,
Varsha