The Meaning Of Happiness

I recently met an Indian woman who confided in me some of the challenges that she faced socially with being a gay Indian woman in an interracial relationship with another woman. As an outside observer, it seemed to me that this woman was unhappy with pretty much every area of her life. Her parents were making her unhappy, she was unhappy with her job, with the progress she was making in her education, she seemed to have low self-esteem and she just had an overall sense of depression that lured around her.

Around the same weekend, I met another East Asian girl who was very happy and seemed to be very self-assured. She was satisfied in her relationship and she seemed to be pleased with her life overall. She has a great job that she loved, she has a dedicated husband and she seems to exuberate joy to all those around her. This woman was not Indian.

It made me think back to all my Indian friends. Those who I have known who are gay, straight, in arranged marriages, in love relationships, single, divorced, successful, not-so-successful. Of all the Indian people that I know, I had to really think of who I knew that was happy. Nearly every Indian person I know is unhappy about something in their life.

I then thought about myself. I could be further along professionally. I could be further along educationally. I could have more money. I could have a bigger house. I could have a family. I could have a better relationship with my parents. I could have a stronger relationship with the rest of my family. I could pursue my dreams with more fervor. There are a lot of things that I could be doing that would contribute to my overall happiness. But I don't. Why?

One of my aunties who has known my family for a long time recently told me that is life. However I look at my neighbors who are not of Indian culture and I do not sense that same aspect of life.

My thoughts led to Bollywood movies and the heroines that are often portrayed in our movies. They are always struggling with something that affects their overall happiness. Is there an inherent aspect of our culture that commands us to be unhappy? Very often, Bollywood stories end with some sort of happy ending, but if we explore the life of characters after the story comes to a close, do the challenges that affect their decisions impede their happiness? I wonder.

Sure the gay Indian woman is happy when she is with her partner in her home living her life. But as soon as parents come into the picture, the equilibrium of her environment is affected. A conversation I had with a friend recently concluded that everyone is unhappy at some point in time. But that East Asian girl was not unhappy. She had made a conscious decision to not allow herself to be unhappy, especially over things that she can not affect.

Within this philosophy, the gay Indian woman needs to refuse her parents, her employer, her instructors and everyone else who is causing her alarm to affect her happiness. But as Indians, is this even possible? We are made to please others and we are conditioned to respond to life situations after considering the feelings of everyone around us. Our entire being relies on the strength of our community, as opposed to the strength of us as individuals. We expect our people to do the things that we do, and not deter away from the norm of what defines Indian culture, even if it means we must put the happiness of others before our own. It leads to the question of what is happiness? From our prospective, I am interested to know, what does it mean to be happy?

One of my elders once told me that if our parents are happy, then we will be happy. Is that really true? If that were the case in America, would the civil rights movement have ever occurred? Would there have ever been any sort of women's liberation? I speak to many of my peers and they often confide that they are unhappy, but there is nothing that they can do because of the cards that life dealt them. Is that really true? Perhaps it is, but I am wondering what the consequence would be of following your gut and instinct. Would that result in mayhem? Or would that result in some level of happiness?

Can You Spell J-E-R-K?

This is exactly what I thought when I read some of the coverage of the Spelling Bee finals within the Indian press. What kind of jerk would write about the Indian kids that made it to the finals of the Spelling Bee with headlines such as "California Boy is Spelling Bee Champion After Indian Fails?" Or better yet, "Indian-American Kids Disappoint" set above a photograph illustrating one of the contestants crying with her consoling mother. As a community, we do not celebrate the victory of three Indian kids making it to the Spelling Bee finals, or that at least 20% of the Spelling Bee finalists are typically Indian, or that the favored contestant and media-darling this year was Indian (Samir Patel, the "verb-a-maniac"). Shame on us for making these kids feel like failures after so much success! Do you realize how many words you have to spell to even make it to the national finals? Let's put our hands together for Prateek Kohli who was able to spell onychomycosis. My spell check does not even recognize that word. Or Kavya Shivashankar who successfully spelled porphyry, a word that I have misspelled all my life with only one Y. And Nithya P. Vijayakumar was able to spell coquillage. I have no idea what that word even means. Good job, kids. And thanks for representing the Indian community in a national forum.

Perhaps I am a little sensitive because I came in third place at the Spelling Bee in my grade school. And it was because I was going too fast and I spelled "science" instead of "scientist." I got all these hard words right, and then comes this easy word that anyone should have got, and I messed it up. I remember at home, no one congratulated me for beating the kids that were in fourth place, fifth place, sixth place and beyond. Our culture does not seem to offer any pats on the back unless we make it all the way to the top.

Some people think that is the way kids make great achievements. Studies indicate that is the way to increase suicide rates among our youth. Several years ago, several statistics started propping up in studies about the suicides among the South Asian immigrant community. On a global level, suicides among Indian girls aged 15-24 is three times more likely than our US national average. Additionally, a British study found that 34% of all non-white teen suicides were Asian, and parental pressure accounted for 82% of those crises. There are a lot of possible reasons for such deaths. Across the board, there is such a strong suicidal presence prevalent among South Asians, that Dr. Sanjay Nath of Chester, PA received a grant from the Lindback Foundation in order to further research the causes of suicides within our communities here in the US.

However, I don't need numbers or statistics to maintain a consciousness of the pressures, demands and expectations we enforce upon our youth. It makes me very angry when I see other Indian adults doing anything but praising the accomplishments of our youth. We can always see the glass either half-full or half-empty. We can say, oh, you did not make first place, too bad. Or we can say, great job, you made it all the way to second place!

Don't tell the kids that they failed or that they disappointed us. These eleven and twelve-year-olds put us on the map. Talk about representing! The Spelling Bee is known for the strong presence of Indians making it so far. Maybe ten years from now, the sequel to "Akelia and the Bee" will be "White Boys Can't Spell" because Indians will totally dominate the Spelling Bee and National Spelling Bee organizers will be forced to step the spelling list up a notch because our kids have mad root skills. With positive reinforcement at all times, our kids will naturally want to be the best they can be, and man, if all our kids strived to be the best with an undying fervor and passion, the rest of America would not know what they are in for! Our kids can be the best, however it starts with us, the adults in their lives. We need to stop being so negative, and stop making kids feel bad. Just stop being a jerk. J-E-R-K. Jerk.

Sticks and Stones and Bullets Can Break My Bones

When we were kids, we were told to respond to name-calling with "sticks and stones can break my bones but names can never hurt me." I am not so sure if we can really say that names don't hurt. I was recently on YouTube catching all of Sanjaya Malakar's press coverage and mixed in with my search for media about Sanjaya Malakar were some home-made racist skits that I found so offensive. I am not sure what kind of person would produce a tape reflecting so much hate towards another human based solely on their ethnic heritage, and be proud to sign their name to it. Furthermore, who would post comments about such tapes being so funny and so great, and again, sign their name to it? I guess in the anonymous world of the Internet, you can write the most racist, hurtful thing possibly imaginable, and put it out there without having to take any responsibility for your words and actions. And it's not just in the world of the Internet, it's in our everyday human world as well.

I live in a community with some older white women who apparently have nothing going on in their lives so they complain about the Latinos and how they cook and smell up the whole building with their spices (I think it is actually the Indian cooking that causes the smell, but whatever). We live in a world with some very intolerant people. Certain people will criticize you if you do not live your life exactly the way that they live theirs. If you come from a culture where families are important and weekends consist of families coming together to sit and talk and eat and have fun, you will be criticized because you are Mexican or Puerto Rican. Are the old white ladies perhaps mad that their families do not want to visit them? One of the elderly white women who regularly complains to me about the Latinos also tells me that her kids will not come see her and she blames that on the African Americans and Latinos that live in the neighborhood. She says that her kids do not feel safe coming to visit her. I wonder if they just don't feel safe around her? I think if you have a mother that constantly criticizes everything you do, as an adult, you may not really want to be around her all that much.

The same holds true for all adult relationships. If anyone wants to try and make me feel bad about anything in my life, I have the ability to eliminate them from my life. It is a little harder to do that when you are younger, and that is why we have episodes like the Virginia Tech shootings. Cho Seung-Hui, the shooter of what is commonly referred to as the deadliest mass shooting since 1991, has a whole extensive history of "rich white kids" teasing and making fun of him and making him feel bad for not speaking English very well and his Korean heritage. And then we wonder how something like this could happen? The media paints this terrible picture of dead bodies being carried out of the school with cell-phones from their pockets ringing, most likely from parents hearing the news and calling to see if they are okay. When the identity of the shooter is released, the country all hops on a Korean-hating bandwagon. And since most white people don't care to tell the difference between Korean, Vietnamese or Chinese, it ends up being an East Asian hating bandwagon. Just like after 9-11 when our country went through a brown-people hating phase. Is there a cycle here that just keeps perpetuating more hate? Remember we're not immune to it - less than a year ago, an Indian kid shot up his school in Canada. What is going on?

It's hard to say what should be done. I have an African American friend who often says if a white person calls him the n-word, he would knock him out (he says it a little more colorfully than that, but you get the idea). This same man has a job working with kids and one of the kids he works with did just that when a white boy called him the n-word. The African American kid ended up getting suspended and the white kid got detention. Is that fair? We live in a world where we do not have to be accountable or responsible for our words and our language. What is the result of that? Virginia Tech.

First Time For Everything

They say you are never too old to try something new, and as I approach my middle ages, I experience the notion of teaching an old dog new tricks. Sometimes I am simply adverse to change and as much as I try to think of myself as being progressive and open to new things, I have to say, I am really not. But earlier this week, I did do something that I have never done before. And it was kind of cool. I finally for the first time in my life voted on American Idol. I formally registered my vote for Sanjaya Malakar, the new tween-heartthrob of America, who happens to be Indian.

Is it not the coolest thing that this adorable Indian kid is in the hearts of every 13-year-old in America? I know people say that Sanjaya is ruining American Idol because he can't really sing, but come on, can the Backstreet Boys really sing? Sanjaya could very well be the newest sensation sweeping the nation, and yes, I will vote for him just because he is Indian.

It aggravates me beyond belief when I read all the blogs and articles out there that say that Sanjaya is getting all his votes from Indian call centers that are hijacking the phone lines and registering multiple votes. Please. Are you trying to tell me that if you had two phone lines and you were trying to vote, you would not use both lines to call in? These crazy theories about Indian call centers remind me of the conspiracy theories that there is no way that black people built pyramids during Ancient Egyptian Times so it is obvious that aliens came down to build it for them. And it is difficult not to notice that all these theories are coming from white people. Now in the technological age of blogs that publish pictures of the authors, it is pretty easy to see who is complaining about the call centers. All I have to say to these white people is why don't you open up your own call center, and then you can use all the phone lines to call in and vote for your favorite American Idol.

What I find even more aggravating, is that these same white people always complain about any edge that any race may have over them. Correct me if I am wrong, but is it not true that we live in a society that breeds white privilege? How can any white person complain about something not being fair? I remember a couple of years ago, there was this Hawaiian girl on American Idol that made it to the top three and all the white people got mad because she really could not sing. But, she had all the Japanese and Hawaiian people calling in and voting for her. So what?

America is all about identifying with your culture within this melting pot society. I have a Greek friend who had a speeding ticket and had to go to court to fight it. He came back from court to tell me that he was so relieved that the judge was also Greek because he felt that he got a much more lenient ruling than he might have if the judge was of some other ethnicity. I know that when I have ever been in any position of power, I have always tried to look out for Indian people. So here we are, with an Indian kid with big dreams and such a lovable sense of style that has made it all the way to the top 8 contestants in American Idol. Of course there are going to be many Indians that vote for Sanjaya just because he is Indian without any regard to how he sings. I do not see anything wrong with that. I will buy his CDs when they are released because he is Indian and I believe in his dream and I want to buy into it.

I say that we all vote for Sanjaya and if anyone questions us or makes us feel bad about voting for someone that all the white people are hating on, we should confront it. We are not voting for talent, we are voting for a dream that we believe in. Can Britney Spears really sing? No. Can Jessica Simpson really sing? No. Why can't an Indian kid have that same dream? I certainly am not going to let a white person tell me that it can't be.

The Importance of Education

We all talk about how education is so important and for many of us, our parents do not care what we do, as long we as we obtain our education in the process. A Bachelors Degree is a minimal standard in our households and we typically assume that all Indians that are in the 28-year-old age range at least have their Bachelors Degree.

At a recent Samaj I attended, I met many Indians who worked within educational institutions as Department Chairs or Deans of this or that University. Though I think it is great Indian people have such influence in our University settings, I am wondering if they can utilize their positions to better meet the needs of Indian students. I do not even know what the needs of Indian students are because no one has really sat down to identify them. It seems like someone should since we have so many of our people working in the University setting in positions of power.

At the college that I teach at, there is a Hispanic woman named Maria Banuelos who holds the position of Associate Vice President for Diversity and Community Relations. If you were to visit the Madison Area Technical College (MATC), without even knowing anything about the school, you would immediately feel the influence her work has had on this school because it is very welcoming to the Hispanic community. It's not like there are signs on the walls that say "Welcome Mexicans". It is rather in the intangible elements of the school. For example, many of the instructors there are Hispanic. In the hiring process of the school, MATC makes a very active effort to hire diverse faculty. I participated in the convocation for the school, which is basically a big meeting for all the teachers to learn how to be better instructors. I was very pleased to see how diverse the faculty pool is. There were a lot of Hispanic instructors, but there were also instructors of many other ethnicities. That made me feel really good about being a part of this institution.

Additionally, this college offers entire vocational programs where all the classed are taught in Spanish. The premise behind the programs is that individuals learn better in their native language, rather than in their second language, so although many of the students that are enrolled in these programs speak English, they are learning new skills in their native tongue.

Maybe similar initiatives are not made within the Indian community because we all try so hard to assimilate within the culture we are in. I remember as a child when my parents would pack an occasional lunch for me that was not the all-American peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I would be embarrassed. I did not want to eat roti and daal at school. My classmates made me feel bad for being different and teased me about how my food smelled. Now as an adult, I am a little mad that white people made me feel like that about my culture. So at work, I don't care if the masala in my lunch makes the whole floor smell like little-India. I am not going to let anyone make me feel bad about who I am.

Similarly when we expand the scope of that thought to various professions, I know that Indians that hold high positions in any office or profession worked very hard to get there. In the process, they had to face situations similar to what I faced as a child when my classmates made fun of my roti and daal lunch. Whether you are a man, woman, boy or girl, do not let white people make you feel bad about who you are. Look at the effect of that. We sit in these offices and pretend we are one of them, and we completely overlook the needs of our people who we could easily help if we took the initiative to do so.

Ms. Banuelos' work is a good model for us to follow. When she addresses any audience, she always begins her speech with "Buenos Dias," regardless of who is in the audience. It makes a very clear affirmation to pride in her heritage which then undoubtedly extends into her work. We have individuals in our community that demonstrate similar pride. Ms. Indra Nooyi, CEO of Pepsi Company, often wears saris and bindis to demonstrate her cultural pride. That is great for global business, but I wish we can extend that same pride in the world of education.

The Minority of Minorities

Every so often, my work has a potluck lunch where employees are encouraged to bring a dish to share with others in the office. Since the company I work for is a non-profit agency that strives to elevate cultural understanding within our community, we are often privileged with the opportunity to try ethnic dishes from all over the world in our little office in Madison, Wisconsin. Our staff is quite colorful with all sorts of ethnicities represented, but Indian food has never made it to our potlucks because as most of my faithful readers know, I am not exactly the most kitchen-savvy woman in the world.

I have made many empty promises to my co-workers to bring an Indian dish over the last year, and I am very excited to announce that I finally made some Chana Masala for the pot luck earlier this week. The pot luck was very diverse, and since we did not have fresh puri or roti to eat the Chana with, my co-workers ate their Chana with pita bread or French fries.

To enhance the cultural flavor of my dish, I brought a Shah-Rukh Khan movie to play during our lunch. It was such a positive experience for me to share a piece of my culture. I remember as a child how embarrassed I used to get when my friends would come over to my house and my parents would be watching a Bollywood movie and the next day in school, my so-called friends would make fun of Indian language or Indian music or all the dope Indian dance moves or even the scent of Indian spices (like when they would tell me I smell like curry).

It got so bad that when I got older, and I would see white people embrace our culture, or in some instances, over-embrace our culture, and I would get mad. I remember being at a community fest once in a Chicago suburb, and there was this band with all these white guys singing songs of praise to Krishna. There were these white girls with blond hair dressed up like bharatanatyam dancers giving out CDs and one of my white friends jokingly said to me, "hey, aren't those your people?" I was so disgusted and offended, I wanted to go up to that white girl and ask her "Yea, but can you move like this?" and break out in some bharatanatyam and scoff in my prissy Indian girl way "yea, I didn't think so." The problem was I am not a trained bharatanatyam dancer, so I left it alone. But I was still mad. It's like when I was a kid, those same white girls with blond hair made me feel bad for being Indian, and now those white girls are strutting around in Indian clothes and Indian jewelry and most likely think they know all about being Indian because they bought a copy of some convoluted version of Kama Sutra from Barnes and Noble. I am still mad and it's very difficult for me to get past those hurt and angry feelings when I am talking to white women with blond hair, regardless of who they are today.

But when I went to work with my Chana Masala and my Bollywood movie and my supervisor broke into a rendition of Bollywood dance moves (which surprised me a little bit because it is a little uncharacteristic of my boss to break into any kind of dance moves at work, let alone Bollywood moves), and a few of my co-workers seemed to actually appreciate the food and the movie, it made me feel good. It also made me realize that my ownership of Indian culture and my animosity towards white girls with blond hair that try to embrace Indian culture is not too much different than white people telling me that I can't ever do what white people do. And in this day and age, saying something like that can have a lot of dangerous connotations.

So I would encourage all Indians who may relate to some of my animosity to let it go and think about sharing your culture, instead of trying to own it. Explore why your resentment exists and take some actions and some risks that could potentially reverse some of that hatred. If the experience is anything like mine, it will definitely make you feel good and you will be glad you did it. Plus now I know that if ever in my life I produce a Bollywood film, I know not to cast my co-workers as dancers!