My 15-year-old cousin recently told me I’m such a ‘westernised Indian’ in such a flippant manner and I asked myself what is she trying to insinuate? I decided, for the most part, to really understand what ‘east defined by west’ meant for an Anglo-Indian like myself. My ethnicity always seems to be at the centre of my life and with the colour of my skin and the accent I carry being of two different energies contradicting values and opinions I have.
In order to pay long-overdue debts to my Eastside (also to prove my cousin wrong), I decided to change my lifestyle slightly to embrace my Indian identity. I started cooking more South Indian foods that have been passed down from generations. I finally took up yoga as a way to connect with my mental health and physical well-being in a way that felt more ‘me’ than ever.
The results? It doesn’t matter, what matters is acknowledging that my entire life I’ve ignored my Indian identity but embraced my western identity because it’s more comfortable here in New Zealand. Living away from a part of your country is hard and there is bound to be some sort of cultural disconnect and this was something I knew bothered me.
Patrick being socialised into a western system of education, he recognises that our identity is so important in research, not to lose, providing us with a new perspective or an old one that’s been unfamiliar for a while.
