Gursimran Khamba's internal struggle with what it is to be Indian

One thing I’ve noticed about myself in the three weeks I’ve been in Canada is my internal struggle with what it is to be Indian. This sounds like one of those clichéd statements that people make after spending three days in Thailand, but let me explain. The only time I’ve ever lived abroad for an extended period was Poland for a year. (I’m ignoring holidays because they don’t count) The number of Indians who lived there legally at that point was close to around 1,200. Being a white collar Indian meant the embassy treated you really well and being a rare commodity meant you regaled everyone at parties with stories of back home, your heritage, culture and everything it meant to be Indian. What it did was put you even more in touch with your roots, especially all that was good about it.

My experience in Canada has been vastly different simply because we are not an unknown commodity here. In Eastern Europe if I accidentally bumped into another Indian I’d spend an hour talking and finding out about his story. Here, we are everywhere and not only does everyone else (mostly) hate us, we’re busy hating each other like back home. At nightclubs or parties when a local, this includes Indians born and brought up here, asked me if I was Indian I found myself wanting to emphasise that I was Indian, but not a Canadian-Indian. It’s the first time I’ve caught myself racist and classist towards my own people, wanting to be able to blend in but wanting to distinguish myself as an outsider.

This means at restaurants I catch myself tipping more because I know I’m expected to scrounge. At a public restroom I try and limit the force and noise with which I let my internal vestiges explode. I have actively considered walking around downtown with a cardboard saying “I’m not an illegal alien living in Brampton living off insurance fraud”. I used to judge a lot of my family that grew up in Canada and the States for appropriating Indianness as and when it suited them while actively distancing themselves from “those Indians” every time they’d come back home. Now I see how easy it is to fall into those gaps and never come out of them. It doesn’t make it right, but I can see why it happens.

A Pakistani cab driver that was taking me home started asking about where I was from in India.
After initial pleasantries he quickly moved to what seemed like his favourite topic — Islam and how it was the one true religion in the world. I smiled and nodded through his simplistic discourse for nearly 30 minutes and made him think I was actively considering what he said. Pleased, he gave me a 50 per cent discount on the fare. I’ve never felt so Indian in my life.