We are currently living in an era when age-old traditional elements of South Asian culture have immigrated thousands of kilometres to intertwine with Western pop culture, putting a whole new spin on the oft-overused term “fusion”.
In the past decade, Bollywood movies such as Lagaan (a four-hour epic nominated for the foreign film Oscar) and Monsoon Wedding (U.S.-based director Mira Nair’s attempt at a mainstream Indian movie), have landed on the shelves of the corner video store-a change that set off a revolution of fusion films (part-Hindi/part-English), including crossover hit Bend it Like Beckham and Canada’s own Bollywood/Hollywood, which for the first time ever featured South Asian actors in English-speaking lead roles. These were also the first South Asian films ever played in the mainstream cinemas (Indian films have long been a mainstay in indie movie houses in Toronto’s suburbs, and the industry has clearly taken note, with many Bollywood releases now being screened at cineplexes across the GTA, including packed houses at the massive Cinesphere at Ontario Place).
It’s surprising how many non-South Asians are familiar with Bollywood (though India does boast the second-largest film industry in the world after the U.S.) in all its brassy, sometimes-kitschy glory. Apparently the big secret is out, and most people now know that all Bollywood films are musicals-there’s always a spontaneous song and dance, perhaps in a field or in the rain (or if you’re really lucky, a combination of the two). Yes, it verges on the ridiculous, but in a country with such a beautiful natural landscape and a whole season-barsaat-designated to three months of rain (the infamous monsoons), what do you expect? But for all its influence, Bollywood is only the mere tip of the iceberg in South Asia’s 17,000 year-old history.
South Asian music has also made the trek to Western shores and crept into the albums of high-profile North American artists, of late including Missy Elliot, Jay-Z, and Beyoncé Knowles, just to name a few. Even Britney Spears, the quintessential pop diva of this decade, included a special “desi kulcha” remix of her single, “Me Against the Music” on her latest album. You don’t get more pop culture than Britney. Of course, most of these appearances in the mainstream industry are but samples and remixes, but South Asian artists, such as Punjabi MC (a longtime mixmaster in the UK, but only recently getting some love on these shores thanks to Jay-Z’s “Beware of the Boys [Mundian to Bach Ke]” remix) are setting the stage for future generations of soloists.
Aside from multimedia, South Asian cultural influences can be found in today’s clothing, food, and home décor. Just last week, no less a retail giant than Sears put on an event in their downtown flagship store extolling the virtues of Indian style, from bright jewel-coloured sari fabric for drapes and bedding to beaded silk accessories. Yet, despite kurta-style shirts available at the trendiest shops to the more authentic (and exponentially expanding) Gerrard Street strip (also known as “Little India”) with its many Indian and Pakistani merchants, many South Asian students in Toronto are still searching for what their roots really mean to them as individuals.
“Until recently, I don’t think I actually knew what it meant to be South Asian. I always considered myself Canadian,” shares Shvetna Dhingra, a third-year sociology and South Asian studies major at U of T. “Now that I feel more connected to my roots, I’m proud to be a South Asian living in Toronto.”
On the other hand, there are some that have always stayed in touch with their background. “I don’t regard myself as an outsider [to Canadian culture],” says Swati Shree, a second-year immunology student. “Yet neither do I consider myself purely Canadian. My parents did a pretty good job of keeping the Indian culture inside me and our home.”
“I definitely feel as Canadian as they come,” counters fellow second-year biology and religion student Anushka Ataullahjan. “I don’t see my being South Asian and my being Canadian as separate things. I see the extent to which I am in touch with my South Asian roots as sort of adding to how Canadian I am. They’re very connected.”
Then again, there are other less internal factors that go hand-in-hand with the culture. “Being a South Asian in an arts background has been a bit challenging-there are not many South Asians in the arts,” claims U of T graduate Richa Jauhari. She’s referring to the fact that a large majority of South Asians often (and perhaps stereotypically) end up in the more scientific disciplines such as life sciences, engineering, commerce, or computing.
This leaves South Asian students feeling “alienated occasionally because there are so few South Asians in my programs,” admits Ellesha Wanigasekera, a third-year religion and English major, who echoes Jauhari’s concerns.
But in today’s multicultural Canada, what does being South Asian even mean? Ataullahjan explains, “It’s not only appreciating mainstream things like the music and the movies, but one should be familiar with the ideals and morals [of the culture] in addition to some of the history.”
“I think it means just being comfortable in your own skin,” offers Jauhari. “By that I mean identifying that you are ‘brown’ not only in skin colour, but also from the inside (and by that I don’t mean all the curry and roti you’ve been eating!), and being comfortable with that.”
Wanigasekera says her dose of South Asian culture comes from “the literature and scriptures, art, music, Hindi films, temple, watching [local TV station] Omni occasionally, reading Hinduism Today [magazine], taking an introductory Hindi course, and in addition to all this, I take Indian classical dance and belong to a music group which has Indian classical music as its base.
“Elders are a wealth of living knowledge! It’s much more interesting getting cultural knowledge from them than from boring textbooks,” she adds.
But Devyani Sirur, a fourth-year political science and French major, though agreeing with Wanigasekera about the value of parents, cautions that “a lot of the time it is the force of the parents that want their children to get in touch with their roots. The parents want their child to partake in activities that the child is simply not interested in doing. The children should be doing something that relates to their culture, but something they enjoy doing.”
A simple and enjoyable approach to maintaining some cultural perspective is to join the South Asian Alliance (SAA) on campus, a group not only at U of T, but on campuses across North America (including six other Ontario chapters).
Joining the SAA’s dance team (that recently participated in the largest cultural dance festival in Canada, hosted by University of Western Ontario) is precisely what I did, not particularly because I felt out of touch with my roots per se, but because I wanted to meet more people sharing my ethnic background. About 30 other people on the team share a similar view.
As an SAA member, “I am able to hang out with people who come from similar families and situations,” says executive member and dancer Osmaan Sheikh, a second-year neuroscience student.
“I was interested in joining SAA because I thought it would be a good way to meet people and make friends. I moved to Toronto the year I started university, so I didn’t know anyone here,” recalls Sirur.
But being part of the dance team that went to Western wasn’t simply a social event. “Practice took a lot of time out of our schedules, and when we first started, everyone was a bit upset about that,” confesses Dhingra. “But when things started coming together, when we were able to do run-throughs of the whole dance, everyone felt like the time put in totally paid off.”
Co-choreographer Swati Shree adds, “Completing the choreography for a 10-minute dance between two people was taxing. We had really exhausted our creative juices by the end of it. It was pretty difficult trying to keep the dance interesting for so long.”
The annual cultural show is an event put on by Western’s Indo-Canadian Students’ Association (WICSA). This year, due to substantial growth in audience size, it was held at the John Labatt Centre in London on March 20. South Asian clubs from Canadian universities are invited to attend and compete in this event. Each university presents a 10-minute dance, which is often a medley of South Asian music (most commonly featuring Hindi film music, bhangra, and hip-hop).
After three solid months of rehearsals, a multitude of props and plethora of costumes, the U of T-St. George SAA dance team left our final Friday night dress rehearsal at 1 a.m. full of excitement and anxiety, only to return four hours later. Saturday morning, while donning our custom-made “Fresh off Bloor” T-shirts, we loaded the ‘magic bus’ with our props and costumes in preparation for the 5 a.m. departure to London.
Dhingra recalls, “Right before we went on, everyone seemed so pumped. We seemed like more of a team than ever before. And right after, it felt so good to know that our practices really paid off.” And what a pay-off it was: U of T’s SAA brought home the first-place trophy for Best Overall Performance.
“I couldn’t believe it,” exclaims Attaullahjan, “I’m still in shock! We made history, and no matter what the future might hold, we are the first team to ever bring the trophy [home] and no one can take that away from us. People don’t see us as only nerds anymore. They see we are so much more than that,” she quips.
Due to the success of this year’s team, Sheikh hopes that the SAA will be able to spearhead something on a larger scale in the years to come. “We hope to bring the cultural show to Toronto to a bigger venue. We want to expand it so it will reach more people. Ideally, it will become a roaming show that goes from city to city.”
SAA and other campus organizations aren’t the only groups aimed at young South Asians-as local teens and twentysomethings grapple with the various socio-cultural issues that surround identity politics, more and more groups are springing up as a place for South Asians to meet and learn. Take Desi Match, a new introduction service founded by U of T student Sana Ziauddin. The group hosts fun ‘speed dating’-type events at cafes and other venues where young South Asians can mingle and chat. And in a specifically South Asian-themed twist, all events are religion-specific (seeing as there are often religious barriers when it comes to dating, relationships, and marriage in the Hindu and Muslim communities). Desi Match’s next evening (for young Muslim singles) takes place April 13 at Just Desserts (555 Yonge St.; e-mail [email protected] for more details).
Organizations like the SAA and Desi Match are only one way for South Asian students to reclaim their heritage, but with the ongoing popularity and mainstreaming of Indian culture, many students are finding it increasingly important to stay in touch with-or find out about-the rich artistic, linguistic, and religious traditions of South Asia. Hopefully in staying true to their own roots, young South Asians can help the culture continue to grow here on these shores, intertwining East with West.
