India is the home I’ve never fully known. India is a pocket of the world that I’ve only visited a handful of times, and everything I remember about it feels otherworldly. After living in one place all my life, visiting a place that is not only starkly different but is also so far away–that just getting there takes so much effort. But stepping out of that airplane and into Indian land feels like stepping on to another planet. It’s in the atmosphere, in the air around you.
These are things that I usually don’t acknowledge on a daily basis. India isn’t an active thought in my mind every single second, or even most days. However, it does lie unconsciously in the depths of my mind. I don’t have to recognize it, I don’t have to think about it or say hello to it, but India is always there. More so recently. There’s been a feeling of sorts that I simply cannot put a name to.
After having somewhat of an epiphany with my best friend and fellow Indian-American, sophomore Shirin Gohil, we came to the realization that this “Feeling” was not limited to our small circle. Outside of our friends, there’s been a rise in the community of young Indian-Americans on social media, some posting about their recent India trips and some expressing a longing for India. We identified “The Feeling” as widespread, and sat down to talk about what it truly is, how it began and what it means.
“It’s a [feeling of] nostalgia, a longing and it’s a loneliness,” Gohil said. “It’s a flavor–all combined into one. Because when you close your eyes and you can taste the spicy, oily, flavorful food or the refreshing fruit and you can feel that breeze [that] smells like Indian air and you can think of words in your parents native languages, and you think of all the pretty Indian traditional outfits you’d like to wear, the jewelry or the makeup styles, or you can picture yourself walking down the street and buying vegetables from a stall, you’re transported. It’s a whole flavor that suddenly you want to grow up the way your parents did, in this different world.”
This different world is obviously so far away, yet with the rise of social media we can feel connected to it very easily. There’s people out there who are exactly like us, and posting about our culture. The community grows every day.
“Because of social media, because of Instagram and Tik Tok and the growing Indian-American population, we’re getting to see the other Indians make relatable memes, talk about our cross cultural experiences, niche, media and food and cultural aspects of our lives that only we understand,” Gohil said.“It’s amplified by the fact that other people are experiencing the same thing.”
Community grows, and so does a sense of confidence. There’s no reason to be ashamed of this culture that we’ve grown up in, and now that we’ve realized it, the only thing we want to do is embrace it loudly, flaunt it boldly and wear it proudly.
“Growing up we’ve become less afraid of our own culture. We want to hide it less,” Gohil said. “It’s like ‘Oh, of course we’re gonna go and meet everybody and speak the language and eat the food.’ That’s really where [we] belong. It’s an ancestral thing. It’s an origin thing.”
For most of us, the place where we can embrace our culture the most is at home. Of course, the pandemic forced us to spend a lot of time at home, surrounded by family full time.
“COVID, especially for those who did school online, gave Indian-Americans a chance to connect more with their Indian culture in the very raw form or very close to their family,” Gohil said.
Growing up, I always felt a divide between my Indian side and my American one- I felt like a different person when I was with my school friends, like I was suppressing this other part of me. When the pandemic hit, that divide was no longer as prevalent. I still talked to my friends often, but I was physically surrounded by my Indian side. I didn’t know how to appreciate it then, but the constant connection to my culture through calls with relatives and having family at home was a blessing during a time where I was struggling. Of course, this connection has always been there, but COVID amplified it by forcing us to lean on each other, with nowhere else to go. COVID not only brought many of us face to face with our culture, but it created hard situations for a lot of us. The pandemic in India was horrible, and we had to be separated from our Indian relatives and friends during this dangerous time.
“COVID was just a reminder how fragile it all is and how far away it all is,” Gohil said. “After the pandemic, everyone understood the value of going back and seeing your family so much more, because people lost things, people were really afraid and suffered and struggled, so this time when people went back over the summer, or in this winter break, there was a newfound worth associated with going to India.”
My own grandfather passed away during the pandemic, not due to COVID, but the timing still made it impossible for us to visit or go to his funeral. Instead, we had to tune in through Zoom. It was hard for me, but I know my parents had an especially hard time. They had to cope with the pain while being so far away from home, and knowing that they weren’t there when it happened. It reminded me of how strong they’ve been this whole time.
“You can never solve that for [our parents]. There’s nothing, and if we feel isolated in Western culture, think about how they must feel,” Gohil said.
The pandemic took my chin in its hand and forced me to look my culture straight in the eyes. In some ways, nothing changed. The food my mom made was the same as when I was younger, and my house was still just as “Indian” as it always was- not more so and not less. Though as the days went on, I realized I lost my identity. The loss of it didn’t fully relate to being Indian, but the gaining back of it did. I was growing closer to my cousins and finding comfort in the depths of the way we understood each other, because of our shared culture and memories. I was growing up faster than I had ever felt before, but at the very least I had my family. Now, as I grow even more, I’m starting to think about the future and my plans for it. It’s a tiring thing, and there’s so much unsureness around it. What college I’ll go to, what career I’ll pursue- I didn’t want to think of any of it. So when I saw posts from India trips over summer or winter break, there was a deep feeling of longing and missing for this other world–away from grades and stress and the future. India doesn’t escape time, doesn’t escape the future, but in my mind it always seems to. India is an infinite presence that when I imagine myself there, I imagine the feeling of time suspending and life being lived without measures. That’s all I wanted- for time to slow down.
“It’s really that absolute urge to just get up and run away,” Gohil said. “Many of us are at an important turning point in our lives. [We] just want to return to our roots. Let’s go back home. It’s away from the pressures and the stresses and you’re just saturated in this magical life, absolutely magical.”
We know that life in India is not a perfect one, and there are factors that we wouldn’t enjoy. We’re aware of the privilege and advantages we have from living in America. Though, at times it feels easier to weigh the cons of America- being away from our raw culture, the shallow media, and the tiring society- as greater than the ones of India, craving India since we’re so withdrawn from that side of us.
“You know that you’re idealizing it too, you know that it’s not exorbitantly fun all the time, or that there’s things about it that will frustrate you,” Gohil said. “But it’s the media, it’s the movies, it’s the music and it makes you miss the emotions and the food and the flavor.”
I can’t imagine it, but I know that if I was brought up in India, I’d be a completely different person. I’m grateful to my parents for the life I get to experience because of the fact that I was born in America, and it’s easy to forget about how lucky we are. But the grass is always greener on the other side, and it is equally as easy to crave everything we miss about India.
“We take this for granted because we’ve never lived away from all of this,” Gohil said. “If culturally we had to pick, of course we’d want to be in India because there’s the clothes and the food and the family.”
As Indian-Americans, we’re stuck in an awkward middle of knowing both sides. Indians might look at us and see the American in us that doesn’t relate to them, and Americans will never understand how Indian culture impacts who we are.
“Neither place you will ever fully fit in, and people in India will also perceive that difference the same way people here know that we eat different food because our parents grew up somewhere else,” Gohil said.
I believe that a major part of why I find so much comfort in my relationships with my cousins is because it feels like a middle ground of being with people who understand and are a piece of India themselves. It’s the same in the way I clicked with Shirin very quickly, or how there is a recognition and connection I feel to other Indian-Americans, even if they are just strangers that I momentarily locked eyes with.
“The only area we have where everything aligns is with other Indian-Americans because you’re the only one who understands both sides of things,” Gohil said. “How much less filtered are you when you’re talking to Indian Americans specifically? Significantly, because you don’t have to tailor your Indian customs to a Western norm, nor do you have to tailor your Western customs [to] Indian. You’re reluctant to share the parts of your culture that come from the opposite side, unless you’re with somebody who can understand both.”
There’s a difference in the nature of relationships with other Indian-Americans than with other people. It’s more comfortable and easy going, even in relationships that might not be as close, because there’s still a connection in shared experiences. And in relationships that are close, like my cousins and family, it’s something that’s irreplaceable.
“Relationships are very different and more tight knit,’’ Gohil said. “It’s definitely more natural. They’re based on instinct, they’re deeper and they are more expansive than shared pop culture commonalities. I know that at home, you’re treated by your family, and you treat your family the same way that I do with mine. So I know that you’re much more familiar with my tone, the dynamic of my interactions, and my intentions behind how I behave.”
Part of it is taking each other in without hesitation, and accounting for each other. My parents have always done this with my uncles and aunts, an example being that sometimes we’d go to my cousin’s house, and since they grow a few vegetables in their backyard that my parents would want, we’d go home with a plastic bag of it. It’s sort of second nature, to take care of each other and help each other out. There’s more involvement on a personal level. Whenever I see my cousins, after we hug, all we do is simply enjoy our time together in a familiar manner. There’s no expectations, and no matter how much time passes the bond is always there, because what connects us is timeless–our culture, our roots, and our memories. While I love my friends, I find that the topics that connect us are much more shallow in comparison, and it almost always relates back to school, grades, and the people around us. Though when I’m with Shirin, our conversations are always deeper, and the easiness around us is something I don’t find in my other friends.
“There’s less boundaries, [and] more understood actions, you don’t ask people to be so tailored in their behavior all the time,” Gohil said. “There’s more honesty; you can show your frustrations more clearly. It’s never about trivial things.”
Another thing that creates this longing for India is all the pieces of Indian culture that Western people don’t relate to. Indian music, Indian movies, south Asian poetry, little things our parents would do growing up–the list could go on and on. I grew up with my mom massaging coconut oil in my hair, feeling surprised and slightly embarrassed when I realized other kids didn’t do that, and now hair oiling is very popular with the rise of social media. I grew up drinking chai that my mom makes, and I can’t help but see ‘Vanilla Chai’ tea bags or Starbucks’ Chai Tea Latte as not the real thing. Poetry, music, and movies are also entirely different from Western media and almost deeper in a way. It goes back to the language and the feelings.
“Emotion is a lot less filtered in eastern culture as well,” Gohil said. “To show Indian music and media where friendship or romance is very explicit in the words and the topics in the music videos is awkward because to you, this is too intimate to be discussed in a normal social [setting]. But for Indians, this is an average level of explicitness and emotion.”
If all goes well, I’ll be in India this summer. Most of all, I’m excited to be surrounded by the untouched nature–away from the stress and expectations that seem to live in American air.
“You’re always one with nature [in India],” Gohil said. “That’s really what all this life is about. It’s never about chasing money or fame or cars or comparing yourself to others or fulfilling some ulterior desire or motive, you just live. Don’t be worried about things. Don’t get tied down to a professional environment. [When] you come home, you enjoy entertainment with your friends and family. You eat a lot of good food. Sometimes you watch fireworks from your balcony.”
