Growing up a British Indian
- Arzu Dutta
- Oct 15, 2018
- 2 min read
If I had a penny for every time I have been called a 'coconut' in the past, and sometimes even now, I would be a millionaire. Being called a coconut in this context refers to having a brown skin colour but acting 'white'. This concept, as ridiculous as it sounds, often led me to question myself a lot growing up.
“Can I be defined by the parallels of my skin colour and culture around me?”
“Who am I really?”
“Am I trying to be someone I’m not?”
These are huge questions for a child to be asking themselves but it’s the reality of two cultures colliding.
I grew up in two conflicting environments; my parents’ house vs the outside world.
I come from a Hindu Punjabi family, and my parents ensured that my brother and I had respect for our roots. It was the little things they did that made a big difference; cooking traditional Indian food, taking us to the Gurdwara on a Sunday, watching Bollywood movies and teaching us how to speak Punjabi. Most of these things I took for granted, but looking back I appreciate this more than ever because they never let me forget the true essence of who I am.
However, we have never been a typical Indian family. My parents were also learning how to live a British life through us and that couldn’t have been easy. This isn’t called “trying to be someone else” or “trying to be white”, this is adapting to your environment. Adapting is something we all do in different ways and all the time. They did this so that the line between being Indian and British wasn’t so harsh for us growing up.
No, I don’t have a thick Indian accent like my ancestors but that doesn’t mean I’m trying to be white. I was brought up in a very white town, and so naturally most of my friends were white. We are all influenced by our environment. It wasn’t until I got older that I started getting questioned on my ‘Indian-ness’, as if this was something that could be measured. These sorts of comments would often come from the people who I thought would be the most understanding, and from other brown friends who claimed to be 'more Asian' than I was.
This led me to spend most of my teens trying to diverge away from being Indian completely. I concluded that if I wasn’t brought up in India, I couldn’t be Indian. My parents never forced anything on me, I had the freedom to be who I wanted and figure it out for myself. I’m sure that this wasn’t easy for them, not only was I in denial of my identity, I was also rejecting theirs.
The biggest challenge I had to overcome was accepting myself, rather than trying to get others to accept me. It wasn’t until I was 17 that I recognised that I am a product of two cultures. I am your average Yorkshire girl who loves a drink, but I’m also the Punjabi who loves aloo parantha for breakfast, and the world will just have to deal with it. I still feel out of place from time to time, but that’s normal and we all do.
Love Arzu x
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