Battling identities — being British Indian
Who am I?
A question I have regularly asked myself, I am a British born Indian. I call myself a Brindian. My parents were born in Africa to Indian parents, so we are Indian, but I like to think I have some African in me seeing as my parents were born there, resided there a short while and moved to the UK at a young age.
My parents
I can’t imagine what it was like growing up in the UK in the 1960s, was it more racist then or is it more racist now? Is racism more apparent because our means of technology and the news can highlight incidents more? Did they question their identities as much as I have been? Or did being part of a close-knit Indian community help alleviate that? There was a movement at that period and a lot of Indians moved from either Africa or India to the UK. My grandparents moved to Bolton for the cotton trade at the time. They had bigger families, shared bedrooms, buckets baths, everyone working to contribute. From what I have heard they did also have a lot of fun, quite the community, they also did get into trouble too and there were, of course, some not great times where racism appeared and of course tough times. They just seemed to go with it, it didn’t faze them.
11/07/1988 — Lisa Kimberley Patel
Me. I was born. I have two English names and a very Indian surname. My dad wanted to call me Lisa and my mum wanted to call me Kimberley, I became, Lisa Kimberley Patel. I don’t think I can count on my fingers and toes how many times people have questioned my name which frustrates me so much, it is just a name. However, being Indian and my names not reflecting typical Indian names, people have always been rather questioning of it unless you are my family of course. I can relieve so many moments where I tried to change my middle name, changing it to an Indian name, or pretending it didn’t exist so that I would fit in with the Indian crowd. I wanted to fit in with the English crowd too and so Lisa worked. In my teenage years when my Indian friends found out my full name, they took the piss big time.
Upbringing
I didn’t have a strict upbringing and at the time I can’t say my parents were religious, my dad still isn’t therefore, I wasn’t brought up with all the same Hindu religious practices as my friends were. I also wasn’t quite ingrained into the temple community. I noticed some differences between the other girls and me, and my mum always used to tell me to be more like one of my other friends, maybe because I was a bit boisterous and rebellious. I was quite the tomboy and to be honest, I still am to an extent. I would always be out with the boys playing football or cricket and even when we spent our Saturday evenings at the community club you would again find me with the boys. I fitted in nicely with them! Mum wanted to teach me to cook from a young age, she would yell me in from playing on the park to make the chapatis and I would be so mad, but she said I needed to learn, my brother never had to and I couldn’t understand why it was just a girl thing or an Indian thing so I slowly started to resent the religion and the cultural rules it brought with it. Don’t get me wrong, I became grateful for these skills when I got to college.
High School
My high school wasn’t diverse, ethnic kids were a huge minority, I felt different from the moment I stepped into that school. I didn’t feel like this in primary school. I found it difficult to make friends apart from one girl who was Indian Muslim, we got on well, struck up a great friendship and mostly stuck together, she was a strong, fierce but a really funny and friendly character. I liked her a lot. Eventually, we made friends with other girls, but it took a while for them to warm up to me and I was quite shy, probably super intimidated. Now I look back and realise how much anxiety I had at school and how much this has carried through my life.
I started getting to know girls in the Indian community when I reached the second year of high school. That’s when I started noticing differences in religious practices and what I knew (nothing), I didn’t even know the religious prayers (there are a lot to be fair but the main ones), I might know some lines now! Sometimes they were a bit shocked that I didn’t know what they knew, my very average ability to speak Gujarati and not knowing what caste I was. I questioned my parents about this, my mum wasn’t best impressed, and I understand why she didn’t educate me on the caste system. My parents had a love marriage and were from two different castes, there was quite the hoohaa about them getting married but, my mum fought for her man, the result being 35 years of marriage and 44 years as a couple. Mum did not want the caste to be a part of my identity or for people to lay judgement on me because of it. The caste system labels you based on your trade, it is where you sit in the hierarchy. We were classed as Vaishyas, our trades were, farmers, traders and merchants. The caste system caused and still causes segregation and repression of lower castes. There is no place in my life for the caste system, I am aware of it, but it plays no part in my life nor does it contribute to my identity.
What I learnt from high school was that I was different.
What I learnt from the Indian community was that I was different.
What I learnt from a large proportion of girls is that I was different.
I felt like I didn’t fit because I wasn’t like anyone else. I felt like I couldn’t be accepted as both, I didn’t like all the questions about being Indian and Hindu, because I felt like I was being judged. Did I misinterpret this, and were people questioning because they were genuinely interested? I was always told to remember the colour of my skin, it matters, did this contribute to me feeling judged?
University
Leicester was and still is very diverse. It is very much a second home to me. I made more friends and felt like I fit in better. One girl, in particular, was my idol, she had the balance of being British, Indian and Hindu just right. I was following her steps, engaging in bits of religion and culture that I believed in while embracing British culture. I didn’t feel like I had to make a choice and I was proud to be able to do both and talk about both. Yes, I did also eat beef, I still do eat it occasionally, this is another debate though, so I won’t touch on that subject. Around the age of 21, my mum started following a more religious path, and there were times when she would try to force it on me, I am the kind of person who will go the opposite way if you become forceful. If you don’t give me a valid reason as to why I must practice religious teaching and if I don’t believe in it, I will not do it. This gave me another reason to push religion and culture away. It was too late in the day for me, I had found the balance that worked, and I had my own very strong mind. Anything that tries to put me in a box or control me sends me into an anxious state.
Racism and history
I am annoyed that a lot of history isn’t taught properly at school, some people question why we come to this country, I was born here, go and read up on the divide in India, read up on colonialism, the sources are all out there. I have faced racism and I have faced judgement and prejudice because of my skin colour and race, from Caucasian people, from the Muslim lads in high school and Indians people! Recently I was asked, ‘if you are Indian, why aren’t you married yet?’, or on one of my runs in my early twenties, two lads on bikes yelled at me, ‘you’ve got a nice arse for a paki’. The dating game where men seem to think I can only date people of my race, it is incredibly narrow-minded, open your eyes! Caucasian guys are not sure what it entails to date an Indian woman so they stay away. My family is mixed, we’re not all married to Indian people, we have diversified, and I love this. My parents grew up in this country and have adapted and have tried to bring my brother and I up with the best of both worlds.
Here and now
Within the workplace, I look around me and it isn’t diverse. On nights out I look around me and it isn’t diverse. I look at the men and the women they approach, I am not one of that kind, I don’t fit that type, sometimes I am ok with this and sometimes I am not. My life in the workplace has me questioning whether I am a tick box exercise, being female and of colour. We have had jokes about this previously, I don’t take offence in the slightest and sometimes it might even be me that starts the joke, that is because I am now accepting of being a minority. I do love my differences. I tried to fit being Indian, I tried to fit being British, what I didn’t do was just try to be me, I tried desperately to fit when really, I should have found what fits without me changing. I am accepted as I am, and I have become aware of this over the last few years, maybe that’s because I am surrounded by amazing people that don’t lay judgement. I solo travelled meeting people from all over the world where we educated each other about one an others lives, religions, upbringings etc, moments I will cherish forever. I will date and marry whoever I want. I won’t preach anything I don’t believe in nor will I be forced to.
I absolutely and utterly love my name; I am British, and I am Indian, and I am a little bit Hindu, in that order. I love my beautiful brown skin, thick black hair and if that’s the first thing you notice, I am ok with that. I enjoy going on holiday, soaking up the sunshine and my skin going from brown to black. I embrace the bits of religion and culture I have been brought up with and will continue to practice them for as long as I live. I do resent Indian society for the way they put people into boxes, label them, the way they treat women and define beauty by the lightness of your skin. At the same time, I love the colourfulness and spiritual aspect of Indian culture. There’s good and bad to everything, I see both, I won’t lean one way, seek out the good and ignore that bad or vice versa.
Religion, cultural norms, and society, as I have experienced, try to put you in a box, gives you a set of guides, pushes your life down a certain path, highlights your differences and sets time limits. This isn’t for me, I seek freedom, my heart aches to be free, free from restraint, free to explore, a culture accepting of me as I am, free to love and to be loved with no boundaries and no judgement, I don’t care for anyone’s judgement.
