Many, many years of usage has trained my grandfather’s Youtube algorithm to spin a carefully-curated rotation of videos catered to his liking. Once the first shabad ends, it tends to be followed by two or three more—before an old Bollywood song inevitably lights up the screen. Sometimes “Mere Desh ki Dharti” from Manoj Kumar’s 1967 film Upkar plays first, or the qawwali-style “Parda Hai Parda” led by a 1977 Rishi Kapoor, or, if we’re lucky, a song voiced by the angelic Lata Mangeshkar. Nestled somewhere in that musical wheel, ready to be deployed at any time, is the song “Aisa Des Hai Mera” from the 2004 hit film Veer-Zaara.

It’s a fan favourite in our household.

The scene begins with the titular characters, Veer Pratap Singh (Shah Rukh Khan) and Zaara Hayaat Khan (Preity Zinta), seated atop of a cramped passenger bus in the middle of east Punjab. Most South Asians know the story, can conjure the image of the two in an instant: he is Indian, she is Pakistani. He’s dressed in top-to-bottom light blue denim, and she a yellow-and-white salwar kameez. Behind them, the earthy green of the farmland stretches into forever. The two formally introduce themselves, sharing a soft moment that patches their rough first meeting and kickstarts the beginning of their nation-shattering love story.

Then, the folksy voice of Gurdas Mann fills the speakers, and we’re off, wheeling through rural Punjab alongside the passenger bus. My grandfather turns the volume up and melts into the couch.

“Below the sky lies the earth / Here every season smiles. . .”

The premise of the song is simple: Zaara has come to India for the sole purpose of spreading her Sikh nanny’s ashes in the Sutlej River—until she encounters Veer, an Air Force pilot who becomes determined to show her the beauty of his country. In seven rich minutes of music, Veer guides Zaara through fields of wheat crops, a bustling fair filled with amusement rides and snacks, and even a stranger’s home for lunch. On the back of a bullock-cart, he teaches her how to bite into a sugarcane. Under a banyan tree, he watches as she performs kikkli with a group of local folk dancers. He sings about grandmothers telling tales of fairies, how guests are treated like God in India, and the love stories one finds at every step. “Aisa des hai mera,” he sings in the chorus. Such is my country.

Having witnessed the beauty of India, as Veer had promised, Zaara at last chimes in near the ending: “I’ve seen your country / I’ve learnt about your country / I don’t know why, but / it looks familiar to me.” At this point, my chest swells with pure joy, and I like to imagine my grandfather feels the same tug in his heartstrings, too. We both know what’s coming next; we’ve been anticipating this moment of gratification (even though we watch this all the time). Struck by the cultural, social, and spatial familiarities of India, Zaara, gliding through a field of flowers, sings: “Here, the evenings and mornings are the same / Such is my country / Just like yours.” Across from her, Veer stands dumbfounded for a brief moment, a small smile dancing on his face. Then, he promptly agrees: my beautiful country is just like your beautiful country. Alas, they are now children of the same Punjab.

Sitting in my Canadian home, with my ninety-something grandfather who witnessed the devastating 1947 Partition of India and Pakistan with his own eyes, this moment never fails to strike me as powerful.

It feels oddly radical, especially in the Bollywood context: the massive industry that still, to this very day, hasn’t parted ways from the evil Muslim/Pakistani villain trope. That being said, I would be remiss if I didn't point out some of the failures of Veer-Zaara as a film at this juncture. Despite my intimate attachment to its story, this movie is by no means perfect; indeed, it’s still rooted in the same nationalism that Bollywood is notoriously known for, just in a more subtle fashion. If you look closely, Pakistan is clearly framed as the site of oppression (particularly for women), while India symbolizes the land of the free. Zaara is never able to achieve liberation in Lahore—rather, she discovers it across the border in Veer’s village, where she inevitably ends up for good. The villain is still the Islamic world; it just lacks the aggression we’re accustomed to with Hindi film culture.

What these problematic depictions mean for the individual viewer is hard to generalize, but the truth is the film has been widely celebrated on both sides of the border since its release. Unfortunately, maybe that means the bar is just really, really low when it comes to Pakistani representation in Bollywood—but I can only speak on my community’s behalf about how this film translates into real life.

For diasporic Punjabis, Veer-Zaara is a heartfelt time capsule of home—the whole, unbroken version of it. Particularly, the essence of Punjabiyat (“Punjabiness”) beats at the heart of “Aisa Des Hai Mera:” in its visual aesthetics, the land-affirming lyrics, and the growing love-beyond-borders between the two characters. The best of what Punjab is shines at the forefront, just as our parents and grandparents remember it.

The palpable nostalgia of the song’s cinematography is no coincidence: the late filmmaker Yash Chopra, who directed and produced Veer-Zaara, was from undivided Punjab. Born in Lahore in 1932, Chopra spent many of his early years in present-day Pakistan before Partition relocated him to Ludhiana in east Punjab (present-day India). His intimate relationship with the land manifests in the film’s readability: he imagines Punjab in a way that feels like a memory, a picture of the past. It is this cohesive Punjab that brings Veer and Zaara together—not India, nor Pakistan. The spirit of undivided Punjab.

In a household like mine, that means something special.

“In the fields of wheat / The winds move like a comb. . .”

I grew up watching this film on repeat—my dad actually bought the special edition DVD box set because we were all so obsessed with it. I can’t remember at what age, during which particular rewatch, that it actually dawned on me that the Shah Rukh Khan was playing a Sikh character. Like most of us Sikhs, I grew used to the underrepresentation (and misrepresentation) of our people in Bollywood films—used to finding connections with onscreen Hindu and Muslim characters instead, and saving my “feeling seen” moments for the lower-budget Punjabi films. But I remember rewatching this film in my early twenties, thinking I already knew this story front-to-back, only to see the khanda hanging from Veer’s neck for the first time. He’s Sikh?

Of course, how stupid was I? His name is Veer Pratap Singh, for crying out loud.

To be fair, we could probably attribute my blindness to his religious identity to the fact that, beyond him wearing a silver khanda on his chain, Veer’s Sikh identity is not really explored. I could make a decent argument that throughout most of the film, he simply comes off as another Hindu character. But with the scraps I was being fed by Bollywood, I didn’t care—and still kind of don’t (for different reasons though; I’ve given up on that industry for the most part). I’m not one to idolize actors or celebrities, but Shah Rukh Khan is a massive name, and it moved me to see him wearing a khanda amid a filmic space hellbent on ridiculing the identity I’d inherited from my grandparents.

It still touches me to this day, but less so, now that I’ve learned to separate my identity-making from the many Bollywood films I grew up on; a subconscious step that I can only describe as necessary.

My late grandmother loved this music video. Every night, her face would light up as though she was seeing its expressive colours for the first time. It took me a long time to understand this adoration of hers, and I don’t think I fully grasped it until her passing in the summer of 2021. Because this was never just about a song; it was always about remembering home—about returning. During her final years, my grandmother was extremely limited in her mobility, and traveling back to Punjab had been long out of the question by that point. Physical return, for her, was impossible, perhaps when it meant the most. Much like it is for my grandfather now. It was only through memories, music, and film that my Bibi could step back into Punjab before her time was up. I know with certainty that “Aisa Des Hai Mera” helped her return home every night, from the comfort of her favourite couch in Canada.

“Look,” she would say, nudging my attention towards the TV screen, “Look at the keths, the fields! Our land in Soondh looks just the same, you know.”

I would grin at the screen, trying to picture her and my grandfather in those same fields, much younger and much more mobile, toiling amid the wheat crops. That image still comforts me.

Two months after grandma passed, I was back in the living room with my grandfather, sitting in a comfortable silence. I remember the following moment vividly: he picked up the remote, clicked the search box on Youtube, and ever so slowly (bless his heart), typed out the title of the song. It hadn’t appeared in the algorithm’s rotation since Bibi left us; now, here was my Baba, seeking it out on his own. He hit play and neither of us said anything. We watched the entire thing without going on our phones (which is actually more of a bad habit of my grandfather’s than mine, just saying).

I was thinking of her, and I’m quite certain he was, too. That night, a new layer of meaning was added to “Aisa Des Hai Mera.”

That’s the power this song holds in my family: it bridges our different timelines together, gathers us in our Punjabiness, and keeps the memories of the past firmly on the surface, where they belong. It is part of our everyday, the beautiful and boring mundane. It is our doorway into Punjab, into home.

Share

With them, the people carry real grievances, substantial issues necessitating government accountability, and the last dregs of India’s democracy on their backs. This is Delhi, the seat of seven empires, where they hope to drive systemic changes for the security of their futures, along with those of the coming generations. They are more than deserving of a conversation with the state.

But instead of dialogue, they’re met with tear gas, batons and lathis, barricades, and unchecked police violence—inside the biggest city of the world’s largest democracy. Unwittingly, the students are exposing the careful guise of the dictatorial rule of Prime Minister Narendra Modi: a mask that has slipped many times since his rise to political power in 2014, and continues to grow weaker by the day.

The images coming out of Delhi are harrowing; this article allows them to speak for themselves.

Subscribe now

The NEET Paper Leak

Why are students protesting in the capital? Primarily, the thousands of students and supporters of the youth-led Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) are demanding government accountability and the immediate resignation of the Union Education Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, over the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) paper leak that left multiple students dead by suicide.

If you’re wondering how an exam leak could have such tragic consequences, here’s the reality: as one of the largest medical entrance exams, the scores from NEET determine which of the 2.3 million test-takers deserve a spot in the 130,000 slots available in the medical colleges. It is a highly competitive exam that students spend years preparing for and, often, money they don’t have. To make matters more difficult, many of the available seats are safeguarded for privileged students from private schools, leaving those in the public sector at a further disadvantage.

Thus, when the National Testing Agency (NTA) announced the test taken on May 3 would be voided due to a considerable breach in which more than half of the test had been leaked prior to the exam, the consequences were devastating. For those who sought to escape poverty through education, through the vast opportunities post-NEET, this reality was soul-crushing.

If you’re interested in a more detailed account of the paper leak itself and the progression of this protest, I recommend these following articles on the matter:

• Why are Indian Students Protesting? by Brown History

• Why Mr Modi Can’t Afford to Listen by Ganatantra

• ‘This is about the dignity of youth’: India’s ‘cockroach’ movement pushes beyond satire by RT

Peaceful Protest Under a Democracy—and a Dictatorship

By definition, a democracy means rule by the people—it refers to a representative government in which the power is bestowed to the people through the rule of majority, fair voting systems, and the conservation of basic human rights. None of this possible without the right to peaceful protest: a legitimate form of expression designed to allow critical engagement between the people and the state.

On the other hand, a fascist government is an authoritarian regime that places the nation in greater standing than the individual, whilst demanding complete loyalty and strict social order by the people it oppresses. The specific characteristics of protest suppression under fascist regime are—unsurprisingly—violent policing and/or military force, press censorship and manipulation, and the branding of anti-national “enemies.” Sound familiar?

Importantly, Protect Democracy calls peaceful protesting the bulwark for democracy—the solid wall of defence against the growing rise of authoritarianism across the world. This definition doesn’t just present the right to protest as a pillar of democracy, but also as the very act that weakens oppressive fascist efforts.

What’s alarming about the CJP protest in India, however, is its stark similarities to past demonstrations that have occurred under established dictatorships (not that this is the Indian government’s first time suppressing a protest through violent force).

Consider the following images from previous protests under dictatorial/fascist regimes from across the world:

Next, consider these images from the CJP protest at Jantar Mantar—again, inside the country that’s supposed to be the largest democracy in the world:

Again, India has a longstanding history of suppressing protest movements with brute force. Memories of violence from the Farmers’ Protests still remain fresh in our minds as the police department of Delhi flips into the same savage pattern once again. Back in 2020, the BJP—particularly Modi himself—used speech-act to frame the farmers of the country as direct threats to India’s national security; pro-BJP media outlets are already doing the same to students marching at the protests. This is not an egalitarian practice; this is calculated manipulation by the state.

If the remaining democratic fabric of India is to be preserved, the nation must be discussed as what it is, not what it claims to be. To continue calling India the world’s largest democracy is to betray those individuals wiping blood from their temples at Jantar Mantar as we speak.

An Important Note…

Before I close off this post, I want to acknowledge my positionality in this particular discussion: I’m a privileged university student based in Canada with no lived experiences of the CJP protests nor India’s unethical educational system. With this article, I seek to articulate the democratic failures of my ancestral nation from a diasporic perspective, simply for the purpose of spreading this message, supporting the students’ cause, and making sense of an emerging story that I’m deeply invested in.

However, I want to encourage all readers to engage with the writings from the people living in India and/or fighting on the ground. Their stories are invaluable at a time like this.

Here is a list of my recommended essays:

• Sonam Wangchuk, Please End the Hunger Strike by Samagra Thakur

• So, I joined the CJP protest by Manderi Lal

• The Sheer Immorality in Staying Silent about the Jantar Mantar Protests by Rishi A. Kumar

Subscribe now

Share

Khalra doesn’t know it, but this is his last public speech ever.

The year is 1995, and the chilling climax of the Punjab insurgency looms over India—and now, the entire world. On a special visa, Khalra has traveled overseas to spread his groundbreaking mission and report the findings of his personal investigation. With him, he carries evidence proving the Punjab Police conducted an estimated 25,000 abductions, extrajudicial killings, and hidden cremations of Sikhs during the years of insurgency (1984-1995). His work flips the political narrative of terrorism in Punjab on its head, exposing the rear side of what can only be called a state-sanctioned genocide to a global audience.

Because Khalra doesn’t just present this information to the Sikh public; he takes it to the British and Canadian Parliaments, to local and foreign press conferences, to newspapers and journalists, and anyone else that will listen. For Khalra, fighting for the families of the “disappeared” is nothing special—it’s simply his duty, as a human and as a Sikh.

He’s offered asylum by the Canadian government, but politely declines: if he flees Punjab, the fight will leave with him. Instead, Khalra stands by his decision to call out this gross injustice—and welcomes whatever that may bring onto him.

Five months after his famous speech, Khalra is washing his car outside of his Amritsar home when a handful of disguised police officers pull up in an unmarked van. In broad daylight, Khalra is unlawfully abducted—never to be seen again.

This is about the lessons of truth and justice he leaves us with.

“If nothing else, then at least around myself, I will not let the Darkness settle. Around myself, I will establish Light.”

—Jaswant Singh Khalra, General Secretary of the Human Rights Wing of the Akali Dal

Censoring Khalra: The Case of Punjab ‘95/Satluj

Thirty-one years after Khalra’s abduction and murder by the Punjab Police, his story faces state suppression once again—this time, through the medium of India’s Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC).

Starring Diljit Dosanjh as Khalra, Honey Trehan’s Punjab ‘95 was originally set to premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), before it was unexpectedly withdrawn at the last minute. According to director-producer Trehan, they were forced to pull the film from TIFF—and to reject invitations from various other film festivals—due to “political pressure placed on the producers of the film.”

Thus, the film went back into the drafts, and for the following three years, Punjab ‘95 remained in limbo.

To receive certification for a theatrical release, the CBFC was demanding that Trehan complete 127 cuts to the movie. Nothing could prepare audiences for what exactly those cuts were. Here’s a look into that list, as reported by New Lines Magazine:

• Drop the opening tag, “Based on True Events”

• Completely cut out the opening scene showing Punjab Police killing civilians

• Change any use of “Punjab Police” to just “Police”

• Tone down the torture scenes of Khalra’s character, and remove the scene in which the police shoot him dead

• Decrease the figure of 25,000 extrajudicial killings

These weren’t artistic choices made by the filmmakers; these were facts proven by the Central Bureau of Investigation, and arguably the most important elements of this story. In short, not only did the CBFC want to present this film as a work of fiction, they were evidently hoping to change history in the process.

It’s ironic, though. The more a state tries to silence a film, the more people will want to know why. And that’s exactly what happened: Punjab ‘95 was kept alive through word-of-mouth, Internet dialogue, and Trehan’s ceaseless vocalization against the CBFC.

Finally, on 3^rd July 2026, hopeful supporters of the film (like me) were surprised to see the announcement that the uncut version of Punjab ‘95, now titled Satluj, was available for digital viewing on Zee5 streaming. A spark lit the underfoot of the Punjabi community, the Internet discourse rose again—

Until less than forty-eight hours later, it was taken down from the platform in India. A tale about systemic silencing, silenced once again.

Or perhaps, the opposite…?

If you’re anything like me, and you’re looking for a hopeful or optimistic ending in the matter of Trehan’s film—here it is:

Challenging the Darkness: The Everyman’s Duty

In a sit-down interview with Ensaaf, Khalra’s daughter, Navkiran Kaur, shares a conversation she once had with her father’s friend. He’d asked her: “What do you think? As a Sikh, did your father do something great or some great work?”

Confused, she replied, “Yes, it is quite important work.”

“No,” he said to that, “He only did the work of a Sikh—what a real Sikh should do.”

This perspective added a new layer to my understanding of Khalra’s work—and the concept of human rights activism as a whole. We tend to consider the task of fighting injustice as brave, distinguished, special. It is, of course. But our positioning of human rights activism as work of the highest honour often makes us forget that it should simply be expected of all humans. There doesn’t have to be anything particularly special or dramatic about it. That’s what Sikhi teaches us.

I am not exceptionally religious myself, and therefore in no place to wholeheartedly describe what truth and justice means to Sikhi; but, when examining Khalra’s tale, I’m encouraged to think of what messages our ancestors have passed down onto us. When one takes a journey down Sikh history, they discover a long line of martyrs who sacrificed their very lives in the name of human rights, justice, and freedom. As my grandfather has taught me, truth lays at the heart of our faith; to uphold this virtue, we Sikhs practice lifelong seva (selfless service) for the benefit of all humanity, and we never ask for anything in return.

Khalra’s seva to humanity manifested in his resistance against state oppression in Punjab. The “disappeared,” the families of the vanquished, the living still at risk—Khalra laid down his life to fight for their justice.

There couldn’t be anything more selfless than that.

The surprise release and quick takedown of Satluj from Zee5 has opened a channel for us to answer the call that Khalra planted the seeds for back in ‘95: to challenge the darkness that threatens to settle around us. Seeing the online discourse surrounding this film’s struggles, which has subsequently uplifted the story at heart, has been inspiring and hopeful (although, at times, worrisome too). It is true, that nothing we do for the sake a film can compare to the sacrifices Khalra made for his mission; but we can certainly honour his fight for the truth by advocating for his story.

Moreover, the struggles the filmmakers have experienced to release this film to the public is evidence that Khalra’s mission has not met its rightful end yet. Being a human rights activist, particularly in Punjab, is still a dangerous job—which is why it should never be the responsibility of a select few individuals. The task of promoting the welfare of humanity, however small one’s work may seem, lies in all of our hands.

Even if it is only around yourself, establish Light, and don’t let the Darkness settle.

If you have time, I urge you to watch Khalra’s final speech in full. You will not regret it.

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

If you enjoyed this piece, check out the following:

The main battle in imperialism is over land, of course; but when it came to who owned the land, who had the right to settle and work on it, who kept it going, who won it back, and who now plans its future—these issues were reflected, contested, and even for a time decided in narrative.

—Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism

Among the many peculiar trends filling our online algorithms is the (relatively) recent “disgustingly well-read/well-educated” challenge: an open invitation to all those seeking enrichment for their growing intellect, primarily through the form of classical literature.

Because being intellectual is so trendy right now.

Recently, I came across a TikTok video of someone who had curated a list of essential classics—specifically for anyone looking to become disgustingly well-read. In their handpicked list of novels were George Orwell’s 1984, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.

Now, as someone on the cusp of finishing her Bachelors of Arts in English, this list is both unsurprising and yet completely frustrating to me.

Disclaimer: I am no expert on literature—but I have had the luxury of witnessing the academic debate around what constitutes classical literature in my university classrooms. And the reality is more sinister than you might think. So is this list, if you haven’t noticed.

Admittedly, prior to pursuing postsecondary education, I never considered that books—the act of reading for pleasure—could also carry forward strands of colonial legacies. But the aftershocks of empire are still shaking the floors of our libraries, and many of us are simply allowing them to pass.

Even in my liberal university classes, where professors made conscious efforts to challenge classical lit, I was still left disappointed more times than I can remember. Consider this: in the four years of my degree, I’ve never been taught a South Asian novel (despite the fact that Canada is home to the largest South Asian diaspora outside of the subcontinent). To do that, I joined the Honours program and tackled this work on my own.

Regardless of how this discourse manifested in the classroom, it transformed the manner in which I reflect on my own library—and what I choose to fill it with.

Because, while the Canon is very much a societal phenomenon, it is also an intimate exchange between you and your bookshelf, and nobody else. It can be a personal act of resistance, if you choose so; a way to defy the ongoing imperialism of today’s climate.

Note: of course, despite my own annoyance, I recognize that TikTok creator’s list was by no means to act as an exhaustive one, nor could it truly speak to their preferences or personal biases. Really, this isn’t about that creator at all. This all circles back to what I’ve been discovering in my own studies: that the world of English literature is still comfortably dominated by colonial forces.

And that, in spite of everything—my degree, my admiration for reading, all of my literary work—I might never reach the status of being “well-read.”

Subscribe now

The literary Canon is not a fixed list, nor is there a firm criteria for it.

Importantly, the Canon can entirely change depending on where you are in the world—the Asian Canon, for instance, greatly differs from the European Canon. Going one step further, even the South Asian Canon is completely separate from the East Asian Canon. For the duration of this essay, however, I’m specifically referring to what is broadly defined as the Western Canon, which, despite the works it typically includes, should be a place for diversity.

According to this New York Times article, the Canon is more or less decided by “an elite group of scholars and critics who embraced a work of art and sent it aloft to some deifying realm.” The subjective biases of this exclusive faction are then institutionalized through schools, academic discourses, and journalistic practices.

We’re taught J.D. Salinger in the classroom instead of Toni Morrison, because although they both tell necessary American stories, the former writer has been given a benchmark status that extends increased value to his work in the eyes of our collective society. (NOTE: I mention Morrison because her novels, primarily The Bluest Eye and Beloved, are two of the most banned books by North American school boards. Morrison’s books tell raw stories of slavery, racism against Black folks, and sexual trauma—aka America stories (!!!)—making her work absolutely critical to the Western Canon. The banning of these books is an unjustifiable act of censorship.)

Consider this list made by Goodreads:

Here is the foundation of the disgustingly well-read trend circulating through our feeds right now. That’s a lot of heterosexual white men.

If you scroll far enough, you’ll begin seeing diverse writers sprinkled here and there—but the first fifty recommendations are almost exclusively male white (and dead) authors. To make matters worse, Goodreads hasn’t even titled this page, “Western Canon” (which would still be wrong, by the way, but maybe a smidge less despicable); it’s called “Literary Canon.” As in all literature.

With respect to their overarching influence, books in the Canon are often labelled as “representations of the human experience.” So what does this list of novels insist about our world?

It silently proves that the literary world has yet to accept marginalized voices as essential Western perspectives. It continuously imposes the values and beliefs of one dominant group onto our wider society, conditioning us to recognize their ideologies as superior. It also completely erases the historical fact that white colonials/settlers had access to print and publishing, while people of colour and Indigenous peoples faced systemic barriers within the same process.

It’s cultural imperialism, point blank.

American-Palestinian scholar Edward Said (1935-2003) wrote at length about this in Culture and Imperialism. One of his most compelling arguments asserts that various classical works, namely Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park and Rudyard Kipling’s Kim, cannot and should not be read without consideration to how they acclimatized European societies to violent imperialistic ideologies. Whether it’s the naturalizing reality of plantation ownership in Austen’s novel, or Kipling’s normalization of colonial rule in India, these literary works had tangible consequences for the colonized at the time (and even today).

Speaking of today, the era of so-called decolonization, these books are still considered… classical.

The real kicker is that this cultural imperialism vis-à-vis literature is more or less embedded in all of our subconscious awarenesses. And we rarely acknowledge to what extent.

If I were to ask you, who are the greatest writers of all time? Without even meaning to, some of us would probably think of Jane Austen (I did just say her name a second ago, but still), or maybe J.R.R Tolkien, or even William Shakespeare. We might turn to Franz Kafka, Fyodor Dostoevsky, or James Joyce. William Faulkner, Charles Dickens, or one of the Brontë sisters. Ernest Hemingway? Oscar Wilde? Leo Tolstoy?

Of course, these writers are influential for a reason—my intention is not to negate their work or anyone’s admiration for their books (I, too, have read many of them). But this pattern sitting under our noses is begging to be seen, and it’s our duty as readers to give it some thought.

My hope is that, perhaps, some of you answered that question with Edward Said, Khushwant Singh, or Arundhati Roy. Maybe Toni Morrison, Octavia Butler, or Maya Angelou. How about Bengali-poet Rabindranath Tagore, or Gabriel García Márquez from Columbia, or Afghan-American novelist Khaled Hosseini? Everybody should Anita Desai, and her daughter Kiran Desai!

This should go without saying, but in order to be anti-colonial member of society, you have to engage with anti-colonial thinking. That includes reading literature that the colonial world has worked hard to keep in the shadows. Moreover, we need to stop insisting that reading these “classical” books are essential to our intellectual growth—and I hope this essay proved why.

If you want to read about the nineteenth- and twentieth-century world, choose to enter the perspectives of those who worked against colonial forces—not those who only benefited from them.

Expanding Your Personal Library: Handpicked Recommendations by brown & anxious

In the spirit of challenging the Western Canon, I wanted to offer some recommendations for anyone seeking to diversify their library, or to become truly disgustingly well-read (really, this is a ridiculous concept, but you get what I mean).

Each of these books have left their unique marks on me, revealing the intricacies of faraway places and the place I call home. These books don’t just stray from the Western Canon, they place themselves in conversation with them; they demand to be part of it.

This list will take you through historical Iran, across Canada through the memoir of Métis writer Maria Campbell, into the high-class world of Puerto Rico, the haunted south of America where the ghosts of slavery continue to live, before landing you back in middle-age Persia with the classical tale of Layla and Majnun. Each story is intimately married to the Western world—even Ganjavi’s twelfth-century work, which was translated to English by a Swiss scholar, interacts with the West!

I’ve included synopses from Goodreads (hypocritical of me, I know) down below; I would love to hear about your thoughts/recommendations in the comments. Happy reading!

Disoriental by Négar Djavadi

Kimiâ Sadr fled Iran at the age of ten in the company of her mother and sisters to join her father in France. Now twenty-five, with a new life and the prospect of a child, Kimiâ is inundated by her own memories and the stories of her ancestors, which reach her in unstoppable, uncontainable waves. In the waiting room of a Parisian fertility clinic, generations of flamboyant Sadrs return to her, including her formidable great-grandfather Montazemolmolk, with his harem of fifty-two wives, and her parents, Darius and Sara, stalwart opponents of each regime that befalls them.

In this high-spirited, kaleidoscopic story, key moments of Iranian history, politics, and culture punctuate stories of family drama and triumph. Yet it is Kimiâ herself—punk-rock aficionado, storyteller extraordinaire, a Scheherazade of our time, and above all a modern woman divided between family traditions and her own “disorientalization”—who forms the heart of this bestselling and beloved novel.

—Synopsis taken from Goodreads

Halfbreed by Maria Campbell

Maria Campbell’s biography is a classic, vital account of a young Métis woman’s struggle to come to terms with the joys, sorrows, loves and tragedies of her northern Saskatchewan childhood.

Maria was a strong and sensitive child who lived in a community robbed of its pride and dignity by the dominant culture. At 15 she tried in vain to escape by marrying a white man, only to find herself trapped in the slums of Vancouver—addicted to drugs, tempted by suicide, close to death. But the inspiration of her Cree great-grandmother, Cheechum, gives her confidence in herself and in her people, confidence she needs to survive and to thrive.

Half-Breed offers an unparalleled understanding of the Métis people and of the racism and hatred they face. Maria Campbell’s story cannot be denied and it cannot be forgotten: it stands as a challenge to all Canadians who believe in human rights and human dignity.

—Synopsis taken from Goodreads

The House on the Lagoon by Rosario Ferré

The House on the Lagoon is the story of Isabel Monfort and her husband Quintin Mendizabal—the history of a family whose secrets, conflicts and private mythologies add up to the larger story of a nation: Puerto Rico.

—Synopsis taken from Goodreads

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

In Jesmyn Ward’s first novel since her National Book Award–winning Salvage the Bones, this singular American writer brings the archetypal road novel into rural twenty-first-century America. Drawing on Morrison and Faulkner, The Odyssey and the Old Testament, Ward gives us an epochal story, a journey through Mississippi’s past and present that is both an intimate portrait of a family and an epic tale of hope and struggle. Ward is a major American writer, multiply awarded and universally lauded, and in Sing, Unburied, Sing she is at the height of her powers.

Jojo and his toddler sister, Kayla, live with their grandparents, Mam and Pop, and the occasional presence of their drug-addicted mother, Leonie, on a farm on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. Leonie is simultaneously tormented and comforted by visions of her dead brother, which only come to her when she’s high; Mam is dying of cancer; and quiet, steady Pop tries to run the household and teach Jojo how to be a man. When the white father of Leonie’s children is released from prison, she packs her kids and a friend into her car and sets out across the state for Parchman farm, the Mississippi State Penitentiary, on a journey rife with danger and promise.

Sing, Unburied, Sing grapples with the ugly truths at the heart of the American story and the power, and limitations, of the bonds of family. Rich with Ward’s distinctive, musical language, Sing, Unburied, Sing is a majestic new work and an essential contribution to American literature.

—Synopsis taken from Goodreads

The Story of Layla and Majnun by Nizami Ganjavi

The text is a prose rendition of Nizami's 12th-century poetic masterpiece, in which he reshapes the legends of Majnun, the quintessential romantic fool, into a tale of the ideal lover. For the Sufis, Majnun represents the perfect devotee of the "religion of the heart," and the story is an allegory of the soul's longing for God.

—Synopsis taken from Goodreads

It was peak tourism season: late August in 2024. The orange sun was a ball of lava in the sky, attracting beads of sweat down the back of my neck as I passed by a row of gelato shops, souvenir stores, and restaurants filled with plates of pasta. Really, I couldn’t find a single complaint: the ancient city was everything I hoped it would be.

Yet, my heart kept sinking. I released a slow exhale, as my therapist had trained me to do in times of growing distress. The truth was it had been two weeks since I left home for Europe, and despite the irresistible charm of Italy, I was anxious and homesick.

Some otherworldly force must have sensed my unease, bubbling like a pot of tea simmering too-close to the edge. I turned the corner, my sandals clapping against the famously-uneven cobblestones of Rome—just in time to catch a glimpse of a Sikh man crossing the road in a sea of wide-eyed tourists.

“Look,” I said to my friends in a hushed voice, pointing a discreet finger in the man’s direction, “Saada bunda.”

Our guy. One of us.

The man was impossible to miss, as our Gurus intended him to be. His greying beard was long and unshorn. He wore a simple button-up shirt and slacks—Western clothing. But even without any traditional Punjabi dress, his large presence demanded attention. Gleaming like a crown on the top of his head was a royal blue dastar: his Sikh turban.

He walked off into an adjoining street with the confidence of a local, disappearing from our view as quickly as he came into it. Meanwhile, the three of us were left with inexplicable grins on our faces. The knot in my stomach had given away as easily as a delicate cut of silk.

Later, I reflected—and I realized that man had been the first Sikh person we saw during our time in Europe. Over the course of fourteen days, we had perused through Paris, Mykonos, Paros, and then Athens, before landing in Rome—and soon, we’d hit Tuscany and Milan. We were three brown girls in an expanse of predominantly-white people, and turns out, we needed a slice of home at the moment more than we realized.

But along with this introspection came the sharp edge of reality. While that man’s halo-like turban had offered me a moment of comfort amid my homesickness, I became aware that on that very same street could’ve been another person who looked at him and thought—danger, foreigner, alien, terrorist.

Not because he had done anything wrong. But merely because of the cloth wrapped around his head.

That was just the world we lived in.

Today, I’d like to offer what I can to change that.

The Dastar: A Symbol of Faith and Equality

In Sikhi, the dastar (turban) is a powerful emblem of faith that represents honour, equality for all, and selfless service. Despite popular misrepresentations in Western media, a dastar symbolizes a Sikh’s self-assumed duty to stand by justice for all, becoming a marker of their commitment to serve humanity. It is not just an article of clothing or a cut of fabric: it is an extension of their body.

For the Sikh men and women that follow the tradition of the Five Ks, or the panj kakke, the dastar also covers and protects their uncut hair.

The Five Ks are five physical articles of the Khalsa Panth, established by Guru Gobind Singh in 1699 for the purpose of making Sikhs identifiable and bound together in their devotion to the Guru. They include kesh (uncut hair), kara (steel bracelet), kanga (wooden comb), kachera (cotton undergarment), and kirpan (steel sword). Each of these Five Ks possess unique symbolic meanings, representing the external expression of Sikhi as a faith and a way of living.

Importantly, the dastar is meant to make Sikhs easily recognizable members of the Khalsa Panth. I first learned this from my grandfather. He once told me that Sikhs were made to stand out so those in need would always know who to turn to. That in a flurry of people, one could find a dastar in a crowd and think: that person will help me.

My Babaji is devout Sikh man; but his fate had unexpected plans for him. During his early years in Canada, back in the seventies, he felt compelled to abandon his turban and cut his hair in order to better fit in as he moved through various sawmills and mainly-white towns.

My grandfather is by no means an emotional man; speaking of this loss, however, is the only time I’ve seen his eyes turn glassy.

For him, losing his dastar must have felt like losing a limb. And I imagine the need to do so must have been entirely confusing: how could a token of his inherent goodness and honour be the very thing putting him at risk?

The Dastar in the Western World

Knowing the true essence of the Sikh dastar, it’s incredibly difficult to understand how and why the Western sphere has tried to demonize a symbol based upon equality and virtue.

During my grandfather’s arrival in Canada, the world was a notably different place: it’s safe to say that much of the bigotry and racism he faced was rooted in people’s inability to see “the Other” as equal. The aftershocks of violent colonialism were still shaking the world, and racist policies continued to dictate societal beliefs and understandings of people of colour.

However, the world shifted for Sikhs after the 9/11 attacks in America; as images of Osama Bin Laden flooded national newspapers and television screens, the turban and long beard became clear enemies in the land of the free. The rise of mass Islamophobia against Muslim people also struck Sikh communities in North America, manifesting as numerous racist attacks and hate crimes against turban-wearing people who were often mistakenly targeted as Muslims.

Balbir Singh Sodhi was a Sikh man living in Arizona at the time. He was shot and killed at his own gas station four days after the 9/11 attacks, by a white man who saw his beard and turban and stated he wanted to “shoot some towelheads.” The first Sikh man to be killed after the 9/11 attacks, but not the last.

The Sikh Coalition—America’s largest Sikh civil rights organization—recorded around 300 anti-Sikh incidents during the two months following September 11.

In her book, We Too Sing America, Deepa Iyer reports that some Sikhs and Hindus began relying on the message, “We are not Muslims” as a “reflexive response to shield themselves from the backlash targeting Muslims” during the immediate period after 9/11.1 But Iyer goes on to reveal this response ultimately transformed once it became clear that perpetrators of racial violence would not care for such distinctions, and that trying to clarify religious differences would actually result in the misconstrued conclusion that targeting Muslims was acceptable.

Since then, many Sikhs have openly discussed their refusal to throw Muslims “under the bus” in their own fight against Islamophobia, in turn honouring the central Sikh concept of sarbat da bhala—the welfare of all people.

This kind of selflessness is what makes me feel the safest around a dastar: it’s the knowledge that I’m in the company of someone who has vowed to stand for justice—not just for themselves or their own people, but for all of humanity.

As Sikhs continue to fight for equality and recognition, my sincerest hope is that the Western world catches up sooner than later; because Sikhs are not going anywhere, and it is so much worse to have us as enemies rather than friends.

It was late November in Canada. The night sky was bloated with grey clouds, casting a sorrowful gloom onto our insignificant town in northern British Columbia. A dreadful day, I’ve been told by many; cold as ice. Snow pelted against the roof as I came into being: brown-skinned, roughly six pounds, and completely healthy. Which was a relief, because I was the last breech birth that little hospital would ever allow.

The surgical team was scrubbed up and ready to begin the emergency C-section on my mother. Scans showed that I had rotated in her belly at some point during labour, my head turning closer to her heart while my feet pressed against the life-opening threshold. Even in the womb, I was restless as ever. Eager to impress.

My mother’s physician at the time—a lovely man that my family is lucky to still call a dear friend—says I must have been in a particular rush to meet my parents. Before he could begin cutting into my mother’s skin, I started pushing my way into the living world—feet first. Everyone in the room was simply forced to comply with my demands.

From that point on, Dr. L affirms to me, two decades later, I knew you were going to be different.

He was right, in more ways than one.

While I much rather prefer his perspective of my birth story, I’ve learned that it’s not the whole picture. It’s just the romantic version, the outside looking inward.

For better or for worse, my mother tells me the bleak truth: that some family members refused to visit once they heard I was a girl.

Somehow, at the age of a few seconds, I had already disappointed them.

Unsurprisingly, it was a saddening confession to hear, and I interrogated it more than my mother probably anticipated. Who didn’t visit? How come? When did they finally accept me? Did they ever accept me?

For my sake, my parents are careful to avoid discussing any feelings of disappointment they may or may not have had at the discovery of my female sex. They tell me they were thrilled to have another healthy baby to call their own; and I believe them. They’ve done an exceptional job of loving me in my twenty-six years of life.

But, if they had indeed swallowed a tinge of disappointment in that hospital room, I’m at a stage in my life where I am inclined not to blame them. I’ve done the difficult task of extracting any personal offence from this past. I’ve made peace with the fact that this problem was much bigger than either of my parents, those disappointed relatives, or even me.

Rather, it was a culmination of centuries-long patriarchy in South Asia: an immeasurable history that had meticulously uplifted sons for millennia while condemning daughters to a muted life of insignificance.

In reality, I’m one of the lucky ones—to now be in a safe enough position to call out this societal failure. To have experienced enough love to comfortably articulate the profound ruptures in our culture’s birth narratives without compromising my own peace of mind. This is my attempt to put it into language.

The Realities Behind ‘Son Preference’ in Brown Cultures

The second-daughter-disappointment is a phenomenon that most South Asian people will, unfortunately, recognize. It’s the ugly childhood scarf in the back of our closet—we all know it’s there, and we can’t necessarily get rid of it because it’s technically a family heirloom, but we’d rather not look at it everyday. Plus, it’s clearly out of fashion, and not to mention, embarrassing to admit we ever even owned it.

Today, I’d like to propose we burn that raggedy old thing.

But first, I want to complicate the reality of ‘son preference’ in South Asian families; because for some, being the second daughter may be completely irrelevant. I can affirm, in brown cultures, that the birth of any daughter can be cause for familial disappointment. Whether she’s the first, second, or third child in the pecking order won’t even matter. Being a girl rather than a boy is simply enough. My experience, however, just happens to be rooted in being the second daughter specifically.

And there is indeed a specificity in being the second girl (or third, or fourth, and so on). A report titled, “Son Preference and Daughter Neglect in India,” by the International Center for Research on Women states that an Indian daughter is more likely to be nurtured if one or more of her older siblings are boys; “but if a family already has a daughter, they are less likely to nurture a second.” Here, the pecking order changes everything. A second daughter becomes something close to a defeat.

You see, I’m the middle daughter in my family, wedged between an older sister and a younger brother. For a long time, I felt my position in this order deemed me tragically inconsequential: I was neither the miraculous first-born of the family, nor was I the wondrous boy that every brown family sought. I was just the middle daughter: a filler of some sorts. To make matters worse, I quickly became the “problem child:” the baby that never stopped crying, the toddler that never left my mom’s side, the shy kid that never interacted with our relatives. Now, I’m the grown adult that always pushes back, the one pursuing a creative career while my siblings follow in my father’s footsteps in the world of business. I’m the dutifully unpredictable one out of the bunch.

Was it because I subconsciously felt the weight of being the second daughter growing up? No one can say. But like the doctor said, something made me different.

Of course, as I mentioned earlier, I was up against an enemy much larger than I could fathom. The society-wide preference for sons in South Asian communities is a complex topic that traces back to the ongoing patriarchy, unequal cultural standards, and difficult economic realities. Based on my research, here is a non-exhaustive list of harmful South Asian norms that feed into this problem:

• Sons are considered the carriers of legacy; daughters, on the other hand, are always destined to leave the family after marriage, taking on a new name, lineage, and household.

• Sons are viewed as the caretakers, especially in relation to old-age support for aging parents; funnily enough, most South Asians today will tell you it is the daughter-in-laws that end up bearing the heaviest brunt of this task.

• Sons are the financial earners of the family; in traditional (and often poorer) South Asian families, daughters are economic liabilities because of future dowry and wedding costs.

Now, what’s interesting about all of this is how it bleeds into the diaspora. Surely my family, living in the Western sphere of Canada during rapidly-modernizing times, were not disappointed by my sex because of concerns of familial legacy or dowry costs. Much of that was irrelevant outside of India at the time.

So, what gives? Why do we, that being us in the diaspora, care so much about birthing sons over daughters? Half of this bullshit list isn’t even applicable in the contemporary moment (in the diaspora—but it’s also continuing to lose power in the homeland as well; why are we still talking about ‘legacy’????).

Well, it seems to me that many people from the South Asian diaspora don’t even know why they prefer sons over daughters anymore—they just know that’s the standard. Or worse, they don’t even realize this prejudice is festering inside their minds: a core belief they can’t even trace to a root, a belief so normalized that it lacks conscious thought.

How do we fix this? I can’t say I have the answer (yet)—but I’m inclined to suggest that it begins with putting these backwards subconscious values into language. To yank them out of the back of the closet and bring them to light, so that we may successfully bury them for good. To do that, it’ll require us—first, second, third, and beyond daughters—to be brave and speak up.

Just as Good as the Son You Had Hoped For

Because if not, where does this leave us, the daughters born into a world that rejects us upon the moment of conception? Especially when we’re scattered in such polar realities?

Despite everything that happened, I remain firm in my stance that I’m one of the lucky ones. My kismet landed me in a family that was willing to do the inner work: those same family members that were disappointed by my X chromosomes are now the people that love me the loudest in the present moment.

I can’t be certain of what changed, or how it happened, but I can sense the profound growth in their characters everyday. Not all second daughters get a chance to witness that evolution.

Certainly not those millions of daughters living in the South Asian subcontinent today. For many of them, this backwards birth narrative is a matter of life and death.

Because the bleak reality is that approximately 51 percent of women living Bangladesh right now were married before the age of 18, partly because dowry costs increase as girls get older. In Pakistan, over 20 million impoverished girls are not attending school because of educational priority given to boys. A study by Pew Research Center estimates that 9 million females were lost to feticide from 2000 to 2019 in India. Son preference in South Asia plays a major role in all of these atrocious statistics.

So, yes, I’m unbelievably lucky to say that the extent of my experience was a few disappointed relatives. To those brown daughters who wound up in far worse scenarios, I’m pushing against these birth narratives—feet first—for you.

Here’s a photo of little me to end this heavy post on a high note ❤︎

I hope I’ve made her proud today.

Leave a comment

if you enjoyed this piece, check out the following ♡

Author’s Note:

I began writing this piece three days before America and Israel launched a joint military attack against Iran. Since the bombing in Tehran on February 28th, the war has increasingly inflamed across the entire Middle East, spreading to Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and more. As I watched this unravel on the news over the past week, I felt like I’d lost my sense of direction with this article; sanctioned violence could not be made sense of, and I was a fool for trying.

But maybe this disorientation reflects a truth I was seeking from the beginning. Political violence demands our confusion, and for us to be loud about it. To write about it, to share stories about its impacts, is to be part of a collective resistance. I invite you to join it, too.

This piece was born out of my thoughts as a Sikh person living in the wake of the 1984 genocide, but my hope is that it ripples beyond a single example of state-sanctioned violence.

As always, thank you for being here.

—Rajan

Subscribe now

My grandfather arrived on the shores of Vancouver Island, Canada in 1977, seven years before his identity would become the target of a violent, state-sanctioned genocide back in India.

Today, the language of authorized violence is one we recognize like a mother tongue. With the unprecedented ICE raids in the United States, Israel’s decades-long war against Palestinians, the genocidal violence taking place in Sudan, or now the unlawful war unfolding in the Middle East, the reality of government-led bloodshed has found a rather convenient home in our everyday living.

We guzzle down images of violence from our phones like shots of vodka: in quick successions, with the hope each one will make the world a little bit more bearable afterwards. We like, scroll, and swipe our way through the armed conflicts of the world, then return to the theatre stages of our existence, where we smile, dance, and pretend in front of our respective audiences.

Whether we’ve realized it or not, we’ve accepted sanctioned violence as a natural circumstance of our global community. It is innate, in the same way a wildfire in a forest is. Tragic, but beyond our control.

For some of us, this makes feeling ‘behind in life’ sound almost cruel—dare I say, tone-deaf?

Of course, my intention is not negate the very real and painful realities we also face in our day-to-day lives with a simple it-could-be-worse rationale. But in our strange, accelerated world of never-ending tragedies, trying to find purpose can feel like a betrayal at times. Shameful. Silly. Embarrassing.

How can I take my problem of feeling lost in life seriously when I know this predicament would be a luxury for others? (I could honestly go down the path of wondering what the point of anything is right now, but alas, I digress)

Diasporic shame can emerge for a number of different reasons, but here’s a few:

• Survivor’s guilt: intense personal distress or shame experienced by someone who survived (or evaded) violence while others didn’t.

• Cultural dissonance: the psychological conflict when one struggles to negotiate their identity amid clashing cultural norms, practices, and values.

• Failed cultural and familial expectations: when one feels as though they failed to honour ancestral/familial sacrifices in their own life.

This problem is further complicated when we actually have some skin in the game. Living in the diaspora while your people are being hunted and killed in the homeland brings forth an entirely different set of identity issues and feelings of shame. Or, in my case, trying to reconcile with the painful history of your people being killed, maimed, and raped simply for their religious identity—the same one you practice across the ocean forty-two years later, in perfect peace.

If you haven’t heard of the anti-Sikh genocide that took place in 1984, I wouldn’t be surprised: it is not taught in Western schools as far as I know, and I’m willing to bet a good deal of money that it’s not taught in India either.

Even after forty-two years, the Indian government is still working hard to erase this entire year from its history books—with the recent ban of Diljit Dosanjh’s film, Punjab ’95, being a prime example. It follows the life of Jaswant Singh Khalra, a human rights activist who was murdered by Punjab police after bringing international attention to the atrocities faced by Sikhs during the genocide. It was scheduled to release in February 2025, but the national censor board of India refused to green light it unless the production team fulfilled over 100 cuts across the film.

That’s India: the world’s largest democracy.

Without getting lost in the details—because this long, complicated history couldn’t possibly be summarized in a single article—the Sikhs became prey to government-orchestrated mobs in the wake of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination in late 1984. She was murdered by her Sikh bodyguard in retaliation for her sanctioned military assault against the Golden Temple (the Sikhs’ holiest site of prayer) earlier that year. Hundreds of innocent pilgrims had lost their lives in her crossfire in June 1984.

New Delhi was hit the hardest during the attacks, but violence sparked everywhere across India as angry mobs burned down Sikh-owned homes and stores, mass raped Sikh women, and beat, clubbed, and stabbed Sikh men to death. All because they looked like the man that had killed their Prime Minister.

The lack of transparency by the Indian government means that the death toll estimates are all over the place. However, Barbara Crossette (former New York Times bureau chief in Delhi) indicates that “almost as many Sikhs died in a few days in India in 1984 than all the deaths and disappearances in Chile during the 17-year military rule of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.”

Overseas, my grandfather watched this unfold from a television in Canada. I can only imagine the pain he must’ve felt, sitting in the comfort of his foreign land while his people were being dragged, beat, and murdered in the streets of India. The disbelief, the sadness, the shame. Of being here and not there. Of surviving while his people bled.

While I can’t speak on behalf of my grandfather’s experience, I can try to make sense of this diasporic shame through my perspective. I am one person out of billions who carries ancestral stories of sanctioned violence on my back like a shoddy rucksack. Though I am writing to you today with some answers I’ve discovered, I want to make it clear that I’m still figuring out what to do with this weight.

To be frank, my problems are always going to feel utterly ridiculous in comparison to the cruel fates my people faced—and every other victim of political violence. So obviously, spending any time trying to unpack this dilemma is actually just a waste of time. What I’m discovering, instead, is to channel this frustration into something useful. Like writing, discussing with others, or even thinking.

One thing that has become crystal-clear to me is that our interrogation of state-sanctioned violence means something—even though most of us often feel as though talking about it is never enough.

Consider this, my reader.

If sanctioned violence exists somewhere in your lineage, then that makes you a product of radical resistance. It reveals the endurance of your people, your ancestry, your culture. It makes you a symbol of survival, defiance, and active opposition.

What is so shameful about that?

And if you allow it to, this interpretation of your existence can transform your self-meaning. You’re an exception, and with that comes a great deal of potential. You have the capacity to be the voice that your ancestors and people need. The thinker they need, the ears they need.

Will it ever feel enough? Probably not. But it’s something, and it’s outright powerful.

My point is: if you feel behind in life (and feel silly about it right now), it’s okay. Because you’re here, you exist, and that will always be enough.

Keep reading, learning, and listening. Find purpose in what your ancestors couldn’t, in whichever way feels most productive for you. And always, be fucking loud about it.

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

To my late Bibi, I miss you—and I’m sorry I never got the chance to ask you these questions. Still, I thank you for the answers you offered in your own ways.

My Baba, my father’s father, is my only surviving grandparent: a ninety-year-old Sikh man with a steadfast resilience and a deep, rich love for life. He teaches me everyday what it means to live to one’s fullest potential.

Baba has a strong daily routine, which begins with half an hour on his at-home bicycle (I’m not even kidding—his ninety-year-old knees are not to be messed with), a yogurt cup with a Cliff bar, and his morning prayers. His favourite modern invention is the iPhone, but he despises complicated car touchscreens. He has been faithful to the Liberal Party of Canada ever since he could vote. He has witnessed countless global histories: the 1947 Partition of India and Pakistan, the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, the collapse of the Soviet Union. He was alive when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and when Apollo 11 successfully landed on the moon (unless it didn’t? any conspiracy theorists?). Most importantly to me, he has lived in the heart of Punjab’s darkest hours—and I am so lucky to have heard it all from his own voice.

My interest in his past began with a seemingly inconsequential conversation about India’s Partition. I was mildly curious about the history, and he was willing to indulge me one evening. What happened next, however, changed the course of my life (so dramatic, I’m sorry, but it’s true!).

He was twelve years old at the time, my grandfather tells me, living in the farmlands of rural Punjab. If you didn’t know, the state of Punjab was particularly afflicted by the 1947 Partition as a result of the colonial government’s decision to separate the province down religious lines. This severance led to a two-way crossing: Hindus and Sikhs went east to India, while Muslims travelled west towards their new homeland, Pakistan. For reasons I couldn’t begin to summarize in this post, sectarian violence broke out in numerous places across both Punjabs. People killed senselessly. Neighbours turned on each other. Around 15 million people were displaced, and over 1 million people died in the process (and these are only estimates).

My Baba was not displaced nor was he physically injured during Partition; but he did witness his entire village and surrounding world change before his eyes. Everything he thought he knew about the universe crumbled to dust and scattered with the wind.

Remarkably, seventy-nine years later, my Baba’s memories of this colossal event remain sturdy as stone. His memory box is filled with astonishing details, like the names and faces of his old Muslim friends, the specific locations of refugee camps near him, who guarded his village during the dark nights. I was perturbed. This whole time, for seventy-nine years, these images and stories have floated inside his mind… and I was only hearing about it now? And I know exactly what he would say if I were to ask why he never brought up this story before:

“You never asked.”

Ultimately, I was so touched by his narration that this one conversation led me to a comprehensive research project that has changed my life ever since (but that’s different tale, perhaps more on that later).

My point is: I couldn’t believe my grandfather had his own story, his own lived experience, of this massive geopolitical event, one that’s been studied and written about by millions across the world. I realized then, that ninety years is a long time—and suddenly I became invested in learning everything I could about the lifetime he’s lived. I mean, think about it: can your brain even process ninety years of life? Seriously, some days I can barely remember my own postal code.

The reason I’m sharing this story, or even writing this post at all, is because the experience of hearing my grandpa’s stories from his own mouth was so moving that I have no choice but to convince others to do the same.

Our grandparents carry vast repositories of rich memories—of things we couldn’t begin to imagine. They deserve to be heard. Especially by those they love most.

So, as promised, here are a collection of questions to ask your immigrant grandparents while they’re still around (this sounds kind of morbid, but I want to drive home the point that our time with them is limited, so they warrant our urgency).

If your grandparent(s) is/are anything like my beloved Baba, their eyes will light up at the sound of your first inquiry into their vibrant past. My advice? Keep asking for more. Be greedy for their stories.

1. You must have so many memories of your childhood in your home country: what memories of ‘home’ do you cherish the most? What was it like to grow up there?

2. Do you have any difficult/painful memories of home?

   • Note: Remember that some memories are tucked away for a reason—follow your grandparents’ lead on this question, and don’t push beyond their limits.

3. Do you remember when you first immigrated to this country? What was that process like then? What was your first impressions of this country?

   • Note: Thanks to this question, I got to hear the story of my grandfather standing in a line for hours just to send one sentence back home via telegram; Baba went on to praise the creation of the iPhone after, and we laughed together.

4. Your childhood must’ve looked so different from mine. What did your home city/house/village look like? Where did you spend the most time?

5. Do you have any cultural or spiritual stories you could share with me? Are there any that you grew up learning?

   • Note: The stories of our ancestors are just as important.

6. I can’t imagine picking my life up and moving to a completely new place like you did. What was the most difficult part about moving?

7. If you could transport yourself to your home country right now, where would you visit first?

8. You’ve lived through so many historical moments in the world. Do you have any personal experiences with any of them? What did these historical events feel like in the moment?

9. I want to know more about your life: what stories can you share with me?

   I would like to dedicate this post to my Baba, who reintroduces me to my own complex identity on a daily basis. How lucky am I to be born into your lineage. ♡

   - Rajan

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

If you happen to miss the news on a particularly shitty day, no one will accuse you of lacking political literacy or refusing to stay informed about the world. Once again: we’re all welcome to having our bad days.

That being said, if you just so happen to be one of those people who finds themselves saying things like, “I just can’t watch the news anymore, it’s too stressful” or “it’s bad for my mental health,” then I have some news for you: that is your privilege speaking, and it’s not even doing you any favours.

Here’s an important angle you’re missing: by not staying informed about politics, you are choosing to exclude yourself out of violent administrative structures that—let’s be real—don’t usually have your best interest at heart. You’re placing yourself at a direct disadvantage, and yes I’m talking to heterosexual white men, too. If the ICE raids in Minneapolis suggest anything right now, it’s that we should all be exercising more caution today. No one gets a free pass out (except billionaires apparently, barf).

Just think it about—isn’t not knowing terrifying?

“But the news is more terrifying.”

Sigh.

Yes, the world is on fire, and everybody would rather be watching reruns of Friends, or the new season of Bridgerton, or literally anything else. To be perfectly clear, I’m not asking you to enjoy the news (that would actually be quite sadistic at this point) or to surrender your hard-earned down time to watching Donald Trump try to speak in a full sentence—but what I am suggesting is that you care. The world desperately, desperately needs more people that care right now.

Of course, my intention is not to negate the complicated and painful emotions that arise for many of us while watching the news. Since the pandemic ended, I’ve been battling an intense phobia of large crowds; and watching the news can be a huge trigger sometimes. Often I find myself wondering if my anxiety was always right, and maybe it is best if I never leave the house again unless I have to. But we can agree that’s crazy, right?

Politics can have a profound impact on us, on the state of our intimate everyday living, and taking care of our mental health should always, always be a priority.

But staying out of the loop is not protecting you the way you think it is; it’s making you more vulnerable. Especially if you are a person of colour, or a woman, or a queer individual, or an immigrant, or disabled, or part of any other minority group.

You might not realize it on the surface, but staying informed about the world is the simplest way to support the various critical movements across the globe right now. It is, quite literally, the least you can do.

If anyone is having a particularly difficult time with this or would like to chat further, my messages are always open.