You Can Take the Girl Out of India…
By Mugdha
“Boba lib idiot queen.”
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Those are the words that have stayed with me from “Chronicles of a Bubble-Tea Addict,” a New Yorker article by Jiaying Fan. This unparalleled denomination is a Twitter comment Fan received in response to an article she wrote about enjoying bubble tea. The commenter seemingly insinuates the author’s reinforcement of the drink as a performative cultural prop. In her New Yorker piece, Fan fights back, arguing that boba, although now commodified into a “ubiquitous, Instagram-friendly accessory,” remains a solace for Chinese Americans that connects them to their roots, irrespective of how insincere it seems. As an Indian American, I recognize this accusation of performativity in the context of my own experiences. For Indian American youth, I believe the real counterpart to Fan’s boba is Indian music.
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Scrolling through my Indian American friends’ Spotify accounts, I often see Indian music alongside mainstream genres. Bollywood playlists share walls with frat party playlists. Indian pop singers like Shreya Ghoshal, Diljit Dosanjh, and even the late Lata Mangeshkar occupy ‘Recently played artists’ spots next to Western artists. I used to think this was a token gesture, putting one’s identity on display without actually engaging with it – exactly the kind of thing Fan’s Twitter commenter would point to. Coming to college and being surrounded by a larger group of people showed me that Indian music serves a purpose to Indian American youth beyond just entertainment, and the playlists I see are more than just an archival record of songs. For Indian Americans like myself, much like drinking boba for Fan, listening to Indian music is a longtime practice and the most immediate way we are connected to our Indian origins.
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For many Indian Americans, English is seldom the first language learned; we grow up bilingual, transitioning from speaking native languages with our families to English anywhere outside of our homes. As college students, when we leave home – the one place where we didn’t speak in English – we suddenly exchange our mother tongues for the only language that our roommates have in common with us, and the communicator that we use in all other parts of our lives: English. While culture does not disappear instantly, this shift in home language marks a dramatic decline. We stop speaking our mother tongues outside of brief phone calls to our parents, and even then, we throw in English words because they understand English anyway. We swap out culture-defining descriptors of our native language for the faster, more convenient alternative of English, making our own tongues feel like guests in our mouths instead of at home.
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Indian music offers a refuge from this erosion. In line with the 2011 Census of India, which reported 22 official major languages spoken by the Indian population, Indian music is created from a rich tapestry of linguistic heritage – Gujarati garba, Marathi musicals, and Bengali Rabindra Sangeet are just some examples of language-specific genres. In addition to these traditional specialties, Indian music also includes popular styles such as EDM, making Bollywood dance numbers come alive at any college Indian Student Association parties. Listening to Indian music is the easiest way for Indian American youth, who inadvertently lose pieces of their Indian selves to their American side when they go to college, to stay in touch with their languages. This makes communication feel relevant and intentional again, immersing us back into familiarity without the pressure of fluency.
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In her article, Fan writes, “Part of being Asian American [...] is the fear of being judged for losing one’s Asian-ness while failing to earn acceptance as a real American.” There’s a constant double standard to simply exist as our intercultural selves; in other words, the fear of being too Asian to be fully American and too American to be fully Asian. While Indian music isn’t as readily labeled as a prop as boba, it still faces the scrutiny of being simply an aesthetic choice and costume, rather than a way for us to preserve a relationship with our communities. Whether it’s a track from a classic Bollywood movie we watched with our cousins, a song that a parent was humming, or the car radio as we were driven to school, the Indian music we listen to independently is an account of personal history that tethers us to something larger than ourselves. Each track is an artifact, part of the quiet work that Indian American youth do to stay connected with ourselves, each other, and our larger world. Listening to Indian music is one of the most powerful ways of staying in touch with our roots: a recognition of the intercultural identities we occupy in this melting pot of cultures, and a reclamation so that those identities do not melt away completely.
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To all the boba lib idiot queens and other Asian Americans out there: happy Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month!
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Recommended listening: DJ mugchi’s selection of Bollywood party songs and a growing compilation of EPs and albums from some lesser known Indian indie artists.
- Mugdha