I Ran From My Indian Culture Until I Finally Let Myself Look Back

When I was a teenager, it felt like a switch flipped inside of me.

Suddenly, I wanted nothing to do with my Indian roots. In fact, I was ashamed of them. I stopped listening to Bollywood music. I rolled my eyes when my parents asked me to go with them to a Hindi film. I even stopped trying to speak Hindi. When my parents asked me a question in Hindi, I would answer in English.

It was a strange feeling, and I could not understand why I felt the need to dissociate from my culture so intensely. Was I ashamed? Had I consumed too much Hollywood media? Or had I somehow convinced myself that the country I came from was not worthy of me?

Eventually, I left India to come to the United States for my bachelor’s degree. That was when I thought I would finally feel the nostalgia I had been missing. Maybe I would crave Indian music and movies once I was thousands of miles away. But I still didn’t.

I barely looked forward to traveling back. My only motivation was seeing my parents, my sister and her husband, all of whom I love very much. Even when I did return, I continued to distance myself from my culture. I was constantly counting the days until I could fly back to America.

Now, 10 years later, I have a new perspective on it. I wonder if I kept trying to lock out my culture, and where I came from, because I thought society would judge me for it. Judge me for being “brown.” Judge me for being an Indian girl. Judge me through every stigma it had already placed on me.

Case in point: whenever I went out to clubs in college and found myself chatting with people, they would often make strange assumptions.

“You’re Indian, so doesn’t that mean you’ll wait until marriage?” one person once asked me.

I honestly do not know where they got the idea that Indian girls are prudes, but there it was. Each comment made me feel like being Indian came with a script I had never agreed to perform.

Even around the city, I hoped people would see my fair skin and assume I was European or Hispanic instead.

“Are you from Brazil?” someone once asked me.

In that moment, I felt proud of myself — when I should have corrected them immediately and said, “No, I’m Indian.”

When I reached my mid-20s, I finally gave myself permission to stop being ashamed of my culture. I don’t know if it was because shows like Never Have I Ever and the second season of Bridgerton, with a female Indian lead, had entered the mainstream. Maybe seeing Indian women take up space in stories that were not built around shame made me feel seen. Or maybe it simply gave me permission to look back.

Somewhere along the way, I realized I had been a coward for turning away from my culture and the country I was born in.

On sad days, I would turn on old Bollywood movies on Netflix. I would go to the cinema with friends to watch Hrithik Roshan’s new film on the weekend. I even started going to Indian EDM festivals.

I gave myself a chance to experience the crowd, the music and that overwhelming feeling of being back in a place I had once called home.

It felt more transformative than I expected. I actually enjoyed the thumping beats, the old nostalgic songs I grew up listening to and the crowd that matched them beat for beat.

When I competed in my first national pageant, I took that a step further. I chose to both experience and embody Akshardham, the temple in New Jersey that had made me feel unexpectedly connected to my roots again.

For my costume, I wore a crown my aunt handmade for me. It was not just an accessory. It felt like a piece of my family, my heritage and my history sitting on my head as I walked across an American pageant stage.

The representation felt powerful because Akshardham was filled with deities, stories and symbols that reminded me of the faith and culture I had spent years trying to outrun. But more than that, every person I met there was kind to me. The temple’s story is deeply tied to seva, or selfless service, and being there reminded me of something I had forgotten: Indian culture is not small, embarrassing or limiting. It is expansive. It is generous. It is sacred. It is special.

In that moment, I felt proud to be the only South Asian American on stage, putting my Indian heritage center stage at an American pageant.

My love story with my culture has never been an easy one. In fact, most of the time, it has felt tedious — more like a tug-of-war than a romance. But now, I can proudly say I am South Asian American. I am both Indian and American, and I am proud of both parts of my heritage.

‍