I felt connected to my Indian heritage at home. Outside, I created another identity
When my grandmother died, I wondered why I'd hid the culture she helped me love
This is a First Person column by Aakriti Matharu, who lives in Edmonton. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, see the FAQ.
I feel the presence of my dadi in every part of my home.
On the couch, where she massaged oil into my hair while pouring out colourful stories about life in India.
In the kitchen, where she would add just the right amount of ghee to perfectly round rotis that were always hot off the stove after school for my brother and me.
In her room, where I would lie with her before bedtime as she recited my favourite Hindu epic, making the story of how Ram saved Sita from the demon come alive in my head.
As I hang a small garland around her picture in the living room, I see the smile of a woman with more strength than I could ever imagine, who migrated to an unknown country along with her son and daughter-in-law to help raise their children. Looking at the portrait of my dadi, which means my father's mother in Hindi, I realize I come from a heritage of strong women who fought to preserve their culture while adapting to a new one.
Then I'm hit by a pang of guilt as I reflect on how hard I worked to separate my identity from my Indian heritage.
I was five when we moved to Canada. My parents, hard-working immigrants who came here with the dream of providing their children with opportunities they never had, chose their home based on the locations of schools they thought were best for my brother and me.
There weren't many other Indo-Canadians in the southwest Edmonton neighbourhood where I grew up.
The difference in my skin colour compared to my peers in the area was already evident. So, despite feeling connected to my Indian heritage at home, I created another identity for when I was outside it.
Dual identity
I spoke Hindi fluently at home but told my friends that English was my first language, practising the pronunciation of "v" versus "w" at home until any remnants of an accent were gone.
During the weekends, my family and I would attend cultural events that I had looked forward to all week. Then I would be embarrassed by my henna-stained hands the following Monday.
In Grade 5, I spent my lunch break scrubbing my palms over and over after a boy in my class asked why I had ketchup on my hands.
I loved to dance and sing along to Bollywood music at home but would spend Sunday night memorizing the names of songs on I am ... Sasha Fierce, the new Beyoncé album, so I could talk about it with the other girls at school.
My mother would make my favourite meal — chole bhature, a chickpea curry dish — that I devoured at home, but insisted on a peanut butter sandwich in my school lunch so I could look "normal" in front of the other children.
At home, I hung onto every word as my dadi told me our family's story about being displaced from Pakistan to India during the partition of 1947 under British colonial rule. But then I would try to stop her from wearing her beautiful salwar kameez, a traditional multi-piece dress, to the Christmas concert or other school events, pleading that she wear a sweater on top.
My dadi died suddenly during a January 2022 trip back to India. I never got to say goodbye.
As I grieved, I reflected on all the cultural knowledge she passed on to my family and me — and my efforts to hide it.
I thought about how I shortened my name to Kriti and changed the pronunciation to fit my "new identity" better or told classmates that my father's name was Arwin instead of Arvind or wrote my grandfather's name, Madan Lal, as "Robert" on a family tree school project.
These are the same names that, today, I proudly tell others about, explaining the meaning behind them and how they were chosen.
As I continue to embrace a culture that I once hid, I find myself feeling a deep sense of connection to my dadi that transcends her death. By engaging in the traditions and customs she valued immensely, I keep her presence alive in ways I know would make her proud, giving me a sense of peace even in her absence.
This journey of grief, dual identity and cultural rediscovery has ultimately made me feel rooted and healed in more ways than I could imagine.
I've realized that what makes me different also makes me who I am, both a Bollywood buff and a Beyoncé lover.
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