My father grew up dirt-poor in a village in India. My grandmother valued education, and with her prompting, he managed to get an engineering degree and an educated wife, coming to the United States.
Alternatively: my mother’s mother was the most hardworking woman in the world, running multiple businesses, doing the housework, and raising her children. As a high schooler, she held an (unsuccessful) hunger strike to promote her right to an education. She passed on that determination to her daughter. Between my mother’s ludicrous work ethic and terrifying ambition, she found a husband with her goals and gained a medical degree in two countries, settling in the United States.
Either way, my mother and father, through luck and hard work, came here with the skills to better this great country. My mother maintained throughout my childhood that there was nowhere to gain success like the US. She worked at a hospital until the administrators determined that an endocrinologist wasn’t profitable enough to justify on staff, at which point she opened her own practice. My father worked at a bank until one of his college friends suggested an entrepreneurial software-producing business, and as such, Multicoreware was born. Both of them brought new jobs to Sunset Hills and provided a necessary service that wouldn’t have existed if they weren’t there.
The word “indigenous” means “native to the land one is living on,” but the term “indigency” simply means “poor.” My family is, under some definitions, indigenous to India, but according to all definitions, we suffer indigence nowhere. We have, in fact, never suffered indigence in our lifetimes. My dad got his education through scholarships, but he did get his education. My mother was even more privileged. Don’t get me wrong, she didn’t have air conditioning or pasteurized milk. She was still wealthy by most Indian metrics, though, and that wealth allowed her to get a degree, which was fundamentally important in getting her green card.
That’s important. Regardless of how you spin their rags-to-riches story, neither of my parents literally started in rags. My father got closer than my mother, but ultimately, neither of them were starving on the street, and there are a lot of people in India starving on the street. Those people don’t end up in the US.
Did you know that not all Asian Americans are wealthy? I don’t mean that literally, obviously some Indians start gambling recklessly or get trapped by a lack of universal healthcare. I mean that “Asian American” is a demographic so large as to be useless. If you break down the overall group, you’ll find we’re harshly divided between people who immigrated like my parents and refugees, making up the top 10% and bottom 10% of US earners. Isn’t that funny?
My family’s from Missouri, Saint Louis specifically.
In the meantime, my parents bought a suburban house and had two daughters. Becoming a doctor or engineer is well-known in India as a ticket to success, but my parents taught my sister and I to value the opportunities this country had, so we followed our hearts instead. My sister bounced around for a while, studying psychology and sociology, but she settled on educational nonprofit work, helping kids in India succeed. She works in fundraising, convincing potential philanthropists that their cause is a good enough one to sponsor. My sister is, I’ve been told, very good at her job; listening to all the office politics is always amusing. I became an ecologist and conservationist. It’s less of a non-sequitor than you’d think: my family adores national parks and hiking, and there’s something so fundamentally beautiful about this continent. Come to the Midwest: we have the best thunderstorms in the world. My job is something I would never get to do in India, and it’s good chunk of the reason I’m so grateful for this country.
On a related note, I said that indigenous means “native to the land one is living on,” but it is more complicated than that. Indians living in India, for example, are rarely called indigenous. It’s a specific kind of colonization that creates the concept of indigeneity. The settling of other people on your land is a necessary step of the process.
Even if that wasn’t true, I wouldn’t be indigenous anywhere. I was born in Missouri: even if I return to India, I will be an American returning to the place of her forefathers, not an India returning to their home country.
There’s actually a thriving Tamilian community in Saint Louis. That’s the reason my parents chose to move there. Of course, by the time I was old enough to really notice social atmospheres, we’d ended up alienated from said community through common drama, so that didn’t affect me much.
By the time I was born, my family had established a pattern of traveling to visit India every year or every other year. Though it is important to understand your roots, we go there for more practical reasons. My grandparents deserve to know me, and my mother runs a charity organization.
The organization has warped over time. At first, we helped fund a school. Then, my mother began running diabetes clinics for rural Tamilians. Nowadays, my mother has been campaigning for an increase in millet-based diets instead of white rice-based diets.
I don’t think either of my parents want to move back to India. It’s still important to take what we’ve learned in the US and return it to India. We owe the country that much.
The result of all of this is that it’s accurate to say my family is from a colonized culture, not an indigenous one, but I am from neither. Within the US, we are primarily aligned with a colonizer culture, enjoying its luxuries and upholding its narratives. I’ve been saying for years that I am more American—using “American” to mean “from the United States,” which is its own can of worms—than I am Indian. I was born in the US, and I was brought up here. These are the opportunities that I have most enjoyed. This means that, regardless of my genuine love for this country, I am a colonizer that has put down roots.
I wonder, sometimes, if I would have connected more with India if I connected more with the community in Saint Louis. I probably would have, I think. I barely know how to celebrate Diwali, and I don’t know any of our other holidays. I’m Hindu in a lazy, abstract way. I don’t speak Tamil.
On the other hand, I’m Indian enough that I don’t get to be American, not all the way. I’m not a pie chart—70% American, 25% Indian, 5% something else—but I might as well have been, the way people used to talk to me.
I’ve gotten something else from our trips to India, though. I’ve knelt in stone temples and before my great-grandmother. I’ve wandered through drip-irrigated farmland and watched my mother bring reusable bags from India because there was nothing like our woven bags in this country. Frugality, sustainability, humility, and spirituality all mean the same thing to me, nowadays. As we were bringing our Western education to our home country, I brought pieces of my home country back to the West.
As an ecologist, this is tricky. In a lot of ways, my field is simply an attempt to gather the knowledge that indigenous people already knew, and we have a bad habit of writing off their credits or overwriting their narrative. On the other hand, my family is from a colonized culture, and there’s a chance my perspective will be worth something because of that. I cannot turn my back on this field. It’s my duty, as somebody who has a chance of understanding the tangles in the connection between culture and conservation, to remain in this field, attempting to help where I can and uplift marginalized voices.
I went to India in high school then again just after the pandemic, and I think I found something worthwhile there. I mean, at first I had to really search for it; I don’t know how my sister finds it so easy to love that country. I really did try, though, and I did find something. I went to this farm vaguely connected to the school my family used to help fund—I don’t think we’re involved anymore, and my mom’s current charity efforts are leaning more chaotic than anything—and I noticed that they were using drip irrigation. After that, I started looking for that sort of thing, and I found it absurdly common. The average Indian I’ve met has no concept of conservation, but they do understand waste and how to avoid it, and often there’s heavy overlap. There are also cultural values surrounding the concept of duty, mindfulness, and practicality that I think really are valuable: I doubt Rama would have much time for fast fashion, prince or no.
As an adult who knows how to look at the world through a cultural lens, I’ve been trying to learn about other culture’s views on conservation as I do my research. UC Davis is trying to include more information on Native American views on sustainability in its curriculum, and I’ve been reading Braiding Sweetgrass in my free time. It’s important to weave scientific methods with indigenous knowledge when promoting sustainability.
Still, I’m worried that I’ll become as complicit, as academia isn’t always built to further true understanding. We have a way of talking as though we have knowledge and indigenous groups have practices, when in reality it’s much more complicated than that.
After that, I started putting real effort in, and I think I’m doing a good job of it. I read the Gita, which was a very good book, and Sundara Kanda, which really wasn’t. I’ve been wearing churidars the last few years, and I bought a Saraswati statue to put next to my Ganeshas. I started meditating. I learned to make chapathi. How many pieces can you put together before you’ve made one whole Indian?
And I really am trying to take this understanding of why culture is important and use it to reach out to others. Solidarity is really important. Did you know that it’s an Indian who attacked affirmative action most recently, the idiot? How do they not realize that racism chips at us all—
Anyways. I inexplicably started with Judaism—well, not inexplicably, I got guilty when I realized I knew more about Nazis than Jewish people—trying to get a shape of what cultural practices look like in the US. I don’t think I did an amazing job, but there’s only so much you can get from books. After that, I started reading more international authors, which I’m not certain did anything, but I enjoyed The Locked Tomb series immensely, so maybe it’s alright.
Cultural understanding is incredibly important work and, in ecology, time bound time bound. We are embedded in a mass extinction of our own making, and we need to work immediately to prevent everything from getting worse. As such, I’m getting a Masters degree, the a PhD, then I’ll get an entry-level government position and work steadily to—
Of course, leaving academia and moving to direct activism would be the most morally correct thing to do, but I’m not certain I have the personality matrix for it. Perhaps I should invest more of my free time into volunteer work.
Most importantly, I really am trying to understand the Native American perspective on the United States, specifically from within California because understanding one culture well seems better than stereotyping a million, but that’s such a massive undertaking, and I really don’t want to come off too white savoir-like as I do it, and if understanding Judaism from a book is impossible I don’t know why I’m trying with Potawatomi culture, Jesus Christ at least I’ve met a Jewish person before—
It’s not about understanding every culture on earth; I understand that. My curiosity drives me to understand everything, but from most people, all that I have are whispers. An rudimentary understanding of Chi from Iron Widow overlaid with giant mechs and messy polyamory. The Peruvian Sacsayhuaman, meaning vulture feast, after the mass of bodies that lay there after the conquistadors had finished their work. The layer of powder on temples in India, leftovers from the stuff that’s supposed to go on your forehead.
It just feels wrong to know so little about the land I’m walking on. A’nowara’kó:wa means Turtle Island, and according to Braiding Sweetgrass, that’s the actual name for North America. I learned that a month ago.
I kind of hate India, but I know it’s mine. It’s not like the US which I’ve had to claim over and over again. The US had to be imprinted on to me through birth certificates and accents and yelling “I am a patriot!” at disruptive times. I was Indian the moment I was born; the land itself is pressed into my skin.
The land I was born on belongs to someone else. It’ll always belong to someone else. That’s not okay, but it has to be.
The work we’re doing is difficult, but it’s the only practical way to make a difference.
We need a revolutionary change, and soon. Continually spinning my wheels like this is useless.
You know how the word “Indian” doesn’t mean actual Indians in the US? I mean, it might be different nowadays, but when I was a kid, “Indian” meant Native American first. I have, in the 20 years of my life, refused to refer to Native Americans as Indians, even when that was their preference. I don’t care that it wasn’t their fault, that “Indian” was as imposed on them as it was stolen from us. It’s our word.
Well, recently I learned that “Indian” wasn’t created by Indians either. The Greeks saw people living around the Indus River and started calling them Indians, but even “The Indus River” was a Greek term: the original word for it was Sindhu.
That’s not why my parents named me Sindhu. They wanted a Tamil name, and for us, Sindhu means “music,” and music is something transcendentally meaningful. It’s funny: that’s not an Indian thing, I don’t think, but it still feels Indian. All of this feels Indian. When I think of India, I think of grime and exhaustion, but when I think of Indians, I think of bright colors and music and how God connects us to the natural cycle. No wonder their country was named after a river, after music. No wonder I am named after my country.
One of the frustrating things about engaging with culture is that it’s the kind of work that’s never finished. It feels like mental health upkeep: it’s vitally important, and if you ignore it long enough you collapse, but lord is it exhausting. We need to put the work in to understanding each other, and colonialism is so baked into the fabric of the US that I don’t think we can progress without addressing it. That doesn’t make it easier to lose and gain appreciation for your country on loop. When an immigrant assimilates, how do they differ from the colonizers that surround them?
I don’t think I’ll ever be happy with my relationship to India. There’s always something more I could be doing, another revelation on the horizon. I don’t think I’ll ever be happy with my relationship to A’nowara’kó:wa either. I just live on it.
I have a dark fantasy novel. This novel is about a cast of villains with a focus on deradicalization via queer self-discovery (I am queer), but for a good part of it they’re all pretty horrible people.
Morally complex Tamil-coded man
The character I have in mind is Tamil-coded, who I want to be a love interest for the (white) villain protagonist. He isn’t the only POC in the story, as only two members of the 5-person main cast are white, but I feel he’s the most morally complex. Part of what I’m worried about is that the first introduction to him is a scene showing the aftermath of a battle he fought in, that the other main characters stumble upon. They’re pretty horrified by what they see, and the main protagonist (who is a known douchebag and hypocrite) denounces the culprit for his brutality. But when the man in question first appears physically on-screen, his first action is to rescue the protagonist from a bad situation, saving his life.
His characterization continues a trend of him being
very down-to-earth
kind
helpful to the protag
refuting the initial assumptions of him being only brutal and violent, focusing mostly on humanizing him.
He does showcase tendencies of using
emotional manipulation,
lying, and
gaslighting against the protag to get what he wants
and I have a scene planned where he gets the protag drunk in an implied attempt to get his guard down and perhaps get some information from him (I haven’t ironed out all the details).
He’s very morally complex and I’ve tried really hard to avoid the “violent MOC” stereotype by showcasing that he has a lot more personality and history to him than just his tendencies in battle (in fact, he fights very little on-screen, and his combat is justified by being a mercenary from a dangerous place). A lot of this section of story I’m currently in is actually *about* developing all the characters more while still moving some of the plot along.
Manipulation and violent Man of Color stereotypes
Another thing I’m worried about is this: at the end of this current section, I have scenes where he betrays the protagonist and his friends after manipulating them all to achieve his goals, in turn revealing that he’s one and the same as this morally-grey demon who is known to punish sinners (eg, those who bring harm upon others) in the afterlife by torturing them as a sort of attempt at justice. I’m worried that this might play into the “violent MOC” thing again, even despite all the previous work I’ve done to try and defy that trope.
The other Tamil-coded characters
Another thing that I should probably mention is that he’s not the only character who’s shown to be Tamil-coded. His (completely human) family appears later on, for example, and they’re all depicted as being normal civilians who love him very much even despite not having been in touch for a while. And there are a few background/side characters who are Indian-coded, but are not necessarily Tamil. Nor is he the only character shown to be violent—all of the main cast does some fighting at points, and both white characters in the main cast are shown to be vicious at times as well. The only reason he’s singled out is to showcase the white protag’s hypocrisy, especially when it comes to comparisons of his own actions vs the Tamil-coded character’s deeds.
[ask partially reduced for length]
I think what bothers me more about your story is that in a story featuring people who are mostly villains, regardless of their growth over time, the majority of them are non-white. From an optics perspective, that is not great. I think unless you include more white villains to reduce the vibe of “Majority POC group = villainous” you may wish to ere more on the “anti-hero”/ “flawed protagonist” side for at least several of these POC villainous protagonists. I wish I could tell you we are at a point in time with media where the optics don’t matter. Alas, they do.
- Marika.
My question is what does Tamil-coded mean? Do you mean people from Tamil Nadu, that is the Southern peninsula? The women that gossip about family as they get older while letting their bones start to creak? Men that spend their nights at the Madras club and only come home for a quick meal and some sleep? Or do you mean Indian in general? Also, a villain revealed to be a demon that is ostensibly dark-skinned? Indian comics do feature light-skinned Indians, but the demons tend to be grey. Yes, even Indian comics can be very racist. You may be treading into dangerous territory.
If you want a good example of an Indian demon, look at Vicky from The Good Place. Without spoilers, she manages to be a full character who messes with the protagonists, and is hinted to be crushing on one of them to extend her torture. The heroes did admit she had a point once. Vicky is flawed, self-centered, sadistic, and all-out mean. She also is really funny and you can understand her motivations without any ethnic implications.
Also, your main character is white, and the villains are mainly POC? That’s not just optics but also an implication issue. He also exists to show the white protagonist that he’s wrong and a hypocrite? That’s what I’m seeing, and it’s a lot to unpack.
- Jaya
I agree with Jaya to be more explicit about how you are coding this character. As another South Indian, all I picture when someone tells me “Tamilian” is lots of rice, thayir shaadam as a cure-all and Tamilian movies (haha). I like the idea of more morally ambiguous Indian characters just because Hindu folktales can be so binary when it comes to good/ evil. However, Tamil Nadu and the Tamilian diaspora are so diverse religiously that not all Tamilians may feel the same way. I think Jaya’s recommendations with respect to colorism are very important to note. Colorism is a big problem in India in terms of negative stereotyping, including for Tamilians, many of whom are assumed to be dark-skinned.
- Marika.
Thoughts from our Tamilian followers? (Tamilian only, please)
Thanjavur attained prominence under The Cholas in the 9th century. Vijayalaya, the first great ruler of the dynasty made it his capital.
The Brihadisvara temple is a symbol of the greatness of the Chola empire under its author, emperor Rajaraja (985-1012), whose splendour it reflects. The long series of epigraphs incised in elegant letters on the plinth all round the gigantic edifice reveals the persona¬ lity of the emperor.
As we gather from the inscriptions running throughout the plinth, the king, on the two hundred and seventy-fifth day of the twenty-fifth year of the reign (1010), presented a gold-covered finial to be planted on the top of the vimdna of the temple. The temple is the most ambitious of the architectural enterprises of the Cholas and is a fitting symbol of the magnificent achievements of Raja Raja. The endowments that he made for his temple were numerous and in his munificence he was joined by not only the members of his family but high officials and noble¬ men.
Dooone with the concept designs !! So ye, here's a bunch of heroines for a comic idea I'm playing around with !! It takes place in India and kinda works with Hindu mythology !!
It’s been over a week since the AR Rahman concert and I am still shook that I got to witness him live. I literally grew up with his music from his 90s hits to his music now. I am also so happy I got to see my favorite singer and the actual loml Haricharan sing live after being a fan of him for over 5-6 years.That man could sing a hate song about me and I’d still be in love with him and that voice of his.
What more could a South Indian chick want? Foamy coffee ☕️ and biscuits 🍪!! #fridaymornings #morningcoffee #filtercoffee #southindian #tamilian #tamilswag #perfectcombination #postrun #karnataka #workfromhome #workmornings #nadia #blessed #chef (at Karnataka) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bn-PR6wAdOhv9B-DjWKygQjfomGbJrnKt0HCHk0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=5qc4q5t8z2jl
