“In the Western lens, its represented that India is all and everything Bollywood, which is not the case. South Indians, we are the originators of carnatic music. We are the originators of the Indian classical dance from bharatanatyam to kathakali to mohiniyattam. There are so many different art forms which we’ve created and we often don’t get recognized within the sphere of the Western lens. I want people to know that there are two main groups in India which we don’t really learn about. The two different civilizations are the Indus River civilization and the Dravidian civilization. What we know from history or from genetics is that we identify that as Ancestral North India (ANI) and Ancestral South India (ASI). And so I come from ASI in Kerala — Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, these are the provinces or states that embody the Dravidian civilization. And I come from Kerala and our people are called Malayalees and our culture is different from North Indians. What’s popularized is North India because, I would say, over 75% of the Indus River Valley civilization the population is higher. So that is also the reason why Dravidian civilization isn’t highlighted. We have a lower population.” -SINI