Ramoutar, whose family is from Guyana, explains that there are multiple pieces of her cultural identity-and Bollywood films like the old-timey, big-budget romantic tragedy Devdas helped shape the part of her that is Indian. Though we often talk about cultural identity in terms of two cultures, things aren’t always that simple. Natasha Ramoutar remembers similar evenings with her parents and grandma.
We’d occasionally watch pirated VHS tapes and DVDs of the latest blockbusters, which we bought alongside Tilda rice and bags of jeera from the Indian grocery store, during family movie nights. In the same way that soccer practices and pizza parties were part of my childhood, so were the Diwali parties my mother hosted, the Hindi classes I was involuntarily enrolled in and the Indian food we served at home. I didn’t actively look for ways to connect with “the motherland.” They were just there. Using Bollywood to connect with Indian culture You always feel one foot in, and one foot out.”īut for me, Bollywood movies like Kuch Kuch Hota Hai were a way in. According to York University assistant professor Kabita Chakraborty, who researched the Indian diaspora in Malaysia as well as the impact of Indian’s film industry on identity, “diasporic concerns are very similar across the world because at the end of the day, in your own nation, you are a migrant-it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been in Canada for. I can’t tie a sari on my own or roll a round roti that will instantly puff on the stove. My heritage and skin colour meant my mostly-white classmates and friends saw me as Indian, but I didn’t really feel that way. I just don’t have the necessary prerequisites. In addition to my mediocre Hindi, I only sometimes knowing what’s happening during Indian wedding ceremonies. It’s not just language-I often felt like an outsider in a culture that was meant to be my own.
Actual footage of aunties judging my Hindi (Photo: GIPHY)