'Aussie-stani'

My ethnicity is Indian, or Hindustani. My parents are from the beautiful Fiji Islands, about four hours flight north east of Sydney across the Pacific Ocean. Their great grandparents came from North and South India as indentured labourers on British boats to work on Fiji's sugar-cane farms.

I was born in Australia, and grew up in Sydney. Pretty much all my friends in primary school and high school were non-Indian. They were mostly Vietnamese, with a few Cambodians, Chinese, Laos, and of course, Anglo (White). My best friend in primary school was Anglo Australian (Damien). The high school I attended was approximately 80% Anglo Australian. My friends there included Franklin Pho, Van Mai, Ka Hei, Henry Bounthong, Antoine Nguyen, Jenny Troung, Denise Nguyen, Philip Terrill. (For better or worse I've since lost touch with all of them).

Why have I given this brief sketch of my childhood and adolescence? Because I wanted to provide a platform for speaking about how 'un-Indian' I feel. It's strange growing up with people who are of a different ethnicity to yourself. You spend six hours during the day hearing accents different from one's own, until one's accent comes to be like those one hears. You experience different customs, until those customs feel like your own.

At home I dwelt in the familiar sights and sounds of my 'mother culture,' which in my case was/is Fiji Indian. Indian culture has important differences to Western culture. For example, there is an Indian way of responding to one's parents when they call you and a Western way. The Western way is "what?" The Indian way is "gee?" They both kinda mean the same thing, but "gee" is so much more respectful than "what." Another difference between Western and Indian (or Eastern) culture is treatment of the elderly. In Western society it's not uncommon to leave one's parents in a retirement home. Amongst people from Eastern origins this is almost like taboo (unless they need special care). In fact, looking after one's elderly parents is a source of pride and gains one a good reputation in the community. 

On the Western side of things I've learnt a couple of good traits. One is not showing off. Aussies, that is, people of Anglo (White) origin, don't worry about impressing people with a house or how many kids they have, like Indians do. Another good trait is an ability to laugh at themselves. Aussies don't take themselves too seriously, unlike Indians, who I've noticed find it hard to laugh at themselves, as if it's shameful to do so.

I give these examples to show how growing up I've learnt two ways of behaving. One is Western, or Aussie; the other is Eastern or, more specifically, Indian. When you put the two together you get "Aussie-stani," a person who culturally is half Australian, half Hindustani. 

To all the Aussie-stanis out there and British-stanis and American-stanis and Canadian-stanis and Kiwi-stanis I feel your confusion, I feel your dilemma. We aren't exactly one or the other, but a mixture of the two. May we take the best from the West and take the best from the East and integrate them into a special combination.