The Right Sort of Girl

by Anita Rani

  We weren’t just loved within the four walls of our village home, we were loved by the entire village. A village in Punjab is an extended family. We could wander the cobbled streets and in and out of people’s homes as we wished. We’d get offered a glass of hot fresh buffalo milk sweetened with jaggery or a freshly made samosa. Everyone wanted to meet the ‘vilayti bache’, the British Kids. They’d giggle at us speaking Punjabi with our English accents. They loved seeing our peculiar British habits, like asking for food. In Punjab, when it comes to food, you don’t need to ask, especially not the grandchildren of the home – if you want an apple, you just take the apple. They adored that we said please and thank you every two minutes.

  My young uncles enjoyed exposing our sheltered eyes to new experiences. We were given a lesson in how to slaughter a chicken, and it’s true, a chicken will run around without a head before dropping dead. The sadistic sods loved watching the terror in our soft, young British eyes. We still ate the chicken curry.

  Naniji’s house was a decent size, a single-storey L shape, with four rooms, a kitchen, a large covered veranda in front of the rooms and a big walled courtyard in the front, or vehra, with beautiful potted plants and a guava tree. That tree has fed the sweetest guavas to five generations of my family. There was also a grain store for the wheat. This was taken to the village mill to turn into atta, or flour. We had a borehole and hand pump for water in the yard. Every home in India has a flat roof that you can climb onto, the koththa, a roof terrace if you like. From up on the koththa you could see the entire village and into other people’s verhas. You could see all the hand-formed drying cowpat cakes, paathis, stuck to the walls, to be used as fuel to cook on. Even though there was an indoor kitchen with a small single gas hob, most of the cooking was done outdoors on an open fire, fuelled by the very sustainable source of cowpats. Somehow, everything cooked in this way was absolutely the best thing you’ve ever tasted.

  Beyond the village, all that you could see were fields and fields of various crops, like wheat, sugarcane or corn. Every village had a small shop selling essentials such as sugar, and loose leaf tea, and raw tamarind, either sweet or salty, that we’d stick to our hands and lick slowly, screwing up our faces at the sharp, tangy taste. One day we fancied something that tasted of home, so we asked for sausages and chips for lunch. Someone was sent on the mission to source sausages. Success! They were hunted down at the army barracks not far away. I ate delicious flavours from every state as my nan was a very good cook and didn’t just stick to Punjabi food. We had Bengali fish curry, South Indian idli and dosa and delicious street foods from every corner of the sub-continent. It’s one of the joys of my aunts getting together, planning the daily menu of what to cook, planning like an army plans an assault: the starters to lure us in, blast us with the mains and completely finish us off with a hefty desert or three.

  In India, I felt free. It’s hard not to when you have people all around you ready to indulge whatever your desires are. India has a culture that loves children but, more than that, I felt a freeing of my spirit in India generally. I defiantly played with stray dogs in the mud while my mum panicked about me getting tanned in the Indian sun. My Indianness was put into context and I was allowed to let it out, to try and get my head around what it meant. I met my great grandmother, my dad’s grandma. I remember the way she looked at me, with a sparkle in her eyes. Like she was magical. She sat my mum down on a charpoy in her courtyard and told her the family secrets. Every single one of her children had died in childhood, apart from my grandfather, her only surviving child. Her extended family pitied her as she only had one son. She didn’t get on with my grandmother and prayed and prayed to the goddess Kali at her little shrine to provide her with a grandson, my dad. (She must have prayed really hard as my aunt was born too as an extra bonus.) She told my mum how precious me and Kuldeep were, because we are from a small line that made it. Our existence to her was a God-given miracle.

  It was also in India where our cousins brought any of our hoity-toity British attitudes back down to earth by being way more confident, street smart and sassy than us. We had come from England, with its money and modernity, and our cousins would want to know stories about what it was like in the UK. Where everyone had a car and fridge-freezer and hot water and no poverty. I thought I was pretty cool, for about five minutes. They were more like little adults compared to the sheltered babies me and Kul seemed to be. Their English was superb and they were way smarter than us. The education system is rigorous in India. They didn’t just study to learn in India, they studied to come top of the class. But what really gave my Indian cousins their edge was their street smarts. They knew how to handle themselves walking through the village, they’d talk to anyone and have fast, one-liner comebacks. OK, my cousins could outshine us at most things, but could they dance? Surely this was my trump card.

  On our visit when I was eight, my masi was getting married. The night before the ceremony, the (gidha) was in full swing. Women were dancing for hours and I was watching in amazement and keen to get on the dancefloor myself. I had no idea how to dance gidha, and if I’d tried to join in, I may well have got trampled: these women meant business. And then, finally, I got my moment to show them what I was made of. It was that point in the night when a cassette was put on for the younger ones who fancied a dance to some modern music. It was my lucky night – it was Boney M, the tune was ‘Rasputin’. I knew this entire album, seeing as it was one of the few my folks had back home.

  The music started. I was up. Stand back, you Indian lot, this is Western music, this was my moment to represent. I had a look of determination. Left together, right together, stepping from side to side while both arms pumped up and down, my hands in tight little fists. I’d seen cool people in the audience on Top of the Pops do this dance, or at least something like it. It was my interpretation of Madonna in the ‘Holiday’ video, just a stiffer, self-conscious, eight-year-old’s version. I was fully concentrating on my left together, right together, enjoying my moment of glory, when I saw the crowd part to make way for my Indian cousins, who were coming to join me in the circle. Wait. What? They were coming in singing! Not only did they know the song, as Boney M were massive in India, they were amazing dancers. They moved their bodies in a way I’d never seen. A diet of Bollywood movies, Michael Jackson and just general badassery meant they were incredible, their hips doing one thing and their arms doing another, wafting and swaying in rhythm to the tune. I did the only thing I knew how to do: I picked up speed on the left together, right together and pumped my arms for all they were worth, but my cousins had out-cooled me once again.

  While my friends were off having camping adventures in the South of France, I was trying to understand another land and its meaning in my life. A place where I felt both completely at home and totally alien. The older I got, the more confident I became at bringing my best mates, a select few, into my Indian world. The summer after my GCSEs, aged 16, I headed off to India for the first time without my parents. I went on a seven-week (seven-week!) holiday to stay with my masi in Delhi and I took Alison, my best mate at the time, with me.

  Al got the full family experience as my family’s novelty white person to parade around. We taught her basic Punjabi and slept on charpoys in the village. We travelled around north India and lost our minds in Delhi’s Janpath Market, buying tie-dye clothes and beads for a fraction of what we’d pay in the UK. We hid from the monsoon when it first arrived, presuming all rain is cold, but quickly realised that monsoon rain is as warm as a bath and a welcome relief from the 40-degree dry heat of Delhi in August. We locked ourselves into a car to hide from giant flying monsoon insects. We stayed with family in Agra and visited the Taj Mahal with all my relatives. And we got sicker than we’ve ever been. We both got a serious case of dysentery, taking it in turns to poop out our organs in the bathroom we shared. This being India, everyone knew about our violent shitting. Everyone knows about your bowel movements in India. It’s perfectly normal to
be asked at a dinner party about your ‘motions’.

  * * *

  What an absolute privilege it is to have been born into and to understand two worlds. I always took my relationship with India for granted, but now I recognise what an absolute gift it is to be able to step off a plane in another country, a country unlike anywhere else on earth, and instantly be able to switch into ‘India mode’. Where I’m free in a way I’m not in my home, where I can blend in if I want to, stick out if I choose to, be a tourist or a local. And I’m privileged to have experienced an India of the past.

  I took another trip round India, backpacking, doing the full temple tour of the south. I woke up at 4am to watch ancient rituals that haven’t changed for thousands of years. I slept in ashrams, climbed holy mountains, yoga’d in Rishikesh, pooja’d in Haridwar, I even spent a week as the most confused person on a Tibetan Buddhism course in Dharamsala. This trip was with another inappropriate ‘friend’. Travel broadens the mind, and having a broadened mind attracts people who are also broad-minded, or at the very least would like their mind broadened by you. This was better than being with someone who was more comfortable with me ignoring my Indianness.

  Mumbai is one of my favourite places and one of the most fun cities on earth. You can have an awesome night out in bars and clubs playing great music and end up eating THE BEST kebab you’ve ever had at the end of the night. Bademiya’s, I can taste you now. India has grown and changed and I’ve grown with it.

  I have a global connection with the South Asian diaspora, particularly young, free-thinking women like me, who are challenging conventions, pushing boundaries and creating new stories and identities, redefining who young South Asian woman are around the world and how we are seen. I feel connected to something much bigger than me, something important. Something I have to stand up and be part of. I fully recognise that being a South Asian woman, no, just a woman, with a voice, with agency, gives me an advantage that so many women around the world do not have. So, I also recognise that it’s time to make my voice heard, whether anyone agrees with me or not, when for a long time I’ve been slowly, slowly turning myself down. Losing my sense of self and my focus. It’s time to tune back into who I am and turn the volume right up. My life has always been full of passion, now it has something much greater: purpose.

  You Will Fall in Love and Be Loved

  It was explained to me that if I didn’t study, I’d be married off. Marriage was a threat, a terrifying threat.

  No wonder Asian girls are so highly educated. We know, unlike the boys, nothing will be handed to us on a silver thaal, so we have to make something of ourselves. If studying means I can keep the preying beast of marriage at bay, I’ll keep studying. For us, gaining an education means also gaining liberation. With an education comes social mobility, your earning capacity increases, but also your eyes are opened to the world and to your own potential. Often this means looking back and questioning the expectations and traditional values of your own family. We go through a transformation. Anyone who’s bettered themselves can relate to this story. This can also cause issues when looking for partners, as Asian men have not always moved in the same direction.

  SPOILER ALERT: I do get married to the dream Indian son-in-law and you will be invited to my massive Indian wedding. But, for the first time in my life, I will admit that standing in my wedding regalia at the doorway of the Gurdwara, looking at the backs of the 450 guests invited to my own wedding and about 100 or so gate-crashers, what was honestly going through my mind was: ‘What the hell am I doing here?’

  My husband-to-be is sat in front of the holy book, waiting for me to walk down the carpeted aisle, to take my place cross-legged on the floor next to him, so we can begin our beautiful Sikh wedding ceremony. What happens at this point in the movies? Butterflies in your belly? Everyone turns to smile at once at the beautiful bride? A full-blown song and dance sequence for the happiest day of your life? Only, I’m freaking out. Do I need the loo? Don’t I need the loo? Who are all these people? Why does the temple smell of paint? What am I doing here?

  I’m looking out across the scene in front of me: serene, calm, quiet, and I am anything but. This was not how I’d planned life to be. I am 32 but I wasn’t supposed to be getting married yet and, when I did get married, I wasn’t going to have a big, elaborate, traditional Indian wedding. So how had I got here, a place I knew I didn’t want to be, having my big bonanza traditional wedding?

  I knew in that moment I was doing something I wasn’t really prepared to do. I thought I was. I thought I’d made all the right decisions, made them just for me, but now, looking back, I can see I made these decisions for everyone apart from me. They were made to keep everyone happy. In turn, I thought that is what would make me happy. I then had an out-of-body experience and I watched myself get married.

  I want to say that after years of feeling like the ugly duckling and making epic relationship mistakes, I eventually fell in love and lived happily ever after. Isn’t that what everyone wants to hear? I’ve denied the reality to myself for a long time. It was actually my husband who said to tell you, the reader, the truth. To not pretend I was skipping around with white doves floating around me and a sitar playing sweet music. That I felt like I was making a mistake. Not because I hadn’t met an incredible man (he’s a gud ’un), just getting married seemed so final. It’s what everyone else was doing as well, but did we even know each other? Did either of us really know what we were getting into, or were we just taking a punt and hoping for the best?

  I want you to understand just how powerful my South Asian upbringing, with all its rules and regulations, really was. That no matter how successful and independent and high-achieving and free-thinking I thought I was, I was still under a huge amount of pressure. A pressure based on my ridiculous need to please and not let anyone down, which meant I did what was expected of me and not what I wanted. Maybe you have felt that pressure too and, maybe, knowing I’ve been through, it makes it a little more bearable?

  * * *

  I’d been living in London happily for seven years, carving out a career as a presenter. I’d managed to buy not just one but two flats in London, trying to be prudent, financially savvy and making plans for my own dependent future. Life was pretty goddamn good. I loved life in my little flat. I painted the walls whatever crazy colour I wanted (. . . white) and bought my first ever masonry drill from Argos. I really didn’t have a clue what I was doing, but I built and put up my own wonky shelves and bought myself furniture for the first time. It was a learning curve and just the adventure I wanted. I was free. I went out when I wanted, which wasn’t very often, because I enjoyed pottering around my house. I was peddling away at growing my presenting career and did I mention I was free?

  I kept myself very, very busy, surprise surprise. As a freelance presenter, you have to have a high level of self-motivation and a ton of energy to constantly hustle. Thankfully, I am gifted with both and I see them as my superpowers. (Thanks, Mum and Dad, for never letting me have a lie-in.) You see, this is a strange profession to navigate, as there is no specific trajectory, no guaranteed promotion, no set pay rises, but pay reductions . . . It’s completely subjective as an industry, which makes it even harder to crack when you look like none of the bosses. Add to that the general belief that British audiences want to see white faces and it was never going to be easy. So, you have to take the jobs when they come, even if it’s not exactly where you want to be. You have to constantly remind people you exist, because you don’t have the luxury of gigs just pinging into your inbox. When a couple of white TV presenters wanted to talk to me about how hard it has become recently to get work, I just thought, yeah, welcome to what the rest of us have known forever.

  I wasn’t moaning about it back then. I’m not a moaner. I was too busy having fun, going at it. I was up and down the country filming as a reporter for The One Show, I’d got a gig on Watchdog, I was even depping on 5 Live and, my favourite radio station, 6 Music. I’d
made a beeline for the then boss at a BBC party and told him how much I love music and what a fan of the station I was, and he asked me to send him a showreel with a few musical choices. It worked! I depped for a while and it was joyful, until that boss moved on. Life was sweet and I was having a great time.

  I spoke to Mum on the phone regularly. The conversations always, ALWAYS, went the same way:

  ‘Aunty Pushpa’s sister’s husband’s brother’s daughter has had a baby.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘How did you get home tonight?’

  ‘Tube and then walk.’

  ‘Oh, be careful. I’m so scared of you walking home alone.’

  ‘Mum, it’s fine. I’ve lived here for years and I’m 30.’

  ‘Yes, yes, 30 and single.’

  Sigh. ‘Yeah, but I’m happy.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Accha, but I won’t be happy until you are settled.’ And there it is, the sucker punch.

  ‘Mum, I’m happy, I’m settled, I like being single, I don’t want to get married.’

  ‘I will never be happy until you are married. Only then my burden will be lifted.’

  ‘I don’t want to get married.’

  ‘I know, what can I do with this girl?’

  ‘Let me live my life?’

  Every single time we spoke, ‘I won’t be happy until you’re married’. That is the killer line. The one that gets you right in the solar plexus – and they know it. When all you have tried to do is make them happy. Your raison d’etre in so many ways, no matter how much you try and escape it, is to make Mum happy. It’s the final and most effective control method, their suffering. In the pursuit of your own freedom and choices, you are still controlled by that innate drive, which means mothers can turn the screw whenever they want, consciously or subconsciously. All they can think about from the minute you are born is the day you will get married. Finally, they will be free of the daughter. I’ve spent and wasted so many hours of my life worrying about, panicking about, arguing about, the subject of marriage. Hours of my life I’ll never get back. Asians are obsessed with getting wed, or rather getting people ‘married off’. There’s no consulting or interest in how YOU might feel about it. There’s a life agenda and you have to fit it. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to meet someone too, but in my own time, in my own way, maybe with a bit of romance, with my own twist thrown in. Without the constant peck peck peck from Mum. It’s not just them, it’s the first thing your entire family want to ask you about when they see you.