The Patriarchy Uncle: another dangerous species in the Indian ecosystem

Last time I wrote about Aunties (see blog-post: “Indian Matchmaking: why I’m so anti-Auntie“). It takes two hands to clap and that other hand clapping for Patriarchy is the hand of the Uncle. So time to dissect the Uncle now!

Definitions first…who is the Uncle?

The first thing to note is when we talk about Uncles and Aunties in Indian society we don’t mean biological uncles and aunts. Any older person like your parent’s friend is referred to as an uncle or an auntie in Indian discourse. And not all uncles and aunties are bad, indeed some are loving, awesome people. I’m talking about particular negative strains in these blog-posts. 

The Uncle is a more diverse archetype than the Auntie. It’s harder to pin down. I’m going to focus on one particular type of Uncle, and really deep-dive into three incidents that may seem mundane on the surface but are very telling upon analysis.

The uncle I want to dissect is the “Patriarchy Uncle”. The Patriarchy Uncle is one who holds down this particular tenet of patriarchy: Women, and especially younger women, are dumber than men, and especially vs older men. They do this in a number of ways.

Let’s meet Patriarchy Uncle #1…

I was visiting India in the summer when I was 18 years old, staying at an (actually related) uncle’s house. Most evenings his Indian American friend, who was there for the summer, would sit on the porch or go for walks and have long conversations about everything under the sun: economics, politics, property prices, technological trends. 

One evening, I was on a walk with them and with my cousins. They were having a discussion about self-checkout technology in retail. 

“They might introduce self check-outs in grocery stores in America in five years” the American friend said.

“That could happen in the future but it’s years out” my uncle opined.

“Actually, my local library in the UK already has self-checkout kiosks” I said, hoping to join the discussion. I was keen to correct the myth of something being that far out. I wanted to join in the conversation.

I waited for a response. They carried on the conversation literally as if they hadn’t heard what I said. And I said no more.

It’s in these types of social interactions that young women learn their worth to others. I learnt that day that to a certain group of men, it would never matter what I said. There were some men in the world who would just shut their ears as soon as a woman began talking, because she couldn’t possibly have anything to contribute. I have had a similar experience a few times now – where it has seemed my voice was literally not audible to Uncles. One time in a social group, my dad had to repeat what I had said to the group and then it was heard and appreciated. 

Let’s meet Patriarchy Uncle #2…

I was at one of my parent’s friends’ parties. There were a number of Uncles and Aunties at this cocktail party, eating samosas and pakoras. And we were sitting in a group having a discussion about where people had been recently. I was 15 at the time. “I went to India for the summer” I chimed in.

At this time of my life, I was proud for having taken a non-direct flight to India by myself and having successfully navigated the layover and of having negotiated with Air India to let me carry extra baggage of toys for donation in Patiala. It had felt like a very grown-up achievement to be able to navigate International travel by myself, and my experiences in schools had been pretty amazing, I wanted to talk about them. 

“Oh, I didn’t realize your family went to India recently” an Auntie responded.

“No, my family didn’t go. I went by myself” I said.

The group looked a bit taken aback. One Uncle looked particularly concerned.

“They don’t let children under the age of 17 travel by themselves” the Uncle said.

“Actually they do, I was 15 at the time and flew by myself” I said.

“Airlines don’t allow it. You need someone accompanying you, or they assign you someone from the airline” he said

“They didn’t assign anyone. I did the layover in Vienna by myself” I said.

“They don’t do that” he said dismissively and said no more on the topic. Neither did I. The conversation moved on to other topics.

It’s in these types of social interactions that young women learn their worth to others. I learnt that day that for a certain group of men, their opinion was stronger than my reality.

Something that I had actually done could still be argued against. What was the implication of such argument? What does it mean when an Uncle tells you that what you did isn’t possible? Logically, it can mean that they think you are lying. Or here’s the more dangerous explanation: they think you are mistaken. Mistaken about what you did or what happened to you. That’s the issue that women and particularly Indian women face all the time: deep-seated doubt around our intellects, our interpretation, our very reality. This phenomenon manifests in much more serious ways when young women get questioned about inappropriate behavior (“Are you sure that’s what he said?”; “He probably didn’t mean it that way”; “You probably just misheard”)

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Their interactions with other men also serve to enforce Patriarchal beliefs. Let’s meet Patriarchy uncle #3 …

When I was around 4 years old, we used to live in Punjab, India. One day, my dad saw a posting for a job in the UK on a display board in his hospital. This occurrence has changed the course of mine and my sister’s lives – for the better, I believe. As he applied and got accepted, we packed up to leave for the UK. On one round of visits with relatives to say Goodbye, an Uncle said to him: “You’re going to the UK? Your daughter will sleep around with many men”. My dad never spoke to that man again.

My mother told me this story when I was ~20. I’d never had a boyfriend at this point. Honestly my first thought was “I should be so lucky”. But jokes apart, this story was very telling and it showed characteristics that are common among uncles:

i. Spitefulness — the Uncle’s intent to wound was clear, he didn’t mean this as a good thing

ii. Disgust, hatred and a deep-seated fear of female sexuality — the worst insult they can think of is calling a woman a “slut”. They prefer to think that only “bad” women have a sexuality, that “good” women are only objects for them to pursue, with no wants or desires of their own. [I wouldn’t say this if he hadn’t intended to hit below the belt, but since he did: you can imagine how good men like this are in the bedroom if they are so uneducated on women!]

iii. Arrogance — it shows a great deal of belief in one’s own authority for someone who has never been outside of India to make any kind of prediction about the future of a four-year old who he had and will have no hand in raising. But Uncles frequently overplay their authority on topics they should have no or very little say on.

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Closing thoughts

It is telling that 12-15 years later I still remember the incidents that I was involved in (Patriarchy uncles #1 and 2), and the feeling of invisibility, of smallness that these Uncles engendered in me. I knew I was right in both of these cases, but I can understand how women are socialized into self-doubt over time through many such microaggressions accumulated over a lifetime. If everyone keeps doubting you, at some point, you start to doubt yourself. And that’s when the Patriarchy Uncles have really won. Their goal is to hold the tenet that you are dumber, inferior, and when you yourself are convinced, you’re buying a lifetime membership to the Patriarchy club.

I haven’t engaged with a Patriarchy uncle in a long time. I don’t visit the watering holes they visit. But if one came up, this time I know how to identify this archetype quickly, and this time, I’m braver and more experienced and I’m going to point out that the Emperor has no clothes.

It’s an unfair burden placed on women of color to educate people on how to interact civilly with others, but unfortunately if we don’t stick up for ourselves, no one else will. Hold onto your voices ladies, they are valuable, no matter how dismissive the Uncles and Aunties are.

 

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*Note: I can’t remember the flight details themselves in full certainty or clarity 15 years later, but have written to the best of the memory to get the nature of the interaction across

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Indian Matchmaking: an entertaining reminder of why I’m so anti-Auntie

The Netflix show “Indian Matchmaking” is highly bingeable and highly problematic. It serves as fertile ground for studying what is wrong with the Indian auntie outlook on marriage and life.

Firstly, definitions…who is an Auntie?

Aunties are Indian women in their 40s or older (not biological aunts necessarily). The matchmaker Sima Taparia in the show is an auntie. Akshay’s mother is an auntie.

Their common characteristics are being judgmental (about people’s looks, careers, dress etc.); being gossipy; being very interested in shaping the lives of others; presenting their opinions as facts, implementing regressive Indian stereotypes. Their hobbies include helping Indian women find a “nice Indian boy” and helping Indian men find a “cultured Indian girl”. This hobby includes the responsibility of maintaining rigid definitions of what it means to be “nice” (being an artist is not nice, you must be a doctor, engineer, lawyer or IT professional, for example) or “cultured” (tattoos are not cultured, for example).

Aunties can be well-meaning or ill-intentioned. Some are good-natured generally but just misled. Others are conniving and greedy, always looking out for their self-interest. If you want the classic version, Aunties can be spotted wearing saris, scouting for marital talent at social functions or at religious gatherings like Sunday temple. Some modern aunties have shunned the traditional Indian garb for western attire – but don’t be fooled, they can still be aunties. Like with all things, to know who you are dealing with, you must listen, more than you look. 

Now with the definition laid out, let’s get to it! In this blog-post, I posit four key concepts that are the truth for many people of my generation, and pit them against the views that are interwoven into the fabric of the auntie worldview. 

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1. The length of a marriage or if it lasts has little to do with how good it is, and magic matters

Many episodes start with an old Indian couple sitting on a couch recounting their arranged marriage set-up and how they barely met before tying the knot and mentioning how they have been married many years.

If you heard if someone lived for 100 years, you might assume their life was magnificent. If you were then told that the person lived in miserable poverty or was imprisoned for a crime they didn’t commit for 75 of those years, you wouldn’t envy their life or extol it as an ideal life. Therein you see a fallacy many humans have to jump to conclusions without having the full facts. Without knowing what a life was like, knowing how long it was doesn’t help you evaluate it. The same fallacy of logic appears with regards to marriage. The response to “We have been married for 40 years” is generally awe and admiration. The marriage is seen as a success. Though you need far more information to call it so.

The same false logic is applied to statistics about how less likely arranged marriages are to end in divorce. These statistics have little to do with how good a match your family was able to make and much more to do with the higher willingness to compromise and lower expectations people have going into such a marriage (their individual happiness is less important to begin with) and the much higher stigma associated with divorce in the type of community that does arranged marriages.

Wives may find their conversations with their husbands flat and uninspirational, be neglected emotionally,  have their careers stifled, be sexually unfulfilled, be beaten even, but won’t dare leave for the shame and stigma associated with divorce. Men may find their wives have none of the same hobbies they do, find their conversations mundane or uninspirational, be sexually bored, but won’t dare leave because of the stigma and sense of “failure” surrounding divorce.

Hurrah for a marriage just because it lasted 40 years? No, thank you. We’re more intelligent than to clap for things we don’t know enough about.

2. Marriage is for yourself, not for the family

The origin of marriage across the world and across cultures was economic and political. It was a social safety net (the man has to provide for the woman once she is married to him) and an institution that formed the basis of property rights (by making it more likely that any children a man is raising are indeed his own and thus he feels good passing his property to them after his death). It was also a means for families to control their bloodline for generations – maintaining “caste” or economic class (rich people marrying other rich people).

It was not about love, excitement, companionship, friendship, sexual pleasure and spiritual fulfillment. Those were happy accidents when they occurred.

But now in 2020, for most economically independent men and women, marriage is about love, excitement, companionship, friendship, sexual pleasure and spiritual fulfillment. These are no longer happy accidents but the core reasons why you would marry someone. Of course, marriages and relationships evolve over time and some of these variables may diminish with circumstances like health or age, but there’s got to be magic in the beginning at least!

Many of the matchmaker aunties unfortunately can’t even understand these criteria let alone accept them. They still see marriage as a duty to society, not as something you do if it increases your happiness as an individual.

Akshay’s mother in the show epitomizes this view with her comments about how his marriage is a top priority for her. His marriage is just a puzzle piece in her life.

“Everything needs to be in order and your brother and brother’s wife can’t have a child until you are married” she says (paraphrased)

“Those are separate issues” he says quite rightly (paraphrased)

“No, they are inter-linked” she admonishes him (paraphrased).

Akshay’s mother’s desire for control is common among Indian aunties unfortunately. They want to control the fate of two generations down from them – they want to control who they marry, where they go to school, what job they do, what they have for breakfast, what they wear. If these aunties lived longer, they’d want to control even more generations! I’m surprised they don’t outline in their will how every single girl to marry into their household needs to fit their rigid criteria and water the flowers on their grave-shrine every day.

Accepting you can’t control much in life and especially that you can’t control the thoughts, desires and feelings of other humans is a key part of being an adult. In this regard, Aunties seem to not really be adults.

3. Everyone should explore their sexuality in whatever way feels comfortable for them, the default assumption should not be that everyone is straight

For clarity, I am not saying everyone needs to go sleep with the same and opposite genders. Of course not! But there is a certain level of exploration and contemplation that is healthy for everyone and that degree varies for each individual. Each individual should have the freedom to explore as much (or as little) as they want. I have many straight (or towards the straight end of the spectrum I should say) girl-friends who have gone on a date with a girl or kissed a girl as an experiment. But in the Indian auntie outlook, it doesn’t even cross their mind that someone could be bisexual or lesbian or gay or asexual. Large facets of reality are just missing from their worldview!

PS Y’all know which character on the show inspired this thought. I’m not saying he’s gay (we don’t know) but it’s astonishing that being non-straight-sexual is not even explored or considered as a possible explanation for why someone might have rejected 150 girls and claims to feel no attraction to any girl he’s met!

4. Colorism is straight-up racist and damaging. It’s not just a light-hearted aesthetic preference

In the show and in real Indian life, people casually comment on people’s dark complexions as if it’s something terrible and someone’s “fair” complexion as if it makes them akin to a goddess.

In her book “Good Talk”, Indian American author Mira Jacobs recounts her trip to India and her aunties commenting on how she was so much darker than the rest of her family and her dad reassuring her later “Don’t listen to them, you’re a pretty girl”. She observes with amazingly precise self-awareness: “That was how I learned dark meant ugly”.

The more references to color are thrown about in common discourse, the more it becomes ingrained in people’s minds that it’s a key aesthetic dimension.

What’s more fascinating to me personally is that despite their obsession with light skin, Indian aunties are also adamant on marrying Indians only to other Indians. They’re not even logical in carrying forward their own bias to its logical conclusion of preferring the palest white person!

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Closing thoughts

This show is a total mine-field and study into the Indian Auntie psyche. I’m sure there are many more observations to come, but those are the four big thoughts I had so far. Of course, other cultures also have many similar problems. The human desire to control more than we can and should is universal. Succumbing to colonial views of beauty is to some degree a natural outcome of centuries of oppression and of the masters looking one way and the owned looking another way. These are hard things to overcome. But to overcome hard things is also a part of being an adult human.

Aunties spend a lot of time and energy posturing over you as the wise, old guardians of society, calling you beta (hindi: child) well into your 30s . But really, Aunties are the ones that need to grow up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Spoiler alert for below!

None of the couples matched on the show stayed together!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Self-esteem in Indian families

In my last blog-post, I wrote about independent thinking for Indian women. Today I want to dive into the topic of self-esteem in Indian families. This is an issue that touches many aspects that I’ll be exploring in greater detail over this series such as guilt and self-blame, friendship with parents, skills gaps and risk aversion.

The problem

In immigrant Indian culture there are a number of factors that act against people developing healthy self-esteem. Some of these factors act against the clear formulation of “self” and some lead to low “esteem”.

Taboo around the concept of the self and the virtue of sacrifice 

First and foremost is the taboo around the concept of the self. Eastern cultures are famously more “community-oriented” implying putting the group before the self. Sacrifice is extolled as virtuous. How many of us have grown up with reminders every now and again about the sacrifices made by our grandparents and parents so that we could have a better life?

There’s nothing wrong with a chosen sacrifice per se – if it’s a conscious choice by the sacrificer because it gives them a greater sense of meaning or satisfaction in their life to do something for their child rather than themselves – it’s like parental instinct put on steroids. However, two issues arise often with sacrifice:

1. It may not really be the sacrificer’s true desire but may be because of cultural taboo against putting yourself first

2. It’s often not as selfless as portrayed – because it comes with expectations of what will be done in return. Here are a few expectations I have come across in my conversations with brown friends: I cared for you exceptionally when you were a child, so I expect you to care for me as diligently in my old age. You better not put me in a retirement home. I did so much for you, the least you can do is marry a person that I would prefer etc.

A healthy sense of self-esteem and self-love are needed to know when you are making a sacrifice for the right reason — out of love, and when you are making it for the wrong two reasons above.

How does that healthy self-esteem form? That’s a million-dollar question that Universities should be spending a lot of money on but aren’t. Let me tackle the easier question of what hinders formulation of healthy self-esteem instead. Two main factors loom large in Indian upbringings:

• A lack of conversation around what you want when you are growing up. This hinders the full formulation of a “self”. You need a concept of “self” to have self-esteem and many people are stuck not even having a clear identity of their own – their identities are blurred blobs that encompass children, parents, relatives and cultural norms.
• Reprimanding/ being labelled “selfish” when you do express what you want when it deviates from cultural norms. Being “selfish” is considered one of the worst insults in Indian culture. Over time, this fear of being labelled “selfish” crushes thinking about yourself clearly

Despite this neglect of the self, the self still exists. It just fades further and further away from consciousness. It still experiences dissatisfaction, resentment and anger, which can manifest in a host of ways such as having a bad temper, being easily irritable or physical illnesses (read The Mind Body prescription for a look into how emotional traumas and repression can manifest physically).

My generation may have been luckier in the “formulation of a self” regard: the ugly bright pink carpet in my bedroom in my parent’s house is a testament to my parents honoring my 11 year old intentions against good aesthetic (sighs, I really wish I’d gone with beige). However, when my parents were growing up, there was very little emphasis put by their parents on allowing them to discover what they wanted — from careers to life partners. My father had to hold the line really hard on having a small wedding against his parents’ wishes, for example. And when he did make decisions, they were always accompanied by a detailed pros-cons analysis and regard for what his parents wanted.

It’s hard now for parents who have grown up with very little sense of a “self” and awareness around their true desires, personalities and beliefs to understand our push to be ourselves. We think we should be front and center in our own lives. We take this to be a “self-evident truth” –  but they do not. They were never allowed to put themselves front and center, they were told that that was bad. For some parents, “fun” is a foreign concept. Now here we are in the West demanding that we, the children of immigrants, get unconditional support for that gap year of travelling around the world or for the belly piercing or for our ice cream-as-a-service business idea and they think we are being so selfish.

The hostile Immigrant experience erodes esteem

The second set of forces that work on destroying self-esteem are more focused on the esteem part of self-esteem – the respect and love you have for yourselves. When our parents’ generation immigrated to western countries, racism was even worse. One of my Punjabi Sikh friends tells of her father not being able to get a job or a mortgage because of this turban. He had to get rid of his turban eventually to get a job in a factory, but still couldn’t get a mortgage.

My father left India as an Assistant Professor of Surgery and a very well-regarded surgeon at the age of 32, and had to start as a surgical resident (the bottom of the ladder) again when he moved to the UK. Students that he would have been mentoring and coaching in India were now his peers.

So not only did our parents’ generation face hostility from their parents who were stymieing the formation of a self, but the new western environments they found themselves in were also sending them these messages: You are not allowed to be yourself here. You must change your dress, culture, way of speaking to make a living. You’ll still never really be welcome here. You’re not as good as the others here. Quite simply, the theme of the messages all around was: You are inferior.

The massive walls that our parents often have around themselves and wanting to preserve their culture are in part due to the constant attacks they have faced in new environments that were hostile to diversity either subtly or overtly.

The solutions

With years of conditioning like this, there’s obviously no silver bullet. But here’s what I believe we can do to help our parents and our own self-esteem:

Have compassion for your parents. This is very, very hard for most of us so we must practice every day and make a conscious effort. Some of us jumped into the camp of making fun of our parents because that’s what our friends were doing. You’re not exactly harboring a strong identity if you replace what your parents think with what your friends think. The famous Canadian-Punjabi poet Rupi Kaur wrote a beautiful poem called “Broken English” which I’ve pasted at the bottom. I recommend her poetry for my readers.

Encourage your parents self-esteem: Ask them what they want, why they want it. Try to help them get to their true desires. Compliment them, appreciate them. When they run into something negative outside, contextualize it for them, e.g. “They are only holding you back because they’re angry that you can do the job better”.

Have strength to formulate your own self: If your parents try to do some of what their parents did to them, realize what they are doing and stand your ground even if you are unpopular at first. Of course, you might make a mistake. In my experience, regrets about your own choices are far superior to regrets about letting someone else run your life. 

Build your own self-esteem: because it’s good for you but also because it can be contagious. When your family and friends see how you treat yourself with love and respect, it can inspire them to do the same.

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In the next set of blog-posts I’ll dive deeper into related areas of the Indian immigrant experience: guilt and self-blame, friendship with parents, skill gaps and risk aversion. Please comment with reactions, thoughts and ideas for future blog-posts!

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Broken English – by Rupi Kaur

I think about the way my father pulled the family out of poverty
without knowing what a vowel was.
And my mother raised 4 children
without being able to construct a perfect sentence in English
A discombobulated couple that landed in the new world
with hopes that left the bitter taste of rejection in their mouth.
No family no friends, just man and wife,
Two university degrees that meant nothing,
one mother tongue that was broken now,
one swollen belly with a baby inside.
A father worried about jobs and rent
coz no matter what this baby was coming.

And they thought to themselves for a split second
was it worth it to put all of our money
into the dream of a country that is swallowing us whole.
And papa looks at his woman’s eyes
and sees the loneliness living where the iris was.
Wants to give her a home in a country
that looks at her with the word visitor wrapped around their tongue.
On their wedding day she left an entire village to be his wife
and now she left an entire country to be a warrior.
And when the winter came they had nothing,
but the heat of their own bodies to keep the coldness out.
And like 2 brackets they face one another
to hold the dearest parts of them,
their children close.

They turned a suitcase full of clothes
into a life and regular paychecks
to make sure that children of immigrants
wouldn’t hate them for being the children of immigrants
They worked too hard – you can tell by their hands,
their eyes are begging for sleep
but our mouths were begging to be fed
and that is the most artistic thing I have ever seen.
It is poetry to these ears that has never heard
what passion sounds like
and my mouth is full of likes and uhms
when I look at their masterpiece
‘coz there are no words in the English language
that can articulate that kind of beauty.

I can’t compact their existence into 26 letters and call it a description
I tried once but the adjectives needed to describe them don’t even exist
so I ended up with pages and pages full of words
followed with commas and more words and more comas
only to realize that there are some things in the world
so infinite that they can never use a full stop.

So how dare you mock your mother
when she opens her mouth
and broken English spills out.
Her accent is thick like honey,
hold it with your life,
it’s the only thing she has left from home.
Don’t stomp on that richness,
instead hang it up on the walls
of museums next to Dali and Van Gogh
Her life is brilliant and tragic.
Kiss the side of her tender cheek.
She already knows what it sounds like
to have an entire nation laugh when she speaks.
She’s more than our punctuation and language.
We might be able to take pictures and write stories,
but she made an entire world for herself.
How’s that for art

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All my independent immigrant Indian women, throw your minds up at me

Introducing a new series of observations on the Indian female immigrant experience

I want to give a shout-out to the millions of Indian women out there who have tirelessly been working on their parents’ education since they barely got out of childhood themselves. Indian immigrant parents have many reasons for being the way they are – we can empathize and sympathize because for a lot of them, their behavior stems from good intentions and love. But we’ve also paid the price. We deserve our stories to be heard too, and our pain to be recognized, and we deserve solutions.

This next series of blog-posts is about you, about me, about us – women of immigrant Indians. These blog-posts will talk about our problems. I will share anecdotes from my life and the lives of friends and acquaintances, and I will posit some solutions that I have found to be effective for myself and for friends.

A lot of what I write about is just the normal angst of growing up and finding yourself for anyone – including white males. I totally acknowledge growing up is hard in general and that no one’s parents are perfect, but growing up is made harder for Indian women and that’s the nuance here.

Another disclaimer upfront: I do not speak for all Indian women – we’re a diverse bunch. Some of you may not have some of these challenges or have altogether different ones. This is my perspective based on my own experience and research.

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Problem: The incapacity to think independently

“It’s been life-changing for me to move away from home for work [to another city]. Before then, I was following my mum’s advice almost constantly. I just couldn’t think for myself” – Indian girl-friend 1

Tight-knit families can be a double-edged sword. Sometimes each member loses their ability to form independent perspectives. You get locked into having the same opinions for better cohesion.

For the longest time, I had my mother’s opinions on several issues. When I was in high school, I remember saying something that sounded peculiar coming out of a 13 year old’s mouth: “Sarah and Joe don’t have the maturity to be in a relationship” I said to my friend about our classmate Sarah and her new boyfriend. It wasn’t my opinion. It was what my mother had said. I think if you’d have questioned me at that time on what “maturity” was required for a relationship, I wouldn’t have known.

Until I was 22 (yes, that old!), I was convinced no Indian guy wanted to marry a girl who wasn’t a virgin (who wants to even hang out with let alone marry such a guy is a valid question that various friends raised!). I thought boys were a distraction and a danger to good grades and a good career.

Many of these thoughts are what I call “cultural viruses” – they are generally negative and handed down generation to generation and enforced through fear and shame.

It has been a gradual process over the years to let go of thoughts, ideas and concepts from my heritage and formulate my own – many of which are totally different – and thankfully as a result of these different, more positive, more progressive thoughts, my life is way different from what it could have been.

You’d think by 30, I’d be all clear but every now and again I still catch a thought and have to question whether this is what I think or what someone else thinks or was some cultural thought that has been handed down generations.

Solution: Build the muscle to think for yourself

Observing your thoughts is a practice that has been recommended as part of meditation. Meditation is about observing, not judging though. Unfortunately for us, quiet observation is not enough – we need to do some analysis on our thoughts. Where are they from? What assumptions are we making? What evidence do we have to support our thought? This self-analysis can be an energy-intensive process but I have found it to be worth it – especially on important thoughts that are going to determine action. Once you dismantle destructive old thoughts, you can get to place where new thoughts that stem from your true personality and desires arise more naturally and effortlessly.

Another way to be a better independent thinker is to stress-test thoughts with friends. This may sound counter-intuitive at first blush as you are involving other people, but it isn’t when you think about it more deeply – the origin of thought is usually some cultural construct or cocktail of cultural constructs — you just need to pick which cultural construct/s work/s best for you. You consult many people who have different opinions and then you come to your own.

For Indian women who have grown up in a culture at home that can feel pretty monolithic and presents subjective opinions as objective truths, actively building diverse friendships is especially critical to your growth as a deep independent thinker. This can be hard for us, but we must go out of our way to do it. Find those people who will challenge you, see the world differently, have different beliefs and ultimately lend you the freedom that comes from acknowledging one truth: there are very few objective truths in the world.

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This is one blog-post in a series of problem-solution posts for Indian immigrant women. Please comment/message me for ideas of which other problems and solutions you want me to write about! The next one will be about guilt and blaming yourself.