We Are More (Shivani)

My identity and my white husband attracted much curiosity in India. "Are you Indian?" "Where are you from?" "Why don't you speak Hindi?". None of these questions have easy answers. I am a South African. I was born in SA, my parents were born in SA and some of my grandparents were born in SA too . But culturally I'm at least partially Indian. The food, music, mythology, literature all run deeply through my soul. I love India, I love the way the language sounds, I love feeling some connection to the chaos, the colour, the vibrancy. My name is Indian, I look Indian. But India isn't home, South Africa is. This is the story of immigration, of blended identities, of roots in one place, dreams in another. People are more than the stamp in their passport, more than their city of departure, more than the colour of their skin, their ethnicity, their faith.

Blended Identity

--- Other posts by Shivani ---

Connecting Deep & Wide - Nationalism v Globalism - No Mud, No Lotus

No Mud, No Lotus (Shivani)

Heading home after two fabulous weeks in India. Smoggy, foggy Delhi with its layers of history like a buttery paratha. Precarious Shimla clinging to the Himalayan foothills. A giant pink Hanuman, muscular monkey god, towering. The utterly romantic city of lakes: palaces, pelicans, a pied kingfisher. The phrase I'm left with is "no mud no lotus". Nowhere is this more apparent than the Taj Mahal (glorious, ethereal, breathtaking), rising from the filth and squalor that is Agra. In India you cannot experience the lotus without experiencing the mud. The chaos, the dirt, the decay, the dark and violent history, the vast poverty coexist with the vividness, the luminosity, the food, the textiles, the architecture. Visiting India is like looking at the night sky, vast, incomprehensible, an awe-inspiring reminder of how small and transient we are.

Other posts by Shivani

Connecting Deep and Wide - Nationalism v Globalism

Guyana

In South Africa, we are very aware of the 'Scramble for Africa' where nation states were arbitrarily parcelled off like Secret Santa Gifts in Berlin. The north coast of South America had a similar thing happen. Left to right, Venezuela has Spanish links, Guyana British, Suriname Dutch, French Guiana French, and then Brazil Portuguese. Guyana is the only South American nation where English is the official language. The population speak Guyanese Creole - you take an English base, and throw in some West African, Dutch, Indian and Arawakan (Indigenous South American) spices. As in Fiji, Malaysia and South Africa, the English brought with them flavours of India. 43% of Guyanese have Indian heritage.

The Hoatzin - the national bird of Guyana

Fiji

110 of Fiji's 330 islands are permanently inhabited. 87% of the population live on two of them.  The first people, likely Polynesians, arrived anywhere between 3500 and 1000 BC. The first settlements came from voyagers from the West. In 1884, it became a British Colony at the same time as Berlin Conference kicked off the Scramble for Africa on the opposite side of the world. The majority of Fijians are Melanesians. Melanesia extends from the western edge of the Pacific Ocean to the Arafura Sea, and Fiji. Like South Africa, a significant number (about 38%) of Fijians were brought there by the British as Indentured Labourers from India. Like South Africa, Fiji is full of Rugby fanatics. The Fijian team has won the Hong Kong Sevens a record 15 times.

Fiji Sevens