A False Inherited Perception

“What caste are you?”

“What?”

“Don’t you know your caste?”

“No. What’s caste? Is it to do with your religion?”

“Kind of. Don’t worry about it. You look like you’re the same as me. I’m Jatt.”

This exchange happened when I was 13 years old, in my science class. Up until this point I could comfortably identify my nationality as British, my ethnicity as Indian, my culture as Punjabi and the religion my family followed as Sikhism. But was I now to have an extra layer of my identify, or rather what other people would identify me as? Did I even identify myself as Indian, British, Punjabi or Sikh? These were just the words I used when asked what I was and by this age it was happening a lot. I’d surpassed the age of not recognising that people looked different, came from different backgrounds and saw me as different. Similar to when you reach secondary school and you’re suddenly aware you have a body, and people make you even more aware of it. Suddenly my race and culture were becoming an extension of myself… an extension that was always there but one I’d never felt the need or want to explore.

I am a second generation British born Indian. My Mum and Dad were born in the UK, and it was my Grandparents who were immigrants wanting to provide a better life for their family and future generations. This was very different to my peers at that time and again something I was completely unaware of. Most of them were first generation, they’d grown up in traditional households where the culture was merely a part of them. My household was very westernised as they say, I grew up in an English speaking house where we didn’t eat Indian food everyday and we played outside with the other kids in the neighbourhood. Two Irish Catholic and two mixed White and black Caribbean… we all played the same. We were and still are the same. Maybe its these experiences and interactions that make me see other’s race and backgrounds in the way I do. I certainly don’t want to be defined by mine, so why should I consider everyone else as anything other than just people.

I went home after school that day and asked my mum about the caste system. In a sheepish manner as though I was almost scared to find out what it was, or how it would change things.

“Who asked you that?”

“Just this girl in my class. Why? Is it a bad thing”

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