This is my last guest post for Sepia Mutiny, and I want to thank all the bloggers and readers here for their interest, comments and links.
Since I was invited to do this, I meant to write a post about cashews in an okra curry. I had this dish at a wedding reception during Thanksgiving break, and the table of the kids with whom I’d grown up thought it was tasty but not exactly home cooking. My little sister wanted to rebut this presumption; just because we didn’t recognize it, she argued, was no reason to assume that it was not Telegu, or not South Indian. Non-Indians seem to find these distinctions amusing and/or confusing. A white friend of mine is dating a Tamil Brahmin and I’m still trying to make him grasp that everything from her religious practices to her food preparation will be different from my family’s traditions. Still, these can be difficult to map out, literally: when I recognize that “we” do something that other people don’t, does that mean that the something is Indian, Southie, Telegu or just us?
Overlapping with this question is another one I’ve been pursuing: what is the equivalent of Mexican gringo or Japanese gaijin in an Indian language? Telegu has “manavalu” (horribly misspelled), to mean “our people,” a term that can expand or contract depending on situation, such that in a crowd of non-Indians, the first Indian person spotted can be claimed as one of ours, but at a TANA conference, only people on our wedding circuit fit. All South Asians seem to use the term “desi” to signify a fellow brown person. But what is the term for those who are not our people, not our countryman?
The person who got me started wondering about this claimed that most languages have a word for outsiders, and I couldn’t tell if my inability to think of one in Telegu meant there was none or just was another example of how incredibly bad my Telegu is. But my sisters, whose language skills are much better, couldn’t come up with anything either. This may be symptomatic of diaspora life; living outside India, we have little occasion to identify others as foreigners because we are so persistently the foreigners, something we implicitly accept by referring to other people as “Americans” and not including ourselves when we say it. And when we are in India, we still are the foreigners — there we are the Americans, tagged sometimes even before we open our mouths.
Perhaps this is the particular attraction that Indians outside India have for me. I’ve never been a strong participant in the various desi organizations that have been open to me, but I’ve also never been the type to avoid or disdain them. I’m not really interested in ISA/ SASA/ SALSA for the opportunity to party with new South Asians, or even for networking. Instead, I see this as the space where I am wholly an insider, even when I’m left out of the cliques; or as I described it in an essay that asked me to describe my neighborhood, “Indian people outside India are my neighborhood.”
So I appreciate the virtual hangouts that blogs such as Sepia Mutiny create, and wish all the Mutineers much success in maintaining a contentious, colorful, cogent community.
Aww… I recognize you too, proud desi sista. It’s a transitory community too, 1.5 and 2nd gen– assimilation irrevocably changes the character of later generations. Unbelonging for what you are is replaced by the familiar unbelonging for who you are đ Thanks for coming over, PG!
Non-Indians seem to find these distinctions amusing and/or confusing.
well, as an atheist whose family is muslim, i have dealt with this issue a lot (i.e., my english teacher wants me to double check her notes on the bhagavad gita in high school). the easiest thing to do is to use analogies. for example, conceptually transpose south asia on europe, and ask your friends if they expect germans to have much in common with spaniards, aside from the broadest and most basic fundamentals of ‘european christianity.’ this works with east asians too, ask if they expect a hakka from south china to have much in common with a manchurian, or a native of sichuan with someone from south korea. in this way you leverage the native schemas which accounted for nested sets of relations.
one thing i have noted is that the inability to make distinctions tends to come in two primary flavors: 1) old school ignorant 2) multiculturalist appreciation for ‘eastern traditions,’ via the total compression of distinct cultural streams into an amorphous whose primary character is simply a negative of the individual’s perception of the west.
re: words like gaijin, my family uses the term beedeshi like that. though i am not quite sure that they extend the circles of deshiness beyond bengalis.
and good posts btw.
BTW, shouldn’t it be “Telugu”?
Sorry for being nitpicky.
The term you asked is:
Pardesi = foreigner
A foreigner could be from another village, another state, another country, etc. In Bollywood movies, a pardesi is usually a city slicker who steals the heart of a village belle.
Thanks for your contributions
Another term is firang but I think it has more a tighter definition than pardesi. a firang has to be very different – whereas pardesi is “just not one of us”
“Manavalu” made me think of “aravalu,” but it might not be a gaijin/gringo equivalent. I’ve only heard it (“aravalu”) used to refer to Tamils, actually.
tangential to this discussion on “us vs them” – the news article on this mallu movie has a reference to “Red” indians
The commonly used term is Firangi, ( of a different color). In fact, in my college, it was used to denote anyone who was leaning towards the west for his/her inspiration.
Isn’t another term for “foreigner” something like “Vilaiyati” (sic) ?
This may be symptomatic of diaspora life; living outside India, we have little occasion to identify others as foreigners because we are so persistently the foreigners, something we implicitly accept by referring to other people as ĂâAmericansĂâ and not including ourselves when we say it. And when we are in India, we still are the foreigners Ăâ there we are the Americans, tagged sometimes even before we open our mouths.
I think we all identify with this. The only place I’ve ever been persistently identified as an American is in India. In Europe, Egypt, Africa, South America, Israel…I am always an Indian, and only an Indian. And given the way this country is viewed by the world at the moment, that hasn’t always been a bad thing. đ
Outstanding entries by the way. I learned much.
But what is the term for those who are not our people, not our countryman?
The Sanskrit term, which has been used to describe all non-South Asians–Greeks, Huns, even the British–is mleccha.
While on this question, let me throw a somewhat related one out there for tum log:
Appropriate of PG mentioning his bud who’s dating a TamBram girl, would sepia mutineers out there be in general agreement that North Indians are less insular and more accepting of phirangis and their ways than their Southie bretheren?
That has certainly been my experience over a good few years, especially when it comes to relationships. I know far more Northerners and their friends/family, who have intermarried, whereas southerners, TamBrams in particular it seems will bed people from outside their tribe, but almost never wed.
And beyond the whole dating/mating game, I observe it play out in other ways. For example, when traveling abroad or visting the US, it seems that southerners are more strident about “keeping Kosher” in what they eat and who prepares it an what kitchen it comes from, than the folks up North.
Is this because the North was on the receiving end of so many invasions, but not the South?
Curious to hear mutinous thoughts on the subject.
Kush, I think pg was asking for a synonym for “our people” not “foreigner.” “Foreigner” is easy – the word “them” is quite readily available in any language (and I say this in full jest and while thinking of the generations that precede me).
Sanskrit, more popularly, offers manas which simply means “people” and may be extended to “our people.”
We Tams use namma janangal often contracted to merely “janangal” [because, by god, no one else can own the language but us, so it must mean us]. My mother and I often use nas, the Arabic equivalent.
Speaking of “our people,” culture ownership and belonging, I have to agree with pg in that SM is probably the first large group of people, leave alone Indian, I have hung out with of my own accord [ok, barring geo-geeks]. The virtual forum provides a great place to bond, get your thoughts out and quickly return to your own context. Or stay within your own context while participating.
when I recognize that ĂâweĂâ do something that other people donĂât, does that mean that the something is Indian, Southie, Telegu or just us?
It really comes down to a “critical mass” of groups and sub-groups. When you’re the only Telugu person in a group of Southies within a larger group of Indians, then you’re a Southie. Sure, the other Southies have internal politics going on, too … the gears work within gears to perpetuate diasporic interrelationships. [Also why I tend to stay away from ISA-esque aggregates and prefer venues like SM.]
And with that last bit of brain spew, I bid you adieu … and good luck, pg. Thanks for the posts! See you around.
I always think it’s interesting, also, to think of where the terms we do use come from. “Desi” and “pardesi” and “phirangi” are all based in northern languages and are then transposed on the entire subcontinent and diaspora. I mean, desi literally means countryman/woman, and it was used prior to British occupation/colonization (meaning, as Razib mentioned, not everyone felt that everyone was part of their own country because of shared regionality, etc). The only thing I can think of that my family sometimes uses to talk about “our people” is saday lok, which is literally, “our people.”
An aside: Pardesi and Phirangi/Firangi mean about the same thing – I think the only difference is etymology. Since des=one’s own country, pardesi = from a different country (so, from my Punjabi perspective, Uttar Pradesh is the “foreign country to the north”). From what I understand, Firangi is like Umrican, it’s an adaptation of the word “foreign.” However, I could be wrong. For all I know it comes from Arabic or something.
This reminds me of Ron Takaki’s books. I wonder if we will ever feel (or be treated) American in America. Will miss your posts, pg!
Sure there were excesses within the “ISA” crowd, but the cultural/political groupings of desis were get together usually in their early to mid 20’s apart from the ISA-walas have their own quirks and foibles. Among them can be a strong streak of thinking that their views on politics or society are a priori more noble than the views of those desis who participated in ISA-like communities.
Its a complex subject that I can’t bring to complexity in one post, but I think its a worthwhile subject for discussion
forget to add; i would love if desi events were not periannual places to look for that desi SO. It just makes things awkward, and its not limited to ISA gatherings. The moment a “progressive” looking member of the opposite sex walks into a meeting of a progressive desi events, and gears start working.what you get next is just plain awkward
As a TamBram married to a firangi, I’d have to agree with Pardesi bhabi–I think it’s true that South Indians are a bit more insular. At big family functions, mixed couples (TamBram with white or any other non-TamBram Indian) are relatively rare…
As people have said, the word for foreigner used by those that I know (irrespective of whether pg asked for it or not) is FIRANGI, which amuses Hindi-speaking Star Trek fans the world over. It’s also a word repeatedly chucked at me when I don’t know what I’m supposed to do at my cousin’s wedding, or how I’m supposed to eat something. This is something you refer to pg, we are the ‘foreign cousin’ before we’ve even opened our mouths. You want to show that you read rediff, The Hindu, India Today or (more realistically) Stardust, you want to show you have a view on the Bihar elections and the Sensex…but it doesn’t matter, you’re still the Brit/Yank etc.
pg, what do ISA/SASA/SALSA stand for? I’m guessing the last one’s not real, is it? OK I’ve found SASA…any website which plays music annoys me. Especially if it’s Ja Rule.
Take care of yourself pg, it’s been nice reading you.
As a TamBram married to a firangi, I’d have to agree with Pardesi bhabi–I think it’s true that South Indians are a bit more insular. At big family functions, mixed couples (TamBram with white or any other non-TamBram Indian) are relatively rare…
Are we talking 1gen or 2gen? At the 2gen level, in my experience, South Indians–TamBrams included, maybe TamBrams especially–marry “out” at a very high frequency, more so than Gujuratis, for example. And few I have seen marry within sub-caste.
As for meat eating–I suspect it depends on the crowd you hang with. Many 1gens eat meat now, even in India. Some guy put up a recipe for Iyengar Turkey on the net!
i know i’m all about being a jat, but brahmin this and that….are you guys replicating caste in the US? if so, stop it!
I’ve no idea what the answer to the questions posed by this post are. But I vote for firengi. Reminds me of the star-trek alien race, the ferengi (or something).
But more importantly, being the foodie that I am, I read okra-and-cashew, and could think no further than of this dish i made a coupla week ago:
http://www.daawat.com/recipes/indian/veg/gravy/okracurry.htm
it was yummy-yummy, and even the firengi guniea-pigs (two italianas) who were invited to try it out thought it kicked ass.
On a side note (of a side note) guniea-pig in italian is porcellino del’India. Yes, little indian pig.
oink oink.
You might as well wish away the sex drive.
BTW, it’s ‘Telugu’ not ‘Telegu’ …
@Kushi; The “charges” levelled against Tambrams are mostly true. But things are changing. You would find the TamBrams now more than happy to wed and bed anybody.
@PG: The term you asked for: TamBrams use the word “nammavaal” for our people. and “mathavaal” for others. The scope of these terms would change – inside a family event, nammaval means the immediate family , for instance, in a wedding – nammavaal means the bride’s family or the groom’s family as the case maybe, and mathavaal means the other side.
Outside of this, nammavaal are all the tambrams and mathavaal are the others.
Sorry: The first line of my comment is addressed to PardeshiBabhi
Telegu is a recognized variant spelling of Telugu, though much less common, but I spell it that way because it seems closer to the pronunciation.
I like firangi as the word for foreigner, though it’s not one I’ve ever heard before. The Star Trek link is an added bonus. I was asking my aunt just now, and of the words given in the comments, paradesi is the one she recognized, saying, “If you’re in India and an American comes, everyone calls ‘paradesi.'” (Presumably she meant, as we always do, a non-Indian American.)
Regarding Southies’ generally being less open to paradesis — well, I feel that we are pretty closed, but don’t have much to compare that to.
ISA= Indian Student Association SASA= South Asian Student Association SALSA= South Asian Law Student Association TANA= Telugu Association of North America
I mentioned that my friend’s girlfriend was Brahmin not to get into caste snobbery, but just to emphasize how her family’s traditions would be different from my family, which is Velma. Caste does make a difference that way, and I think when you remove the hierarchy (as mostly happens in the move to the U.S.) there’s nothing toxic about the differences.
Bong Breaker,
I did little research on “firangi” – it is originally a Persian or Arabic word “farang” – has been in India vernacular for time immemorial. It means “not of the same color” or “European (Franks)“.
One could see “Pardesi” as a super-set that encompasses more. Just some trivia for you guys.
I thought one of the most common terms to describe “our people” was “apna”, or its Gujju counterpart, “aapno”.
Don’t know why but, I thought that pardesi is the nice way of saying foreigner, whereas firangi is the more disparaging term.
In Malayalam, the equivalent of “gringo” or “gaijin” is “saayip” (male) and “mathama” (female). It is most commonly used to reference caucasians, but I don’t know if that’s a fixed rule.
SALSA’s real? Crazy.
Kush I saw your Pardesi up above, but I’ve never heard anyone I know under the age of 40 use it!
Cheers for the research. It’s originally Persian, not Arabic. Tragically one of my mates accompanying me on my US jaunt is an Iranian with an encyclopaedic knowledge of Hindi swear words and an insatiable desire to tell me how much Hindi is from Farsi. Fair-hangi is how he pronounces it.
Epoch I’d agree with you. Firangi is always used at me when someone’s irritated. Actually I just remembered a scene from Monsoon Wedding, when Neha Dubey is getting pissed off with the Aussie fella: “You’re such a bloody firangi” [storms off]
Ah my Aussie pal, I feel your pain.
You haven’t spent much time in Gult-land, have you đ ? Actually, the pronunciation using an ‘e’ in the place of ‘u’ is plain wrong( but maybe valid in some other language).
Paradesi means NRI, doesn’t it?
Are you speaking for all of us? đ
Pretty closed compared to whom?
I’m always fascinated by concepts relating to being a foreigner or an outsider, and the implications of that word. “Gaijin” or “gwai-loh” are both disparaging terms–the literal translation is “foreign devil.”
If you’ve read anything by Orson Scott Card, you’ve probably come across my favorite hierarchy of classification for “otherness,” adopted from concepts and words in the Nordic languages. It sticks in your mind after you experience it in the context of the book, and I’m fascinated by how people may move from one category to another by dint of deed or an imposed group perception.
utlänning: a human from another city or country främling: a human from another world (this one is tricky and fluid…the dead are sometimes främling) raman: a human of another species (aliens, mermen / mermaids, elves in LOTR, anything you can empathize with but that is not technically human, yet with time you perceive it as human) varelse: animals with whom no conversation is possible djur: the dire beast that comes in the night, an irreconcileable enemy.
We are all someone else’s främling or raman, and often the djur of our exes. Politicians generally profit from making utlänning into djur.
er, “books.” Oh, and PG, you’ll be missed. Good posts, you’re a good writer. I hope to read you again one day soon.
Not too difficult.