Come the Fourth of July, I often wonder what my life would be like if I was British. My father worked in the UK before he came to the US for graduate school, his only brother still lives in Zone 2, London. As a result, I have both literal and metaphorical cousins across the pond.
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“Chaz Singh” as St. George |
To their credit, Brits are the only westerners who assume that I must be one of them rather than a foreigner. When I’m travelling abroad (outside of India or the UK), British travellers will go out of their way to say hi, while Americans look right through me. In the London, I’ve had people make eye contact with me when they rolled their eyes in disapproval at the noisy tourists who just entered the tube. “Boy, aren’t those foreigners noisy” they telegraph silently to me, while I try to keep a straight face and signal back proper stiff-upper-lip sympathy.
In that vein, I bring you “Chaz Singh” [I suppose that is his real name] who I discovered via DNSI.
Chaz Singh is one of the recipients of the BBC Breeze bursaries that has enabled him to … a collection of images that portray his identity as both Sikh and British. The verses also reflect the image as a verbal translation.[Link]
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p>The St. George photo is my favorite of the lot. The verse … well, it’s in rhyme, and I don’t find it quite as interesting as the photos. More examples of his words and pictures below the fold, including his paired compositions concerning being both “Chav and Goth”.
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Both the poems and the photos are quite literal. Here is the image “Made in Britain” and the words accompany it:
Made in Britain
How long before
we can all walk on the same path
we feel their wrath
they see what we’re about
they kick us all out
they realise our passion
they realise it’s not a fashion
they start to integrate
they start to communicate
they realise the bond
they realise we’ve been conned
I lose my soul
I reach my goal
I’m not seen as a freak
They realise I’m not weak. [Link]
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p>Similarly, here is are the words and images that accompany the theme “Goth and Chav“
Goth & Chav
How long before
they see me as a Sikh
they realise I’m not unique
they treat me like a human
someone cries “Is this true man”
they see that inside we’re tougher
we don’t have to suffer
they realise?
they start to sympathise
they realise the power to touch
they realise it means so much
my love turns to hate
you become my mate
we get noticed
we stop getting dissed
I’ve got nothing to fear
They get me out of here. [Link]
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p>And of course, my very favorite photo of Chaz Singh from RateMyTurban.com [Yes, I’m on there, and yes, he’s got a higher ranking than I do]. He’s completely chavved out here, what with all the Burberry and bling:
His Burberry fondness might explain why he calls himself Chaz Singh.
Wouldn’t that be Turberry?
One of the interesting things about being in India is that Americans will not ID you as American, nor will Indians. So you get to pay local person rates and still surprise fellow Brooklynites. I heard a fab story the other day about a Williamsburg Chabad House orthodox rabbi doing a tour of duty in Bombay keeping half-baked Israelis on the straight and narrow. I might have seen him before!
He looks so much like Waris in that first pic.
Now don’t take this personally, Ennis. I have often wondered what it must be like to be an Indian in UK. I know exactly what it’s like in the US. But in a country where we occupy all rungs of the ladder, and a lot of the lower ones, do we get treated like second class citizens, and in turn, do we respond with that angry minority attitude found among African Americans in the US, for example? I am asking only because the Indian youth I have encountered on the streets of London and other cities look and act very differently than the Indian youth in America. I would rather not get more descriptive because somebody would consider it a put down. This is just a sociological curiosity on my part, nothing more, as to how the Indians in UK are different.
dont be FOX news, open the comments on Chittisinghpura Massacare. if you want, moderate comments. damn!
Wow, Sepia Mutiny looks pretty cool [nice one Jai]
Chaz Singh is incredible. A true patriot
Curious
British Indians smell, have no manners, are inferior to American Indians, have a bad attitude, are generally more muscular, their women are freer with Muslims and negroes, and are a disgrace to the Indian diaspora. Indian Americans are so fragrant and better suited to survival in the twentieth century and Arizona. Ennis should not refer to them because he might catch the plague from them. We are the greatest we are the most perfect.
Burberry makes Kurtas? Who would’ve thought.
What? The patka passes muster without question?
FYI: That would be a pagree/pugree, dastar or turban rather than the smaller patka.
I stand corrected Ennis. So the patka is the kerchief like thing on the top of the head?
This is a patka and this is how you tie one.
“What? The patka passes muster without question?”
Well, now that you mention it… Burberry makes pagris!? I was a little overpowered by the kurta so I didn’t pay attention to his head. But wasn’t that the whole point; the man is not just his turban, he has overall terrible fashion sense 🙂 Oh, it looked like a patka to me at first too. Maybe it was the pattern or something but I had to look at the picture again to see that it was a pagri.
Amir,
Yep, SM is superb and in some aspects quite a different experience from PP. I hope you become a regular here too — generally the people are great, extremely well-informed and mostly very civilised. You also won’t find any of the moderators going berserk and hurling profanities at you if you have the “audacity” to question/contradict them about anything. I would, however, suggest that you exercise discretion and common sense in terms of how you speak to the SM moderators and the other commenters here — you’re an unusually smart guy and have a great deal of theological and philosophical knowledge (along with an awareness of various other topics), but it’s worth bearing in mind that large numbers of other people here on SM are exactly the same (numerically, significantly more than there are on PP, in my opinion, although there are several very intelligent people there too).
Welcome aboard 😉
PS: …..Unless you start hurling unwarranted, foul-mouthed insults at them, of course 😉
But they’re a pretty restrained and polite bunch most of the time anyway.
Ennis, it’s funny that you claim that Americans don’t treat you as ‘American’, even though you hold the passport and have grown up there. Here the main complaint from Indians is that everything in the USA is better, and that in the USA one is treated as ‘one of them’. Well, I can testify that I haven’t been treated any different from the Dutch to this date. Of course there is the occaisional individual from an older generation asking where my name is from. But on the whole it’s odd because Europe is perceived at least to be much more insular and hostile than the USA.
Curious, as far as I know in Britain the Pakistani and Bangladeshi youths tend to be more disruptive than the Indians, and are most often involved in riots. They also occupy the lower rungs of the social ladder.
Uncle Sam Ji, you come across as a racist and backwards. And willing to intergrate. This is out of line with the point of Chaz SIngh’s spirit, and if I judged all American Desi’s by your comment, I would say that they have regressed as opposed to embrace what is good about the West. Unless you are proving that the least liberal place in the west is America? In which case the UK is superior. Sikhs are Punjabis, as are Muslims, an artificial border and lies destroyed that one. Negroes are human. In fact all people are, and if that is the USA attitude, I much rather wave the flag for the UK and Chaz Singh.
Next Year is 60 years since Punjab was destroyed. Poisen like this will ensure that rift continues, and doe not suggest Indian in AMerica have laernt anything except materialism and imperialism from the USA. I hope Uncle Sam Ji is not representative of the USA, otherwise the world is in danger..
Meena – they don’t treat recognize me as American when I am abroad, for example, when I am in some African country. When I’m at home, I couldn’t give a tinkers damn what they think of me 😉
Great post, Ennis.
I love these lines espesh:
And in my terribly got-this-line-off-Coro-Street NZer response to his photo: ‘He looks pretty fit, innit?’ 😉
Just what I was thinking. Who needs that skeletal Padma Lakshmi? Go Chaz, you’re the shiz!
I very much like that first photo. The others … not as much.
Ennis – that is, until you open your mouth?
Brits can tell I’m not one of them when I start speaking, but Americans still don’t get it. They just look at me blankly. I think it’s because they assume that Americans have no accent, and so if they don’t hear an unfamiliar accent, they don’t think anything of it.
That’s some nice “I went to Thailand and got this made” Burberry.
Rupinder, I think Uncle Samji was being satirical. Either way, I found it funny. 🙂
But the important question is, is he single? 😉
re: the third pic…
Wearing sneaks with a kurta is NOT right, in pretty much every circumstance. They simply don’t compliment each other. His footwear in the fourth pic, however, is more appropriate.
I’m not gay.
Elf shoes are sexy.
“Elf shoes are sexy.”
Especially when they have the little bells on the pointy ends 🙂 If I ever found a guy who was man enough to wear those to a place where aunties were present, I would marry him. Sigh. Maybe this Chaz character would…anyway to get in touch with him?
Hey DD, would you throw these shoes at Jai, and then sweet talk him into trying them on? [I think it’s about time this badmash settles down. And she’s a doctor!] Hey Jai, come here for a second. I’ll pay you 20 quid if you just come out to say hi to auntie and Sleepy. No no, leave the shoes on, they look great …
😉
Jai already emailed me that photo with his biodata, months ago. I told him if he rocked the head-to-toe Burberry, he’d land some designer chokri to go with it…
And he has a whole closet of those shoes…
or talking smack about the monkeys
I’ll believe the shoes when I see them 😉 My hopes have been dashed far too often; you think those are the shoes and they turn out to be sneakers. Double sigh.
Hehe… It’s okay, we believe you.
Jai is the male Cinderella. If the shoe fits, he gets Sleepy!
The raging question though, is “Where are the Burberry pajamas?”
burberry pajamas? Sexy.
Sidestepping the other matter that TheKingSingh mentioned:
That’s part of being a chav. They wear burberry and trainers.
Ok, I am not one to jump into conclusions, but I totally think Ennis is the Sikh-Goth in pic 3 😉
You want evidence? Circumstantial even?
You mean the one dressed like
NeoKrrish?I’d be very careful before you start advocating any weird burden shifts. 😉
Mild-mannered blogger by night, leather-trenchcoat and black pagri wearing goth by daytime.
Yes but I think the fact that my biodata included my comment about wanting to see photos of prospective brides in bikinis (instead of the usual “Western outfit & Indian outfit” pics) probably scared all the uncles and aunties off.
Try putting that on Shaadi.com. Ha, I wonder if anyone would get away with it !
“Sorry Auntie. Pinky has to look good in (and out of) a suitably skimpy bikini to get on Jai’s marital shortlist. I don’t care how many parathas she came make in 30 seconds”.
I’ve got matching flying carpets parked in the garage too.
No, the real raging question is “Where are the Burberry bikinis ?”
You have no idea how accurate that statement is.
Yes, sorry about that by the way. When I mentioned “spanking the monkey”, I wasn’t referring to giving Chameli the Chimp’s caboose a thorough workout. I don’t think we should give Ennis yet another excuse to molest the ‘bandars’ in the basement.
Anyway, any spanking should be restricted to the hotter female Mutineers. You know who you are.
“Thwack, thwack, thwack. Jiggle, jiggle, jiggle.”
Lovely jubbly.
you have to love how all the London folk roll there eyes at Americans who get on the tube. yet, if you are in London long enough you realize why they do it because Americans are so damn loud when they get on the tube.
Actually, he’s pretty easy to find with a unique name like that. Let me know 😉
I don’t know how anyone could get any sleep wearing those.
Pajamas should be in neutral tones, with a subtle pattern at most…pleasing to the eye, soft to the touch. Basically, they should convey a sereneness to the senses.
Really, I’m not gay.
“I don’t know how anyone could get any sleep wearing those. “
Exactly, the point is to not get any sleep 😉 I might add that my strange comments of late are a result of being hopped up on red bull. Seriously guys, quit it while you can.
Would it be bad if I requested a picture of the prospective grooms in their favorite pair of boxer-briefs or boxers? (Tightie-whitie donning men need not apply)
Emerges from a puff of smoke You quoted?
Not as loud as chav British Asians with razor-sharp goatees and pounds of hair gel swigging 40s on the tube in front of horrified geezer couples from some country hamlet.
Couldn’t have said it better myself =)
And plus, you can go out everyday wearing neutral and peaceful colors – it’s good to be loud at night.
Yes, that came out wrong.