What is Sanskrit for cultural appropriation then ?

I saw on twitter that Beyonce has been called out for 'cultural appropriation' in the video for the song she has dueted on with Coldplay. In it she features as a Bollywood screen star complete with cleavage enhancing outfits and henna painted hands. Chris Martin and fellow Coldplayers mime while doused in Holi colours and there is a smattering of scenes featuring 'local colour' such as poor kids, festivals and holy men. It's pretty harmless stuff really. Is it appropriation ? Not especially. It's heavy handed and pretty cliched, but no more so than when Madonna did it a while back when she made the Ray of Light album.

In fact Madge was credited with introducing the entire western hemisphere to yoga which apparently no one had even heard of before she did it. I've been a yoga teacher for 7 years now and have practised yoga for over 20 years. I first started when I came back from uni and read an article in Time Out about the life centre in Notting Hill and decided to check it out. The first lesson was tough, but I loved it and I kept going. Every Saturday morning I'd be in warrior pose wondering why I put myself through it as my teacher Andrea - an ex dancer - put us all through a tough Ashtanga routine. I was lighter and younger then and I struggled, but something made me want to do keep going and to get better. I did get stronger and learned a lot more about the practice and eventually took the step I had wanted to for so many years to train as a teacher.

One of the things that struck me when I was training was how often I heard the references to 'real' or 'traditional' yoga. I was lectured by tutors about how yoga is practised in India and on one memorial occasion a teacher impersonated indian people with that head bob we know (and that I loathe). I complained about her behaviour and she took to attacking me with the preserve of the racist and weak, 'some of my best friends are...'  I was fascinated by the mispronunciation of Sanskrit words and chanting what I can only assume is a non asian's version of the blessings. I was the only asian in the room and would often hear grand pronouncements about how things are done in India. One fellow student shared her outrage that in India disability is seen as a punishment as 'they believe it's karma' - oh man did I let rip on that day.

When I qualified and was looking for places to teach I found that there are a number of churches that do not allow yoga to be taught in their halls because it's seen as a religious practice that is at odds with Christianity. It isn't, but I'm not going to disrespect someone else's faith and there will always be other places to teach. Not long ago it was reported that a school banned yoga due to it being 'cultural appropriation' I have to admit I was a bit baffled until I thought, well yes it is. But so is the chicken tikka masala that is probably served in the school canteen and come to think of it the tie dye skirt that the art teacher wears.

The line between celebration and appropriation is pretty blurry. I think getting all het up at Beyonce is  missing the point. No one wants to appropriate the reality of what life is like for women in India. Why deal with misogyny and widespread violence towards women when the clothes are jewellery are so pretty ? It's so much simpler for beautiful, successful, western women (whether black or white) to objectify asian women even further.

Oh and the single isn't much cop either.

Yes son, you're going to 'be there' when we have the best adventures yet.

Since me and Hubbie met we have been on a lot of holidays together. In my family we didn't really do holidays as we didn't grow up with a lot of money so if they did save up enough to go away my parents would favour taking us to India to see family members. When I was older and working I earned enough to take holidays myself so I have enjoyed scuba diving in the Red Sea and skiing in France and Canada. I flew to Egypt on my own, which I never thought I'd do, but it was great actually. I've flown a fair bit, but it's always nerve wracking so I like to plan ahead and get lots of magazines, a bottle of water and music to listen to. It makes all the waiting around so much easier.  I've flown to Romania and Sierra Leone for work and was amazed to find that you could still smoke on the flight to Romania (it was over ten years ago though).

Hubbie didn't go abroad for holidays as a child as his family were not keen to go overseas - ironically as they love travel now - so when we met we both indulged our love of travel together. It is lovely sharing photos of our adventures with our son as it's like telling him the story of our relationship through the special times and experiences we've shared. He likes to hear about where we've been and what we've seen.

Our first baseball game was amazing

When we had been together for a little while we decided to go on a trip to the US and spent two weeks in California staying in San Francisco and taking in our first baseball game - Hubbie is a big fan and his obsession with the Giants began at this game. We also visited Alcatraz, as I was working with prisons this was a bit of a busman's holiday, but still it was interesting. Especially the sign welcoming indians - how nice of them.

We walked the Golden Gate Bridge 

Good to know :)

We then took a road trip along Highway 101 taking in the Atlantic Ocean and Santa Monica, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. It was an epic trip for us and the best thing was that we spent 24 hours a day together and didn't fall out with each other once. I think we pretty much knew that we were compatible from this holiday on. My memories of this holiday are of driving along the ocean road listening to great music and being with a man who I loved spending time with.

Holidays have great memories for us and we like to mark occasions so while in Las Vegas Hubbie booked for us to go on a 'venetian gondola' for my birthday. I've never been to Venice so this was a very special treat indeed.

My first ever gondola trip in 'Venice' 

You see our holiday snaps are like a memory box of the significant moments and special milestones. as I mentioned I was a nervous flier and didn't enjoy flying anywhere, but would suffer it to get to the destination. Hubbie has a tactic that involves teasing that something genuinely is wrong with the plane that makes me forget my insane 'catastrophic thinking' and means I can go ahead an enjoy the holiday from the moment we are moving. Well, unless you're flying from Luton that is - nothing can make that a positive experience in my view ! The silver lining was that it was a surprise weekend break that Hubbie booked to Rome and while we were there he proposed ! It was just before the World Cup started as he says, he wanted to 'get it out of the way.' I know, what a gem eh ?

We just got engaged - yay !!

Well, I did marry him and both of us had wanted to go to New York for years so we booked a 6 day break for our honeymoon. It was late October so it was cold, but we visited all the touristy things, went up the Empire State building and even took a romantic carriage ride in Central Park with a driver who was pretending to be English until we said we were from London - then he became fiercely 'Noo Yawk' which was hilarious ! We flew into one airport and out of a different one - that was quite something with a 5am drop off on the way home. Still the holiday was worth it.

Central Park carriage ride

It was only a matter of time before we would visit India together and we planned it for ages to make the most of the long journey. As it was Hubbie's first trip he was incredibly patient with myriad relatives pawing him and commenting on how tall he was and marvelling, "Of course he's indian, he loves trains and loves indian food." I didn't have the heart to tell them that describes quite a lot of english people actually. Sharing my memories from childhood visits to India was magical and seeing how much Hubbie loved it was pretty special. The internal flights to get to far flung tourist locations was a revelation to me too - not least the snack boxes we were offered as compensation for flight delays :)

The Princess Diana pose 

So, there are memories of how me and Hubbie came to be Mr & Mrs and now we're creating new memories with junior. We've gone from this:

Supper Club in Amsterdam 

To this:

Watching the sea with my boy

Travelling as a family has been a completely different holiday experience for us, but no less fun. I was worried about flying with my son and he completely surprised me with his sense of adventure and willingness to go with the flow. In fact when we were disembarking the plane in Spain an older couple sitting across the aisle from us said they had no idea that there was a young child sitting with us as he'd been so good during the flight. I breathed a sigh of relief as my preparation had been so worthwhile.

From checking in Jiggles the bear with his own passport:

What a well travelled bear

To the fun of spotting all the other kids with Trunkis at the airport and comparing designs:

Hurry up Daddy !!

To keeping little man entertained on board the plane - thank goodness for tablets, headphones and seatbacks :) 

Keeping busy - and quiet

Finally visiting the cockpit and meeting the pilots - both there and back. Yes you can still do this and it's great fun for both little and big boys as I discovered ! 

Checking the charts

Proper steering 

We have graduated from holidaying as a couple to family vacations. We have some pretty great memories already, but my boy does look at these images and ask, 'where was I Mummy and Daddy ? Why couldn't I be there ?"

I want to be able to say, "Son, for the next big adventure we want to all be there." In two years it will be our tenth wedding anniversary and we want to take a trip to Hawaii to renew our wedding vows and learn to surf. To be able to celebrate our milestone anniversary and for our son to be there with us would be so special. I also have an ambition to put my feet in every ocean on the planet and so far I have managed the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic. Going to Hawaii I could tick off the Pacific from my list too.

With so many amazing memories already we are so very lucky. We hope to create many more memories that we can all be there for. Fingers crossed for Hawaii.

This post is an entry for the #Flying100 Family Holiday Challenge, celebrating how flying allows us to make memories and ‘be there’, in association with #Flying100. Find out more at http://bit.ly/flying100

It's not all sandalwood and sanskrit

It's always catches my attention when I hear a news story about somewhere I know and India has been in the news a fair bit at the moment. Firstly because the Prime Minister is there on a trade mission and secondly because of the growing media interest in women's rights in India following a brutal rape that caused the death of a student in Delhi.

The PM's visit to Amritsar today caused a flurry of Radio 4 consternation as he visited the memorial site of a massacre undertaken by the British in 1919 and the question was asked if he should apologise for this historical event. Hubbie and I have visited Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar and it is a moving tribute to the 379 demonstrators who were shot there by British soldiers. This one event was key in leading to India seeking total independence from the British and it is part of the Sikh 'tour' you do taking in the Golden Temple and the tribute to the 'martyrs'. Apologising with hindsight has become a standard following the belated apologies for Bloody Sunday and Hillsborough, but is it so much going through the motions ? Does the catholic church apologising for child abuse in any way reduce the suffering of those who experienced it ?

The handwringing about how women are treated in India comes in response to a vicious and brutal attack by a group of men on a woman and her boyfriend. Big questions are being asked about how women are viewed in indian society, but it's not like these are new questions or new issues. What is new is that people outside India are taking an interest where they previously thought it was none of their business or was culturally appropriate for women to be subjugated.

My parents are Indian by birth and I have visited a few times since I was a child. Both my parents went to university in India, they had an arranged marriage and my mother has always worked as well as raising a family of four children. They - like a lot of their contemporaries - have a vision of India that is preserved in aspic from the time they left. In their minds it is like a Bollywood movie starring Saira Banu and Dev Anand with a swinging soundtrack and colourful frocks as well as insane eyeliner and beehive hairdos.

On my visits to India I used to only stay with family so for years I didn't see how people other than my family lived. My educated, female dominated, feisty and hilarious family. I had no idea that outside the door was a culture where women were not permitted to go to school, to speak up or to talk to men in public. In recent years I've been to India as a 'tourist' and seen a whole other side to how women are treated.

While I can't comment on how the entire country operates I can recount my own experiences of women not being treated with respect as a matter of course. On our last visit to Bangalore where there is a culture of 'pubs' (what we would call a club) there was a disturbing new trend. Mobs of men would protest outside these pubs and drag women out who were drinking and smoking as a way of 'preserving indian culture.' There is so much about this that is wrong I don't know where to begin. Suffice it to say that the men who smoke, drink and associate with these 'bad women' aren't castigated or punished in any way.

India has always had a problem with honesty. It pretends to be a very moral society and yet young girls are forced to marry making paedophiles of their 'husbands.' There is a lie that says women are revered (separate seating on public transport, modest clothing is encouraged) yet men leering, propositioning or touching is considered acceptable. I recall being very uncomfortable being stared at as an 11 year old and my parents said to 'just ignore it' which is hard to do when you are still a child. There is also a culture of grown men being highly inappropriate with women and children which is overlooked as they are 'friends of the family.' In a society where respect for elders is more important than the right to personal space it is difficult to make a stand against what is essentially molestation.

I now travel to India with Hubbie and because he is not indian we are treated very differently. I do not expect to be harrassed by indian men as I did when I travelled with my sister or my mother. I recall how hilarious I found my auntie battering a man with her handbag for accidentally brushing her arm as he passed her in the street. Not all women are that bolshie and no woman should feel she cannot go out with her friends (male or female) or have a drink without fear of being attacked.

India wants to be seen as a powerhouse in the world of IT and trade. Women go to university, work alongside men and run businesses that trade internationally. Yet the movie business still portrays women as either sexual objects or mothers. The Karma Sutra outsells the Bhagvad Gita the world over. Girls are treated as second class citizens and left to die in their millions by poor families who cannot afford to pay a dowry, despite this practice being prohibited since 1961. This is in a country that had a female Prime Minister before the UK.

It would appear that India is now being pressured to deal with its schizophrenic attitude to women and girls. Until half the population are treated as something like equals I'm ashamed to say I can't be proud of my indian roots.

The migratory pattern of the tea drinking blogger

My show today was about international migrants' day which is tomorrow. It made me think about the reasons that people choose to leave their home country and live somewhere else. For my parents it was aspirational (well for my Mother it was to join her husband who had already settled over here). For others it is to escape a regime that they don't support or cannot live with for their own safety.

A childhood friend of mine moved to Australia last year after planning the move for around 5 years. I admire the bravery it takes to move your family and start a new life in a different country. I love the idea of living somewhere else, but the move from West London to South London was so traumatic for me at first that I think I'm a long way off from realistically emigrating anywhere. I love some countries that I've visited, but there are drawbacks to living there. Nothing as important as not being able to get Marmite (which you can in most places now) but the trivial things that I've learned are important to me :

You cannot get salad cream in Romania - on a visit to a colleague she asked for some and was presented with 8 bottles (one from each guest) which kept her going until she came home again.

Tea is awful in America - in fact Liptons is only sold outside the UK and it's not good. They do a nice line in hippie teas, but not a good old fashioned proper cuppa.

It's pretty much impossible to buy tampons in India. I have tried over the years and can only surmise that it's a morality issue and the final frontier for sanitary product manufacturers.

Plumbing in Greece can't take toilet tissue (seriously after all these years still ?) I just can't imagine living somewhere where you keep used tissues in the bin next to the loo. Eugh !!

The cuisine in Cuba is inedible. Yes they have universal healthcare and education for all, but no food of note (the alcohol is good though). How did Hemingway cope ?


I'd love to live in Vancouver. It's been rated as one of the best places in the world to live and has clean air, a thriving Sikh community and fabulous skiing an hour away. The honest truth is if I don't see my family for a few weeks I miss them terribly. They drive me crazy after a few minutes of seeing them, but if I couldn't just make the decision to visit, if it took a flight and weeks of planning to see them I'd struggle.

So for now I won't worry about uprooting and moving away.

Oh and I'll call my mother.

The circle of life (without Sir Elton singing)

Two years ago someone who I loved very much passed away and on the same day someone came into my life who I love more than I know how to express.

A face only a Naniji would love

My beloved Naniji was the only grandparent I ever knew. She lived far away in India so I only saw her every few years, so my Mum used to send her photos of us all growing up. When I visited her aged 11 she had all my school photos and many others I'd never seen before that she kept lovingly in her special cupboard of valuables.

Even though I didn't see her often she was still the person I consulted on the big decisions in my life. It's from my Naniji that I get my love of tea - she never turned down a brew and teatime was a big deal in her house. Snacks, cakes, biscuits, savouries, etc. all laid out with endless cups of tea. This was all just a few hours before dinner !

I trusted her and found her wise, sassy and hilarious. Once during a family visit to a Rajastani palace we turned round to ask her a question and she'd raced on ahead of us to make sure she didn't miss the tour. She was in her late seventies and faster than all of us.

When Hubbie and I were struggling to have a baby she talked to me honestly, openly and without judgement. Despite her speaking no English and Hubbie speaking no Punjabi they watched cricket together enraptured and in complete agreement. She wandered off again when we'd gone out shopping one day only to be found over an hour later in a coffee shop watching the big screen with local lads who were fussing over 'Ma-ji' and arguing with her assertion that India would win until she was proven right yet again.

She was fearless and held her own with anyone. As a young woman she went away to study with the support of her husband who took care of the children while she trained to become a teacher. This was unheard of at that time and in that culture. In her subsequent career she taught in a small village school bringing education to children who would not have gone to school otherwise and retired as a headteacher and widow.

My Naniji was one of the lads, the matriarch and the cheekiest person in the room all at once. She adored ice cream and loved nothing more than making her children and grandchildren laugh. It is that cheekiness that I see in my son's eyes and the smile he has when he's getting away with something. I'm delighted that Naniji knew I was having a son. The obvious Asian preference for boys aside, we have a lot more women in our family so he was the first boy in a long time. The fact that she passed away as he was being born is far too poignant to bear. 

The proudest Naniji in the world

When I spoke to my Mum in India from the hospital bed she told me that everyone was so delighted about my boy. She couldn't wait to meet him and I desperately wanted her to see him before anyone else. I didn't know that Naniji was gone at this point, but everyone else did. When Mum told me all I could say was how sorry I was - I felt responsible for her losing her mother so that I could have my son.  She insisted that the whole family felt joy for his life instead of sadness for her death. 

Mum returned two weeks later and we surprised her at the airport with her new grandson. Their meeting was belated, but no less magical for being in the arrivals lounge of Heathrow. Now the mantle of Naniji belongs to my Mother and she wears it every bit as well as hers did. 

In the moments that my son is willful and argumentative (which are becoming more frequent the older he gets) I have to stop myself being angry and see him for the strong and independent soul he is. There are photos of him in which I see my Naniji's expressions - it's uncanny. 

I'm not asking anyone else to believe in reincarnation or Karma. For my part I believe that my Naniji leaving us was a Karmic exchange that gave me my precious boy. I know she would have loved him beyond measure and I hope he adores and values his Naniji as much as I did mine. 

Have a wonderful birthday son xxx