Should I miss being a coconut?

Should I miss being a Coconut?

It has been a full year since I have become a full desi “Brown” boy.
You must be asking yourself what I was before, the answer is a Coconut. I was only really “brown” because of my skin color, and let’s be honest even that brown is faint, but the rest of me was very much North American. Sure, I know that I am Hindu-Punjabi, what part of the Punjab I come from, heck I even know the name of the village, but it was only important to me because I wanted to know my heritage. Yes, I can speak both Hindi and Punjabi. True I mix them both up and don’t really speak my mother tongue very often, but hey I grew up in Regina Saskatchewan aside from my family who else was I going to talk to?
Still, I wasn’t very “Indian” “Brown” or “Desi”. Sure I watched Bollywood films but only really enjoyed them until I was 16, I mean how many different versions of the same love story can I watch? I get it Love conquers all now lets sing and Dance about it. Truth is I didn’t even hang out with a lot of South Asian Boys or Girls. The Boys always wanted to show off and if that wasn’t enough they always were ready to prove how tough they were. (This is something I still see in Van). The Girls always too harsh for me, very quick to cut you down, and only liked you when you had something tangible to give them. (Years later Tangible became Money, Car, and a House. Lets be honest everyone wants that, but I think some of my Desi Sisters put too much onus on that. Ladies all men want the best for the people they love.) So for all these factors I distanced myself from hanging out with “my own kind”.
I was happy to hang out with my white friends and being the “token brown guy” or partying with my multicultural crew, the Persian brothers, my Black homies, and Asian cousins. Yet some how deep inside me I always felt like I was missing out. My Mother and Father who feared their oldest son didn’t like being “Brown” strengthened this feeling.
However, this all changed when I moved to lovely Vancouver BC, and my “Browness” was not spoon feed to me, but rather shoved down my throat. At times if feels like that overnight I was surrounded by “my own kind”. At first I was overjoyed, my own people like me, I mean they really really liked me, but unbenounced to me I was about to learn what being apart of “my own kind” means.
I do not want to talk about our colorful clothes, the Bollywood Flare, the joy of being from India, and I do not want to talk about our rich Indian heritage. I am talking about what it is to be “Brown” and what it has come to mean to me.
So what does being “Brown” mean?
Being Brown means knowing everyone’s business, that’s right we need to have as much information as we can about another person so that we can either A) Use it to our advantage or B) Tell every single person we know about what is happening in another person’s life. There is no such thing as keeping a secret, in fact I can almost promise you the next time you hang out with your brown friends they will already know what you are about to tell them, they’re just gonna act like it’s the first time they have heard of it.
Being Brown means being friends with people you don’t necessarily like (I know for a fact some people think of me this way). This is something that is universal, but since I have become a brown boy many of my own kind have told me how they don’t care for that person or don’t trust someone whom they have been friends with for years. Why do we do this? Because it wouldn’t be very Brown of us to tell another person how much we don’t like them. We just make them our friends and give them back handed compliments for years and years or try and one up each other continuously (Oh you bought a house? I’m building one). That is the Brown way.

Being “Brown” means living at home with your family. It doesn’t matter if you can live on your own. It is not very “Brown”. For the brown people who live away from their families, they most likely moved to this city and don’t have any close relatives to live with. Then there are the few Brown people who do have their own place but still manage to “visit” home every moment they get the chance.
Being Brown means being coddled by our parents. Mommy and Daddy do everything for us. We complain that we aren’t allowed to live our own lives, but we still don’t do anything about it. Why? Because many of our parents don’t really know who we are, we put on a masks and still act like children. Why? Because it is easier. We already have pressure from our parents. I mean, have you ever heard this, When will you be finished school? Are you going to be a Doctor, Engineer, or Teacher? When are you getting married? When are you having Kids? Why doesn’t your wife respect me? Why is your husband so lazy? Why don’t you listen to me anymore?
Why the hell would we want our parents to tell us what else we are doing wrong?
Even if you rose to the challenge and changed your family dynamic, by breaking down barriers that wouldn’t be very “Brown”.
Being Brown means seeing difference in our own Culture. How many Brown people have I met that have almost certainly asked me one major question, “What are you?
Are you Sikh? Hindu? Muslim?
This question also has sub questions.
What caste are you? What part of India are you from?
Punjab?
What part? Etc.
In Regina all I ever needed to tell someone was that I was from India and that was it. In Vancouver every Brown person I have met needs to know my family lineage. (This happens wherever there is a larger brown population)
The funny thing is I spent my whole life being Brown, but when I moved to Vancouver I found out I can be the wrong kind of Brown.
Being Brown means dating your own Brown kind. For me that means Brown Girls.
I personally believe that only a brown woman can assess if she will marry you or not without having to go on a single date with you.
How?
You see, when a Brown girl like you, you don’t date. She calls you, she calls you anywhere from 3 to 10 times in a day. If she likes you she will text you every chance she can get and none of those text will have any real importance, but you damn well better text her back. However, the Brown Girl will not date you.
Oh no!
For you see she is only trying to get to know you.
She will call you every night and keep you up for hours, but when you ask her out she will tell you she is very busy. Even though if you added up how much you have talked on the phone it would equal out to 3 dates. Don’t get me wrong if she does like you she will hang out with you…but for coffee.
And you are not on a date.
This is where things get interesting. For you see, a brown girl is great at sending sexy or flirty texts she might even be very seductive on the phone, but she will treat you like you are selling her insurance when you hang out with her. It is solely a transaction, a coffee or in most cases tea transaction that will end with her giving you a platonic hug and if you are lucky she may let you kiss her on the cheek. When she leaves and you are left standing there thinking, “what the fuck just happened?” She well text you to tell you how cute you are and that she had a good time.
Ok serious time.
Now I have a sister I am aware first hand about how hard it is for a South Asian Woman.
The Rules for a Female in our culture are highly unfair and need to change. Many women have sacrificed their own happiness for the sake of family. Many women have stifled their own growth as human beings so that they do not disappoint there families,
But ladies why do you have to make a Brown Boy’s life so miserable?
I understand that many of you are under a lot of stress you were most likely hurt by your first love, or you had a boyfriend that treated you horribly. However, the truth is ladies that your first love and that douche bag of an X-boyfriend are still going to get married and have babies. In fact they will marry a woman who feels exactly like you, how can this happen you ask? Simple, because many of you girls will walk all over every brown guy you meet after you have been crushed. You will always be quick to focus on what they don’t have or what quality they posses that remind you of any negative man that has been a part of your life. This will make you believe that every Brown guy you know is an Asshole (Except your Brother(s)). Then you will turn around and marry your cousin’s friends brother or some Brown guy who lives in another city, but guess what they are brown guys too. They just get the leg up because now “they come from a good family” or “they aren’t like any other brown guy you’ve met.” You know why, because you are giving them a real chance.


Maybe I have said too much, yes I could even be out of line. Yet the beauty of my culture is slowly becoming a thin see through veil covering an ugly truth. We need to change.
If we come from India and live in Canada then what are we?
Did our ancestors always try to segregate from one another or where they trying to evolve into something more? What was Krishna try to teach us? What was Kabir preaching? Did Guru Nanak Dev want this?

When I was a coconut I did not tolerate racism or prejudice, heck I even proudly called myself a feminist.
Unfortunately now that I am brown I have to see difference in my culture, not simply to respect or to admire, but to keep away from. I have to know if the guy I am talking to is Jatt Punjabi. If I like a Brown girl I have to find out if she can date a Hindu-Punjabi regardless of whether she likes me or not. Everyone needs to know what I am worth and not the person that I am. I am not ashamed of my Indian Heritage or where I come from. When I was a coconut of course there were setbacks, none of my non-brown friends took the time to learn my own cultural ways, I was simply regarded as ethnic, there was no Punjabi Market, no Raj cinema, no Bollywood dancing, and I didn’t have all the lovely brown friends.
Still, when I was a coconut there was more to me then what side of the river I was from.


M Sharma
(if this has offended anyone that was not my intent, but if it made you feel something I will take it)