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Hindi Lesson

Desi - South Asian Descent

Vedashi - Foreigner

Kya maal hai - What a babe

doodh- milk

The Vedas are the sacred, primary texts of Hinduism.

A kurta pajama is traditional dress for men in India—the kurta is a long shirt that usually goes down to the knees and the pajama is the pants.

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Beginnings for a Desi in America

From Desi to Vedashi

By Sameer Handa

Yes, I am the shy guy in the corner of the social event. Yes, I am the guy who has the mustache that has an extra hair or two growing on the left side, and yes, I am the guy who still has the Rajnikant hairstyle. By the way, I am also the guy who nods his head like a bobble head doll when confronted with a pleasant smile. I am also the guy who starts every new conversation with the age-old Desi question, “So, what do you do here?”

In case you have not guessed who I am by now--I am the guy that your mummy jiwould love.

But I must also tell you I am the guy who might make your friends look at you funny.

I think you know me. I am the guy who stood behind you in that very long line on Dupont Circle waiting for my turn to get into the Promised Land.

I am the one who stood behind you with my friend as we both glanced with that all too familiar Kya maal haiat each girl passing by, simply because none of us had the courage to go up and talk to her.

When I left for America mummy told me, "Beta,ABCD girls are from America and we Desisare from India.”

Not quite sure what she meant by that.

Did she mean that a Desi girl would bring doodhto me while I watched TV? Did she think my life would be cushy if I were to end up with a Desi girl? Does she mean that if I were with a Desi girl we would all live happily together in a big house? Mummy said, “ABCD girls are too American.”

Mummy also sometimes says, “A Desi girl will raise the children with the right Indian values."

Sometimes I wonder, am I destined to do things simply because generations before may have done so?

Yes, I am frustrated. How do I tell her that I hate the terms “too American” and “right Indian values”? How do I tell her that if she puts on CK Cologne, sips a Coca-Cola, and wants her son to go to America, being “too American” can’t be all that bad?

Perhaps I should ask her to give me a checklist of “good Indian values”--that way I will know what "too American" really means, because now I can only speculate.

Is it enjoying a good Cosmopolitan? Or is it smoking a cigarette? Or is it something more basic than that? Was the term “too American?” invented by a culture too steeped in tradition and afraid to disrupt the status quo? Does being “too American” mean not succumbing to things simply because generations before have, or is it the ability to question things? Is it the ability to appreciate both the East and the West?

How do I tell her that I refuse to be a cultist in nature? I will question things.

I will not follow or do things blindly.

I will, I will--refuse to be a mommy’s boy.

I want to find out how “Desi” I am and how “American” ABCD women are.

After all, that’s what an ABCD girl would want of me. Or, perhaps, this is what I want of me. Am I a juro ka gulam or an independent man? (Juro ka gulam is a man who pays extra special attention to his woman. Yes, I absolutely agree with you--a man can never pay too much attention to his woman.)

To fulfill my quest, do I really have to stop wearing my tennis shoes with my jeans or do I have to buy the $80.00 shirt from Express? Will I have to buy the $70.00 cologne and the $110.00 shoes and put some gel in my hair? Will I have to change these things and become someone I'm not? Am I really this guy I am trying to become, or am I the guy who I am trying to hide away from the world?

If being a little reserved at first, playing the visual draw before coming out and saying hello to a woman, makes me a Desi, perhaps I prefer to be a Desi.

If walking up to a stranger and making them smile in a very short time makes me an ABCD, perhaps I am already there.

If enjoying a Hindi movie tune or two makes me Desi, perhaps I prefer to be that.

Or if enjoying a good scotch and dancing to bhangra mixed with Jay Z makes me way too American, then I am too American.

To find this out I will put up with numerous, “Sorry I have a boyfriend” replies and the laughter of the ABCD Girl posse.

The day came when I made up my mind that “Steve” was the last fake boyfriend I was going to compete with. With that resolve in mind, having let go of my fear of rejection, when I heard Steve’s name again, I almost instinctively replied, “Hey Lady! I have a boyfriend too…I just happen to cheat on him with girls.”

I knew that I had turned the Desi corner, and now I was on a straight (no pun intended) road to ABCD’dom.

I might have never gotten to the point where I could approach and be myself with ABCD women if it weren’t for Kay, a woman who I once dated. She helped me dream the “Amriki dream”--a house with a picket fence and a big white fluffy dog named Shaka running in the backyard. She finally made me realize what it means to be a good mix of east and west, she made me aware of who I really am: a guy who came to this country fifteen years ago and somehow become the guy he longed to become.

A guy who lost his mustache but is still well aware of the four Vedas.

A guy who went from ordering a Miller Lite to a guy who orders Bombay Sapphire martinis.

A guy who still wears his sneakers and his jeans because GQ says so, but wears his kurta pajamato Target.

A guy who still respects his mummy ji but grew up enough to move to out of her house and to a different state.

Sameer Handa, 31, works as a senior software programmer at a Hotel Management company. In his spare time he likes to write and pontificate on a variety of subjects.