Our Culture, Our Beliefs, Our Identity

On Saturday, Karan and Shalu performed at IndiaFest 2012 here in Raleigh. Oh what a blast!

Shalu performed a Bharatnatyam Dance. This was her first HUGE performance. She did great! She was nervous at first, but at the end she was so excited!

 Karan performed the Finale of the performances right before the concert (which I will get into later) with his amazing Bhangra Team--Gajjdi Jawani. Words can't express their performance. I just can't ever get enough of these kids! AAAHH! I love watching them every time! :) :)

Meiyang Chang on stage

At the end of the night, Meiyan Chang performed. Chang was the 5th place runner-up of Indian Idol 3 and also won Jhalak Dikhlaja (India's version of Dancing with the Stars). I liked him a lot! He seemed like a very fun-loving and friendly person. I loved his voice and enjoyed each of his songs A LOT!

With so much going on the past few months with Karan & Shalu's dance events and practices, I've been thinking a lot about our Indian Culture and how important it is to pass it down generation to generation. Last month, we were at one of Karan's Bhangra competitions and before the start of every performance, one person from the team would have to take the microphone and sing a few lines in Punjabi. These were all young college  kids, so around the age of 18-22. Even the MC's for that night (also the same age range), spoke some things in Punjabi or Hindi and did such a magnificent job! I was just so amazed at the fact that these kids even knew how to speak Punjabi, let alone sing in Punjabi in Public!!

 I saw these kids singing on stage and it just felt absolutely wonderful how they had brought our culture to life, but at the same time, I couldn't stop thinking: How much longer will we see performances like this?  How much longer will we hear performances like this? How much longer will our culture last?

As we were growing up, we were NEVER allowed to speak in English at family gatherings in front of my Grandfather. Yes, I was born in USA as well as MOST of my cousins, but we all spoke in Hindi. We had no choice. He would yell at us and sometimes even slap us if he heard English words come out of our mouth! Because of his strictness, we were able to keep SO SO MUCH of our Indian culture alive! And words can't express how Thankful I am!

Today, because of what my grandfather instilled in me, Karan & Shalu both understand Hindi and can speak it also. I must admit, they are not perfect at it, but neither am I. Ever since we started homeschooling, most of our Hindi has gone down hill, because we speak in English most of the day when doing school work. However, we have still kept Hindi alive in my children. I must emphasize how important it is that kids SPEAK their native language, not only understand it. If they can not speak it, then there is no way they can pass it down to the next generation.

In our home,we also celebrate as many Indian Holidays as possible even if it is something as simple as staying home and doing some pooja with just the 4 of us and/or cooking something traditional :) I also regularly cook Indian food and don't give my kids choices about whether they will eat it or not. LOL! ;) We go to the Temple whenever possible and keep them involved in Indian Activities, such as dance and music :)  I have no family here in NC so it is very, very difficult to do all of this, but I don't give myself a choice.

Rakhshabandan 2011

Henna at IndiaFest 2012

If everyone starts forgetting our language today, then tomorrow they will forget our food, our dance, our music, our festivals, our families......OUR CULTURE! We will forget who we are and where we came from...

Passing on our culture and beliefs should NOT be a choice. We have to show patience and constantly remind our children over and over and over again to speak our language, to celebrate in our language, to eat in our language, to dance in our language, to sing in our language. For this is who WE are, this is who THEY are, this is who OUR kids will be, and this is who THEIR kids will be! This is who our past was, our present is, and OUR future will be.....

Most Importantly, we should ALWAYS be open to learning about all the cultures around the world and appreciate everyone for who they are. Each and every one of us has a unique Culture and we each deserve to be loved.

Cherish your culture and keep it alive because it is one of the most important ways to create Moments which become Memories...