English | Indian
My parents speak quite openly about the struggles when they started their relationship and how their cultures integrated, both my parents are very in-touch, open-minded people and I really admire how they’re still open to learning and questioning about each other’s cultures. The first time they both went out to India, my Papa's Mother had died three days previously; my Mum was told not to touch my Papaji as he would be grieving and out of respect you should avoid physical touch, but as soon as they met, he held my Mother’s hand and gave her a big hug. I think this beautiful human interaction told me a lot about my family and their openness, kindness and generosity & I think gave my Mother a feeling of grounding in what seemed to be quite a difficult and overwhelming time.
My Father was often the victim of racial abuse and walking around as a family I never felt safe. Around the age of seven our house became a target of racial abuse, and it became unsafe for us to stay living there, we relocated but the process and trauma from that experience had a huge knock-on effect on the confidence of both my parents and my sister and I, who were both still learning and figuring out our experiences and sense of belonging as mixed-race people. Various experiences of racial abuse, confusion and isolation as a young person meant that I felt quite detached and somewhat ashamed of my heritage.
Being in the music world, particularly ‘Western classical’ music can sometimes feel culturally isolating, I’m often in predominantly White spaces and sometimes predominantly White and male spaces, bringing up conversations surrounding race and identity in these spaces is sometimes tricky. I feel it’s important to discuss and I keep an open-mind when opening up these conversations, I definitely feel that whilst it’s challenging to have these conversations about my experience as a mixed person; it’s really helpful in gauging how to move forward within the music-world.
Recently amazing conversations have been opened up in this sector and it’s really exciting to feel enabled to question systemic issues within the industry.
Sign up to Patreon or Subscribe to our website to read more stories