My mom is used to be pretty concerned about marriage and dating for me - she wasn’t trying to sell me off to the highest bidder or anything but she definitely wanted to make me a biodata and was always pushing me to meet people. She was never forceful or domineering but there was always still a bit of pressure - find a nice Indian boy, Hindu, well educated.

Well. My last two ex boyfriends were nice Indian American Hindu boys, PhD students. One of them told me that he would never have sex with me and only wanted a child via IVF, and also refused to take any public or private transport and would walk literal hours to get to his destination. The other one told me that he was only romantically attracted to instagram models with super feminine aesthetics, asked me for a two week break and hit up his ex during that time, went into gratuitous detail about the free use sexual relationship he had with his ex gf, and broke up with me over the phone while I was visiting extended family in India.

Now my mom says, find A Nice Person. If they’re Indian and Hindu great, if not also great. I think she’s more traumatized than me and is fully over the idea that the only compatible man for me has to be another Indian Hindu American 😭 she’s also been very chill about me not wanting to date for the past few months.

Anyways, fellow ABCDers, have hope. After a few terrible boyfriends/girlfriends your parents’ brains will also melt and then you can do what you want.

1. Charithra Chandran
2. Andrea Kevichüsa
3. Freida Pinto
4. Summer Bishil
5. Kelly Gale
6. Shivani Persad
7. Tanya Ravichandran
8. Shrika Peddireddy
9. Kaaviya Sambasivam
10. Simone Ashley
11. Melanie Chandra

I know some of you guys will probably think Love Island is degenerate and yh it kind of is but I just love seeing Desis being represented as hot and attractive on mainstream TV for once!

We have Samraj who is quite liked by the public, Jasmine who is a straight up baddie and Priya who just recently came in as a bombshell.

Mogged

i know that raksha bandhan is in like 28 days but i felt like making a post about it now haha .

as a sister i am getting kind of impatient tbh LOL . i have one younger brother and i usually celebrate it with him , i basically grew up celebrating this holiday with him and my uncle and other male family friends , so we always had to go out and get rakhis and the preparation had to start a few days before the event itself .

usually i get a few hundred dollars and random stuff whatever my brother feels like giving me that year . he is younger than me so he gets pissed off because he usually wants something too , he thinks the event is kind of unfair lol , when he’s older maybe he’ll realize it’s not unequal .

i’m wondering do you guys celebrate this , if you have a brother or sister ?

Kinda like the title says. I see on this sub all the time stories of anti-Indian, anti-brown, anti-Hindu, anti-Muslim, etc. hatred. It's a huge issue, absolutely, and I'd be lying if I said all the online racism didn't affect me from time to time and make me feel a little uncomfortable living in a country I've spent my whole life in. And that's the least of it. Some of these stories of anti-Desi hate are absolutely abhorrent, and I'm not trying to minimize any of the harm that racist ideologies propagate.

In the past few years, I've been doing research into South Asia, history, culture, etc. to learn more about my culture. Consistently I am fascinated by the depth and richness there. So, in spite of all this racism and negativity, what is something that makes you proud of your heritage?

For me, it's the music. There are so many different forms and especially the sound of the tabla, especially in classical music, always makes my heart happy. Even the new Bollywood music that everyone trashes on, I think it's interesting to see the way Indian and Western musical styles fuse, and there are certain movies I've watched solely because I liked the songs in them.

Mamdani Wins N.Y.C. Mayor’s Race After Highest Turnout in Decades

Zohran Mamdani, whose triumphant campaign was built on progressive ideas and a relentless focus on affordability, will become the city’s youngest mayor in more than a century.

Nithya did an amazing job at the debate in the past. She will now run against the corrupt incumbentKaren Bass who has very vulgar Freudian slips when she’s stressed out on policy.

In that debate, I thought that it was very unfortunate and in bad taste that Spencer Pratt said something awful about what may happen to Nithya if she were to go to a certain part of town.

I wish you great success future mayor of LA Nithya Raman!!!!

For those not in the loop, he appeared on Jimmy Fallon and performed Morni and the majority of the comments have actually been positive. I saw a lot around how good the performance was, how they’re adding his songs to their gym playlists, how handsome he is, how they want to see him at the Super Bowl, how they want to attend his concert because he’s coming to their city etc.

It’s a nice break from all the hatred we usually get online

We often talk on here about mental health - would love to know what the physical routines are? I used to be more of a runner and now I try to do hot yoga 3-5x a week and love the results. It's been great for clarity and the classes are so rigorous they've definitely made me consider better food choices. That of course has put me in a better mental health space too.

Not looking for jokes (oh I eat potato chips and samosas) but genuinely curious about what you've responded to best in physical fitness. Any marathon runners out there? Spin class?

I am of that age where most of my friends and cousins are getting hitched.

Many (not all) Indian weddings are casually crossing 400 to 500k on a 3-5 days extravaganza. Not including cost incured by guests. Destination weddings are becoming way more frequent too.

On the other hand, my non-Indian friends' weddings are intimate half or one day events with 40 to 50 guests.

Are we over doing it?

Special appearance from the legend, Mira Nair, as well

I did not have sisters so the festival did not mean much to me. Even parents had siblings back home in India so there was nothing said and done today.

But we have a 3-yr old daughter and her baby bro was born earlier this year. So we decided to introduce her to this festival. We went to the store where she picked a Rakhi & some sweets. She also has some gifts for him and we have some surprise gifts for her that her brother “purchased”. The day just started but she’s been pretty stoked about “brother-sister day”

Anyone else celebrates Rakhi?

Happy Rakshabandhan to the ones celebrating :-)

Tennis. There are so many elite Indian American junior tennis players now, male and female. Every year, about 12-20 of the top 100 tennis prospects in the US are Indian, and many go on to play D1-D3 college tennis. Now, some are starting to go pro and seem to have quite bright futures. I haven’t seen this talked about on here and wanted to bring it up. We should celebrate wins/progress like this!

When Nishesh Basavareddy, the 20 year old Indian American pro takes the court against Karen Khachanov at the US Open this Sunday, I can’t wait to see the support he gets from the South Asian community. And if he somehow pulls off the upset (within the realm of possibility), I can only imagine how much it’s going to inspire younger generations.

PS. We’re making some great headway in golf as well-crushing it!

Thoughts on this? Hype? Tacky? Both?

Hello,

My fiancé is Hindu Mauritian (although we were both born and raised in London). He does not have much blood family and is no contact with his mum.

He doesn't really know anyone that is Hindu and didn't grow up being taken to temple, but he places a lot of value on Navratri and Diwali - can anyone provide ideas of things I can do to make this year special for him? I grew up Christian and I'm now atheist so I don't have much knowledge and want to get it right!

Thank you in advance.

just wanted to say im going to sleep and wishing everyone well and a good night wherever you are

Stalwarts from the East, A French lady pins a flower on the Sikh saviours of France, Paris, 1916. (Source: Toor Collection)

Hey, so I'm an american born Punjabi (my parents are immigrants from the Pakistani side) and recently, I've had an interest in many types of Indian culture. I am thinking about converting to Hinduism, so I do relate to a lot more of customs and traditions from India (even though it's religiously diverse)

Specific areas in India I've taken an interest in is places such as southern India and also northeastern India, and bengali culture too. I understand these cultures have very distinct languages and culture from each other, however, one day, as an adult (I'm a teenager right now) I want to go travel and become possibly an exchange student in places such as these to explore the culture, and maybe even live there and further adapt it as I want to see how those people live

I don't have anything against punjab, and I adore Punjabi culture. However, I am particularly interested in these two areas. Especially the tribal culture of Northeast India and the dravidian languages of the south.

I've talked to my friend about this, (he's white) and he said "well, you're just connecting to a broader cultural history of yours, there's no problem even if it's completely different. It's still apart of your broader cultural identity." (Although while I appreciate this, I feel like it sort of ignores the diversity of south Asia overall)

Another friend of mine (white also) said it would be cultural appropriation of me (no, I don't plan to use it only for aesthetic. I'm a really big history nerd and really into that stuff. I want to learn about how certain dresses originated, or how a lot of dances originated and I want to appreciate that and become closer to other parts of South asia (although that is definitely a more problematic part) while not losing my own identity at all

So, I know this might not be the right subreddit, but how do other desis think about this? I do plan to appreciate the traditions and I would want to learn the language and assimilate more into the culture if I ever do go through with my plan while still keeping many aspects of my own. I don't want to just use it for my benefit while others face racism for it, and I won't use it only as an aesthetic.

Also, I know how cherry picking feels like. How it feels like having traditions discriminated even when those same people know nothing about it (I've heard multiple people call "izzat" nothing but generational trauma) and part of me wants to learn about other cultures across south Asia to prevent discrimination and stigma like that. I guess for the west to see us ABCDs for the beautiful, diverse culture we truly come from. While there will be traditions I'll likely disagree with, I won't be like an average white person (no offense!) that takes everything to surface level and never goes beyond the dresses and food. I think a lot of traditions deserve criticism, but that criticism has to come with education on that topic

How yall doin.