American Born, British Born, Canadian Born but still Desi

I consider myself a bit of a wanderer. Having lived in London, England for three years and living in New York for the last three, I consider myself fairly well versed in Western culture. But as the article title might suggest, I really dont want to discuss the pros and cons of western culture. What has really fascinated me over these last six years has been the evolution of "Desis" and the "Desi culture" in Western countries.

I always firmly believed that when two rich cultures were brought together, you would get synergies whereby the best qualities of both cultures would be seen in the person. Why is it so then that when you meet an average desi, born and brought up in America, you see a dress sense, taste in music, and general appearnace inspired by Afro Americans and regional hatred and arrogance, crookery, and deceit inspired seeking inspiration from the desi culture. Thus making my initial hypothesis fall flat on its face.

What always intrigues me is to see a mass of desis in New Yorks infamous desi parties. You meet all sorts of personalities. Let me just talk about a few of them and highlight a few typical conversations.......

First this guy walks up to me, wearing extremely baggy jeans, earrings in both ears, a big glass of scotch in hand and ofcourse wearing a big gold Allah chain. "Yo where are you from bro?" I turn around and tell him that I am from Pakistan. He then asks me whether I am a FOB (Fresh off the boat) or born and raised in America. Having just been given these two illustrious categories, I tell him that I am a FOB. He then starts blurting out how he is getting older now and wants to give up his ways and go to Pakistan and get an arranged marriage with someone from his fathers village. He then see's a friend of his, who walks up to us and he introduces her to me. She happens to be from India, Bengal to be more precise. She starts talking to me and tells me that even though she is from Bengal, she can not speak a word of Bengali. She seems to be extremely proud of that. "All Bengali guys are ugly, I want to go out with a good looking Punjabi guy", she tells me.

Now, a comment like that has always surprised me, specially coming from a person who claims to have no links to India. What does she know about Punjab, let alone Punjabi men. While I stand listening to her, a fight breaks out right behing me. I see three guys throwing punches at this fairly large desi guy. I ask the girl what is going on. She tells me that two rival gangs, the Medina Boys and Punjabi By Nature, are fighting it out. Two big bouncers walk in and the fight gets broken up. The Bengali girl keeps talking to me. She then spots a friend and tells me that she must introduce me to her. She whispers that her friend is originally from Pakistan, and is a permanent fixture at desi parties, but happens to be a Maulana's daughter who does hijab during day. By now I feel like I have seen enough, say good bye and leave.

I always thought that leaving Pakistan and heading out West I had left hypocrisy behind me. I thought that the desi's living abroad would have the best of both worlds. Unfortunately, as I said earlier, they have acquired the worst!!!