Owning my stink

Yes, stink is what I have been told it is. That when Indian food is being cooked, it stinks up the corridors of apartment buildings. And that as tenants in the western world, we must abide by the unwritten, yet often spoken rule to limit ethnic cooking.

Now, I am not going to poll or invite a debate on whether or not the spice smell is palatable. But as a health coach, I do want to state unequivocally that spices have innumerous health benefits.

At Her Shakti, my audience is primarily immigrant, international (south asian) or first generation American. One of the topics that comes up often is Spices. And how to use them smartly to get healthy. And why owning this wisdom or so called “stink” can do wonders for our health. Unfortunately, for some of us, it has taken the trending “golden latte” aka Turmeric milk sold in posh cafes to acknowledge our Grandma’s wisdom on Spices.

A slight, but important digression, to provide context:

With the much needed Black Lives Matter movement ongoing in the United States, I am also beginning to see another parallel trend. POC (People of Color), specifically south asians standing up for their black brothers and sisters and showing up in a manner, I have personally never seen before. Us South Asians, both as immigrants and as first generation Americans are typically a neutral party. We are not found protesting on streets. Even in the peaceful ones. This time though, it was different.

For many south asians, it started to become personal. Slowly and surely, the stories came out. And interestingly many of these stories were about intolerance toward our ethnic food. It was used as grounds for racism. For treating us differently.

And so despite some hesitation, I felt called to share my story. Or rather two specific instances of subtle and overt racism over spices, during my immigrant journey in the United States.

Important to call out, that any racism experienced by south asians or POC such as myself, can in no way be compared to the multi-century oppression endured by our black sisters and brothers. Ultimately, what I gathered from all the internet chatter among south asians was — We get it.

Through repressed emotions born out of a history of colonialism, we have been triggered too. And we want to do our part of listening, learning, protesting and not settling until we have justice.

“Justice for George Floyd” and so many more names.

October 2004 : Dancing with a bowl of curry

I was new to this country. Here for my graduate program in Computer Science at the University of Delaware. If you know me, you know that I love to dance. And so, before even registering for core classes for my graduate program, I instead scoped out dance lessons offered to students. There were Salsa dance classes being taught in the University on weekday evenings. I was thrilled.

Eager to learn some salsa moves, I showed up. The classes were typical, where you switch partners in a round robin manner. One of the guys who I was partnered with while dancing asked me politely, “Did you just have dinner?”. I said “No, it is only 6:00 pm. Too early for dinner.” And to that he replied while smiling.

“It feels as if I am dancing with a bowl of curry”.

My initial thought. Oh how funny! I should laugh. I did giggle awkwardly. I thought maybe he liked me. Or was flirting. And that maybe it was a compliment of some sort. The next few thoughts. Embarrassment. I wanted to hide. I wondered if my jacket was left near the kitchen in the living area.

All I wanted to hear from the instructor was “Next!”. I wanted to switch partners. Round Robin to the rescue!

August 2013: Be considerate. And stop stinking up the building.

About 7 years ago, my husband and I rented a lovely little apartment in one of those old fashioned, doorman rental buildings, on the Upper East side of Manhattan.

We were in our last month of lease there. And had decided to become homeowners in the state of New Jersey. My parents were visiting from India to spend time with us, to enjoy NYC summers and also see us settle into our new home in Hoboken. One evening, while we were busy packing and putting things into boxes, I found a note stuck on our door as I was getting out to throw trash. It said -

“Stop all the cooking. You should be considerate and not stink up the building”

My first reaction. And an unfortunate one. I immediately blamed my mother for cooking too much. And interrogated her on what she had cooked today. And proceeded to lecture on “how things are different here”. “She will not understand”. “I had been here long enough and know what is right versus wrong.” She explained she had not really done any cooking that day. Perplexed I walked into the corridor and surely there was a delicious aroma coming from one of the other apartments. Likely Indian cooking. So, even though that evening, my kitchen wasn’t the culprit, I was happy the family cooking delicious food that evening, had not received that note.

These instances, even though small, have left an indelible mark on my immigrant psyche. Most days, I laugh off the #1 instance and brush off the #2 instance. The underlying message I had received was that something about my cooking was not acceptable. That the spices were too bold or too strong to fit into the polished western world.

It has been a process and has taken me years to fully embrace my immigrant ways and even be proud of my heritage. I have come a long way certainly since these two episodes. And my goal is to make my clients feel empowered to eat their ancestral foods and embrace their spices or herbs or vegetables or what have you, that they have grown up eating. No matter how low they are on the apparent-cool-quotient-scale.

In fact, one of the tenets of Her Shakti’s philosophy is grounded in Grandma’s wisdom and common sense.

I would love to hear what your relationship is to spices. If you want to learn on how to integrate them into your lives, then DM me or drop me a note on info@hershakti.co