Ya. So. I am a diasporic Indian. Living as an Indian, brown in colour, speaking great English, Hindi, Gujarati and bits of Marathi. I watch Hindi cinema in the theatre and buy everything I need from the Indian shop. I value $2 coriander and make chutney with it. I live in Au as I am, a mix of cultures and try to adapt to the best of everything. I have personalized my history and where I come from. Like I told a friend the other day -- if I miss Bombay or not, I said, I can now hold onto the parts of the city I love, and I dont have to deal with the clogged drains everytime it rains and I dont need to deal with the heat in Nov (when I left it last) and I dont need to deal with the million people driving at all times of the day. I can now remember fort, and colaba, and bandra and think about how I missed going to 'shiro' when every person from the age of 40 to 18 told me 'I MUST GO THERE'...

Yes, my history is personalized. Like they taught me in college. Will I now appreciate Indian writing in English? Over the years I have avoided these novels. The ones I did manage to read, were crap, with a few exceptions. Will I now get myself to read Shalimar the Clown and the Inheritance of Loss? I had hated hullabaloo in the guava orchard except the part when the dentures fall in the curry or some such thing...

I am now teaching Bollywood Dancing here. Reminds me of the time we had filed a story on Masala Bhangra in NY at CNBC and we were laughing seeing the gori girls dance to it and thought it was so cute. And here I am. The world is opening up to Bollywood and we can see the influence in theatre, cinema, radio, food, clothes, and the kolhapuri chappals. Chhamma chhamma in Moulin Rouge and Farah Khan choreographing Shakira. The world is grooving. And I am learning to be comfortable with where I am. Except the fact that I am what I had never understood. It is an overwhelming feeling.

An excerpt from wikipedia -- Bollystan: The Global India As the Indian government's own Singhvi commission notes, "the sun never sets on the Indian diaspora." Yet the cultural transmission model is rapidly transforming from a one-way street, in which the Motherland gives and the diaspora receives, to a two-way street, in which the diaspora is as confidently Indian, sometimes more so, than India itself. Bollystan ("Bolly-" for Bollywood, and "Sthan", the Sanskrit suffix for "land" comprise this term) is a "Neologism" which recognizes this changing balance of power between the home country and its diaspora. Technology has enabled the diaspora to manufacture "Indian-ness" as competently as their home-bound relatives through film, dance, music and even religious practices.

I am now living in the Bollystan?! :D