[13/03/2016 10:56] Mum: “Tomorrow is nonbu”
[10:59] Me: “Nonbu is nombadai right”
Mum: “Yep”
Me: “The one with the yellow string where we praise men to the stars”
Mum: “We praise everyone”
Me: “I clarify only. It’s supposed to be right”
Mum: “Ya”
Me: “Ok. Send over nombadai pls”
In case you were wondering, karadaiyan nonbu is a festival celebrated in Tamil Nadu and nombadai refers to the divine patty-like rice cakes (they can be both salty or savoury; recipe here) which were the only thing that I was really concerned with when celebrating nonbu growing up.
Other than these essentials, all that I really remember is sitting on the living room floor with my aunts, mother, sister and grandmother, with vaazhai elai (banana leaves) placed in front of us, once a year. Before we could dig into the deliciousness that is nombadais and dipped in butter melting from Singapore’s midday heat, my grandmother would take a short two minutes — that felt like more for a hungry 11-year old though — to speak on the greatness that is the men in our lives.
It went a little something like, “we are gathered here as wives, sisters, mothers and daughters, to give thanks to God for the good men in our lives. They work so hard, and we are grateful for them. We will do our best to love and support them in every way they can, and, dear Lord, please protect them.” This wasn’t something which sat well with me or my sister, who were brought up by our mother to be “independent women who don’t rely on anybody else” and never saw ourselves as mere supporting roles in a production that starred only men.
My mum is where she is today on her own merit, and has always emphasised that I am just as capable as any man to make my own living and have a promising career. She wanted me to grow up to be a person I would be proud of, a woman whose success was owed only to herself. Interestingly, this did not mean never getting married or abandoning gender roles altogether, but I digress. So this whole idea of having a festival solely dedicated to women praising the men in our lives seemed to be prefaced on warped logic: it didn’t make sense to me. Why were we doing this this? Men are celebrated every single day without the need for festivals. It just didn’t seem necessary.
“You don’t have to see it like that, kanna. I know what your paati is saying may seem odd to you, but you can just take it as a time when we get together with your chithis and paati and have a fun ladies’ day. You can use this day to celebrate your own empowerment; you don’t have to subscribe to the traditional meaning of nonbu. Just eat your nombadai and talk to your paati and chithis. Do you want more butter?”
But that didn’t feel like an adequate answer. My sister chose, one year, to reject the sexist grounds on which this festival was celebrated, deciding she would no longer take part. But I found myself sitting back down in front of the vaazhai elai every year for some reason — and it wasn’t just for the food. I didn’t know why. Now, in a city eight hours away from home, I understand why my mother wanted to hold onto a tradition which was obviously contrary to her feminist beliefs.
We crave comfort. These were the traditions I had taken part in since childhood, and they felt familiar and comfortable to me. (Did I mention food?) These were what I knew of my culture and religion, something that I was brought up with away from Tamil Nadu, where my great-grandparents were from. No matter how problematic their origins may be, we continue with these practices because they maintain the last of the connections to our familial and cultural roots. Our identities are inherently shaped by our culture and surroundings, and to let go of these traditions would feel like I was losing a part of who I was. My mother undoubtedly would have experienced these very thought processes when it came to reconciling her feminism with her culture.
However, it wasn’t just about holding onto tradition and practices that stuck out to me; it was that it seemed to be a concern not shared by white women. From the rejection of the institution of marriage due to its inherent sexism to cutting off groups of people whose world-views differed too greatly from theirs, they seemed so willing and ready to abandon any aspect of their lives, or crush any system, that was contrary to their feminist ideals. So what’s different?
Whiteness is the dominant ideal in many countries in the world, in our global economic and political systems. Getting rid of sexist practices does not erode white culture, because westernized, white cultures are so prevalent and powerful, so unchallenged, taking the form of whatever is happening in the Western world right now. Even though so much emphasis has been placed on certain practices traditionally, when your culture is the “default”, you don’t have to worry about eroding it by abandoning these practices.
White feminism is willing and able to throw away whatever it wants whenever it wants to, because of the prevalence of Western culture—the continuing legacy of white supremacy and privilege.
This struggle to affirm my identity, to feel that I was “Indian enough” and to reconcile my atheism with a culture inextricable from Hinduism is something that I have come to recognise as the perpetual struggle of diaspora. When we grow up away from the motherland, we have no choice but to become acutely aware of which aspects of our lives are linked to our “traditional culture” and which are not. I cannot speak for my sisters in India, because I have not shared their experiences. But it is this issue that nags at me every single day, and draws me to explore non-Western, intersectional feminism. I want nothing more than to be able to say that I am a proud Indian feminist, but everything that I associate with being Indian in my formative years seems to be so problematic that the label almost seems like an oxymoron.
My grandparents were brought over to Singapore by the British during colonial rule and with them, they brought aspects of our culture that they felt was important, and my parents passed on the parts which they found relevant and worth keeping. With each generation, we have a more “broken telephone-ish” understanding of tradition, which makes it so much harder to reconcile feminist principles with these very traditions and practices in the first place. That is, having a more fragmented understanding of my culture has led to me feeling like I have to hold on to all of it, or I would have no connection to my roots anymore. But seeing how Indian feminism is flourishing, and finally being included and recognised after existing for years, it brings me comfort to know that it is possible to fight the patriarchy without discounting my cultural identity.
This is why it is important to uplift and represent non-Western forms of feminism, because it shows girls and women of colour that we can challenge sexism without feeling like we’re losing a part of who we are.
Your feminism is whatever you want it to be. It can be re-interpreting traditions with sexist roots. It can be removing yourself from them entirely (this doesn’t make you any less fabulous or cultured). You don’t have to justify how you reconcile feminism with culture to anyone, because your identity, and by extension, your culture, is unique and beautiful — and whatever you choose to do, your choices should be celebrated and respected.
Now, about those nombadais …
