Book Review: On the Outside Looking Indian
I love books – but I have a special, and perhaps curious, interest in books by and about Sikhs. Perhaps it’s the fascination to discover how similar or different our experiences are. I’m convinced i’m not alone in this. There has been an established interest in South Asian literature for quite some time, but now – with the growing number of authors covering the British Sikh or North American Sikh experience – there is piqued enthusiasm in diasporic “Sikh Literature”. I think it’s important to support this type of work – not simply because the author is Sikh or writes about Sikhs – but because until we have enough of this representation in literature, we need to encourage it’s growth. This also means that authors will be faced with higher expectations from their readers who want authentic stories, sophisticated writing and dymanic story telling – just as we’d expect from any other piece of literature.
I recently read Rupinder Gill’s memoir, On the Outside Looking Indian. The premise and cover of the book attracted me, perhaps because it reminded me of Sathnam Sanghera’s, If You Don’t Know Me By Now – a book I highly recommend. Gill’s memoir, similar to Sanghera’s, deals with her personal experience growing up as the child of immigrants. Gill’s story is set in Canada and focuses on her year-long quest, at the age of about 30, to fulfill a list of her childhood dreams — learning to swim, going to Disney World, and living in New York etc – activities she didn’t participate in as a child. I found Gill’s descriptions of her childhood to be well-written, funny and often relatable.
Without a doubt, many of us can relate to childhoods of inactivity – unless activity consisted of housework – then no, we really didn’t participate in many activities, especially compared to how busy and structured the lives of children are today. There are obvious exceptions to this, however, this is most likely a common experience for many. While Gill’s story is framed around a Panjabi Sikh household, it’s clear that her experiences could be those of many first-generation children whose parents have emigrated to new lands.
6 Responses to “Book Review: On the Outside Looking Indian”
Looks promising, thanks for introducing me (us) to this book with a such an insightful review!
“what is the quintessential childhood?”
I’m glad you asked that question and did this review! Every time I come across one of these novels describing the immigrant child’s experience – I roll my eyes. I don’t think a quintessential childhood exists – and as immigrants, we shouldn’t yearn for this. Kids are more involved in activities now – ballet, soccer, piano but is it really benefitting them? How many of them go to Gurdwara and punjabi school like we did?
Two parts…..one is there is a familiar need to write for the audiences and north American audiences usually love them some stories of the second girl swimming against old fashioned parents stuck in the old ways so I would think a person who thinks of writing memoir about their second gen childhood would know what might sell to her readers. And second imaging going to…let’s say Brazil and both finding a job, navigating a marriage, learning and being accepted into a.culture and raising kids seems hard. That said it probably a good read and ill pick it up at at some point myself. On keeping kes more and more I think it should be done as a celebratory thing and is personal between the person, Akaal and their sadh sangat and that keeping kes is an intense way to connect with history.
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