Four years after moving from India to Canada, I’m discovering that my biggest rebellion might be against a rulebook nobody actually gave me.
I have a question.
Can you be racist against your own community?
Asking for a friend.
The friend is me. Obviously.
Four years ago, I moved from India to Canada at the age of 40. Forty! At an age when some people are busy figuring out their retirement plans, I decided to change continents and start figuring out life all over again.
And now, four years later, I sometimes wonder if that was a slightly questionable idea.
But that’s not even the funny part.
The funny part is what happened after I got here.
When in Rome… apparently not.
I expected culture shock when I moved to Canada. New country, new culture, new ways of doing things. Fair enough.
What I didn’t expect was culture shock within my own community.
I’d spent 40 years living and working in India. I had my own ideas about communication, relationships, professionalism and how people should behave. And most of my experiences with the Indian community here felt very different from what I was used to.
I struggled to relate to almost most of it.
And somewhere along the way, my brain performed a very interesting little trick.
Instead of thinking, “Hmm, that’s different from what I’m used to,” I started thinking, “Well, I don’t behave like that. I don’t look like the Indian people around me. Perhaps I’m not really one of them.”
Excuse me? Who appointed me the membership committee?
I don’t remember applying for the job.
I’ve always believed in adapting to where you live. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
But apparently, I took that advice and added my own clause: Unless I don’t like the instructions. In which case, absolutely not.
And just like that, I started keeping a part of myself out of the story.
The case of the disappearing Indian
Let’s be clear. I haven’t been walking around pretending I was born in Canada. If someone asks me where I’m from, I say India.
I lived there for 40 years. That’s a fairly substantial chunk of life to leave off a résumé, even if you have an excellent memory.
But when it came to telling the story of my art, India never really entered the conversation.
Even the name I use here is Rose, my nickname, rather than my legal name. It’s a name I’ve always used, so that part isn’t some elaborate identity makeover. I’m not wearing a fake moustache and hoping nobody asks questions.
Still, I started wondering whether I’d made it a little too easy to separate the person I was in India from the person I was becoming in Canada.
And why?
Was I uncomfortable with some of my experiences or I didn't want people to see just as another immigrant taking away their culture or identity in some far fetched way?
Did that mean I had to distance myself from an entire part of my identity? Apparently, my brain thought so.
Is that racism against my own community? I honestly don’t know. Perhaps it’s prejudice, perhaps it’s discomfort, perhaps it’s my spectacular ability to turn one complicated feeling into an unnecessarily complicated personal policy.
I’m still investigating.
Plot twist: I make colourful art
Here’s where things get even more interesting.
I’ve been building Sam n Stella Studio around colour, feelings and the things that make us feel more alive. I make paintings that are anything but beige. My entire artistic personality is practically shouting, “Why would you follow the rules when you could use neon pink?”
And yet, I’ve barely talked about the fact that I spent the first 40 years of my life in India.
Sometimes I wonder whether growing up surrounded by India’s colour and vibrancy influenced the way I paint. I can’t prove that a childhood full of colour is responsible for my current inability to leave a perfectly good canvas alone, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
And then there’s the other thought.
What if someone sees that I’m Indian and decides my art isn’t for them? Even though I very well know (hello imposter syndrome, you don’t exist) that people will only pay money for original art if it speaks to them and it does not matter who was making it to some extent I hope.
Nobody has said that to me. I have no evidence that anyone has judged my work that way. This is entirely a thought I’ve managed to produce and entertain all by myself. Very efficient, really.
Many of you have bought my art knowing I’m Indian, and I’m incredibly grateful for that. You’ve connected with my work and welcomed it into your homes.
And if you’ve bought my art without knowing this part of my story, now you do. I wasn’t deliberately concealing it. I just hadn’t made it part of the story I told.
Which is a bit ridiculous when you think about it. I’m trying to get people to see my art, my personality, my feelings, my entire colourful existence—and apparently, I’ve been running a selective admission process for my own identity.
Excellent work, Rose.
My very small, deeply unorganised rebellion
I’ve never been someone who enjoys being told what to do simply because that’s how things are done.
I’m not starting a revolution. I’m not organising a strike. There are no protest signs, no marching crowds, and absolutely no committee meetings. I have enough trouble organising my painting studio.
But I do have a little rebellious streak.
Tell me there’s only one way to do something, and I’ll immediately wonder what happens if I do the opposite. Tell me art has to be a certain way, and I’ll probably put a ridiculous amount of pink on it. Tell me to fit neatly into a box, and I’ll start looking for the scissors.
The irony is that, somewhere along the way, I may have created a box for myself.
I decided which parts of my story to show, which parts to leave out, and how to present myself in a way that felt easier to navigate.
Nobody handed me this rulebook. Nobody told me I couldn’t be Indian and Rose, Indian and Canadian, or Indian and the person who paints whatever the hell she wants.
I may have written the rules myself.
And now, naturally, I’m annoyed about having to follow them.
Perhaps that’s the real rebellion: not proving anything to anybody, but giving myself permission to stop obeying expectations that nobody actually placed on me.
So, was moving to Canada at 40 a stupid decision?
Some days, I still wonder.
Moving continents at 40 is a big deal. You leave behind familiarity and spend years learning how to build it again. You discover things about yourself, some lovely and some that make you want to sit down with a cup of tea and ask your brain to explain itself.
I don’t have a grand conclusion about whether moving was the right decision. I’m still figuring that out.
But I am beginning to see that I don’t have to choose between who I was in India and who I am in Canada. I don’t have to prove that I belong to either place by behaving a certain way.
And I certainly don’t have to turn my identity into a carefully curated brand story before I’m allowed to talk about it.
Sometimes, I can simply say: this is where I come from, this is who I am, and I’m still working out what all of it means.
No grand announcement. No dramatic soundtrack. Just me, catching myself in the act of overcomplicating my own life.
Now, over to you.
Have you ever caught yourself rejecting something about your own background, community or past because you didn’t want to be associated with it? Have you ever made a decision later in life that you still question? Or are you also running a tiny, highly disorganised rebellion against rules nobody asked you to follow?
Please tell me I’m not the only one.
Rose
Sam n Stella Studio
