Who owns a culture..really?

Neha Lamba Grover: Hello everyone and welcome back to No Forks Given. Today I have with me Arya Singh. She is a young New Yorker who was born and raised in New Jersey to Forks Arya.

Arya Singh: Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be on.

Neha Lamba Grover: Thank you so much the of this podcast has been to look at social identities and then use food as a metaphor to discuss and deconstruct monolithic perceptions. One of the more recent conversations I had was with a person who moved to the UK from India when he was about five years old and he'd made a film about the lunchbox. And the lunchbox to me seemed like a very interesting metaphor, not just for South Asian, but any immigrant community, because that is one space where a parent is thinking of what they have to pack. in an unfamiliar society, but from a very deep core of how that family unit operates. But the child gets to open it in a very different environment where they are trying to blend in. So I thought that was a very interesting metaphor. So I wanted to see what your experience is in New Jersey, where again, you have a lot of South Asians, but is it similar to what he has experienced and shared in his 15-minute film called The Lunchbox?

Arya Singh: say in some ways yes and in some ways no. I grew up in a very white community neighborhood in New Jersey but I also was 15-10 minutes away from a very brown Asian neighborhood in New Jersey so I depended on where I was so just for school with the lunchbox I think it was a it was a similar experiences in some way. I think I could bring you know paneer or

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Arya Singh: something like that and people would all the kids would be confused as to what it was. It wasn't as much of a judging more of a confusion, I would say, which I think was a difference. When ⁓ my started kind of hearing about what our were when we were bringing these lunches, I think she also started incorporating Indian food in a more

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah.

Arya Singh: like in a different way with different recipes. She uses keema and enchiladas and keema sandwiches with cheese. So she started using ingredients and spices that she was using in traditional Indian meals and kind of shaping them to what a lot of the kids were eating at school, which I found really interesting. So then at school, I would be trading keema sandwiches for ham and cheese sandwiches, and we would do, you know, a fun little mix. And I think that that was more of a testament to my Growing up with all those kids from when we were three years old to 18, they had a little bit of a more open mind on, oh, I'd love to try Aria's mom's food because I've been to her house so many times. We have this community together. But then when I was at swimming or after school, that was where I was exposed to Chinese food, to Indonesian food, Japanese food, because a lot of my friends... parents had also immigrated in that community. So that was also a very different and fun way to learn about different cultures and them learn about mine. So it's like, New Jersey is an interesting place to grow up as an immigrant.

Neha Lamba Grover: It sounds lovely because it looks like different communities coming together and learning about each other's foods and being curious or confused, which is fine, which is absolutely fine. But to me, because I came in my late ⁓ 20s, one the surprising things to me as an adult that I wasn't anticipating was the reaction to the smell of Indian food. I could understand somebody not being familiar with what I ate or somebody not being able to handle what I ate. Some of the flavors are really acquired. Tastes and spice levels can be difficult, but I was surprised at the reactions I was getting to smells because I just thought if it's tastes good, it smells good, you know? And as adult, the hype around ⁓ making that none of those cooking smells got into our foods and our homes, It was so scary almost that nobody should catch a whiff in an elevator that it just made me feel homesick almost coming to America. Did you have any of that ⁓ obsession with ensuring that you didn't carry the smell of the food from home outside?

Arya Singh: Yeah, definitely. think that was the biggest, you touched on it perfectly. I think when people got to eat the food, it was a different story. But when you just smelled like it, or you were coming, when friends were coming to our house, there was such an emphasis on like, open the windows, get the get the smell of masala out. ⁓ Whether we knew we were doing it for that reason or not, that was definitely in our subconscious of, you know, my white friends that were coming, I didn't want them to smell.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah.

Arya Singh: the smell of Indian food, which is very silly in hindsight, but honestly, as an adult working in New York, I honestly feel it even more with like corporate culture and corporate lunch, bringing anything that smells like it tastes good at all, be honest, ⁓ yeah.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah, yeah. But here's the thing, right? We always, the reaction to the smell is always branded as racist. But today I just want to look at the other side of it too. On one hand, yes, anything that's different, especially if something is very strong, you know, ⁓ and talking about not just South Asian cultures, lot of Eastern cultures, the flavors are very strong, the smells are very strong. They're very heavy on your senses as opposed to,

Arya Singh: Yeah.

Neha Lamba Grover: what people are used to in the West. So it's almost like talking loudly as well, right? It's talking loudly, bright colors, intense flavors, intense smells. So it can be something that different that it can make you uncomfortable and nobody should have to. Nobody should be forced out of their comfort zone, as you can't demand it. The problem really is when you use that as a metaphor for discrimination, that becomes a problem. But I had a niece who came from India, who's half Indian and half East Asian.

Arya Singh: Right.

Neha Lamba Grover: growing up in India and had been exposed to a lot of diverse kinds of food. But when she had to live with and loves Korean food, but her Korean roommate in college, she found that having the kimchi smell around her was a problem all the time, but she wasn't being racist. just wasn't convenient. you know, there is a flip side to it. So, you know, is your view on that? I mean, is it always racist? And the reason why I'm bringing it up is, you know, Laura Lumer, who's a political activist,

Arya Singh: 100%.

Neha Lamba Grover: right wing political activists had commented that if Kamala Harris were to come to the White House, it would smell of curry. Is it such a bad thing?

Arya Singh: think it's a complex question because I think back to when you're a kid, like the experiences I had when I was a kid felt less nefarious in that way where it was they're trying to understand or comprehend what they are smelling and it's if you grow up around very

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah.

Arya Singh: kind of not plain, but plain smelling foods your whole life. And then you're in the cafeteria and you get a whiff of garam masala, you're gonna be like, what is this? And I think in that way, it starts more as a confusion and as a, it's not like inherently racist. I think as people grow up, turns a little bit more into that.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah.

Arya Singh: where now they're associating a certain smell, a stronger smell with being bad versus just being a stronger smell. But then there's strong smells in culture and in the US and in New York that nobody cares about and nobody's talking about. Like I don't see a New Yorker and I'm like, you're gonna smell of pee on the street because there's pee on the street. I think people have just started associating strong smells of different cultures and...

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah.

Arya Singh: using that as a tool, like you said, to be racist versus there are people who have just never been exposed to these smells and these tastes. And it's all about how you approach, I think, the situation, whether you're questioning and curious and you cannot like it. You know, there's a lot of smells and tastes of different cultures that I don't like either. But it's about letting people also bring their food, bring the smells of dinner on them without judging them and making it something that they feel othered for.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah, that is interesting because I also feel like there's a lot of, it's very important to be able to have conversations. I think also when you are not able to even express ⁓ the viewpoint without being branded as racist or just being. typecast, you can't explain yourself. If I start by providing a context to say, I like this, like I had to be very careful to say, ⁓ my niece likes Korean food, but she couldn't handle kimchi throughout. we feel you don't get enough time to even explain a point of view and we judge based on one reaction. There's a cluster of opinions that go together almost. Right. So if it's one, it must be the other. So we are almost not letting people talk.

Arya Singh: Mm-hmm.

Neha Lamba Grover: and explain themselves. you're right. mean, you're young and you're a child, you don't even know enough to be racist. in high school on chai and somebody had directed my attention to it and I saw it and it was lovely and it shows your grandmother making a cup of chai and step by step you know grating ginger and going through her recipe and then it has visuals of you making your little chai in a glass jar which is just microwaved water with a tea bag and then a little note from yourself to her saying, you know, it wasn't as good as yours. What was going on in your mind when you were making that film?

Arya Singh: It was, so that was, I think the first, it was a class exercise. It was the first film I ever made. It's black and white. There's no sound. You know, it's very, very rudimentary. It was also just off of COVID, which I think was instrumental in me starting to understand how important ⁓ grandparents or parents' culture.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Arya Singh: is because you never know when you're at the last chance you're gonna have to ask them how they make chai and how she makes her kachoris and all that was going through my head so I think that's where the theme of it came where I just realized I know you get busy you get you forget to

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah.

Arya Singh: that ties to India. I was born here, I was raised here. ties to India are my mother, my father, my grandparents, you know. So the that they can pass down their culture to me, one of them is food and ⁓ I it heartily, you know. I'm always, ⁓ every I go home, I'm like, you know, please make chicken curry, make good samosas, kachoris. But I haven't, ⁓ at point, I hadn't yet learned how to make any of it.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah.

Arya Singh: I just relied on them to give it to me when I was home. you know, obviously my grandma, it makes her so happy to make chai for me. And she loves the idea that I come and I ask for it. But was realizing that I don't know how to make chai, which is, ⁓ seemed so silly to me because I'd been drinking chai from such a young age. So then I started to craft the idea of the film. ⁓ how Thauby makes chai and how I just drop a tea bag in water because that's what I was surrounded by ⁓ high school, college, that's just how people made tea around me. ⁓ seeing the differences in that and how ⁓ explore it through film.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Is chai specifically a symbol of something that you were trying to capture food wise? mean, does it mean anything in your household?

Arya Singh: I mean, I think idea of chai is, family's very, it has many different stories in it. know, my mom immigrated when she was 25, I think. ⁓ dad came when he was three. My grandparents, half of them are still in India. My grandma has lived New Jersey basically most of her adult life. But some food, ⁓ why is thing that across? ⁓ my entire family, mom's side, dad's side, that everybody does is drink chai. you were born here like me and have only visited India, I'm still drinking chai. I think it's one of the things that an immigrant from South Asia will know and will like and will want to do. And think tea in and of itself is just an interesting concept to explore.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah.

Arya Singh: historically as well, just there's so much that you can get from a glass of tea. And yeah.

Neha Lamba Grover: you I mean, early 1900s, the British had tried multiple times to get the Indians to drink tea. by Indians, mean South Asian. This is pre-independence India. So it's Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka. And they were growing most of their tea by then in India, in the northeastern part, which a lot of it is in Bangladesh today. But in 1900s, Indians were resisting it. South Asians were resisting chai. And today we talk about it as a symbol of our Indianness. has a different recipe to it almost there's a slight variation yeah i don't like it with ginger like cardamom and somebody else might put saunf and things and i'm always making faces at some of my friends recipes and i say yeah you know and there's a little bit of that but that is a thing about indian food anyway every household insists that they've got that little trick which is different

Arya Singh: Yep.

Neha Lamba Grover: cuisine changes every few miles. And that is a statement you make about Indian food. And when you start walking from north to the south, every few miles, the cuisine is so different. Even if the recipe is the same, they'll say the water is different or that's why it's tasting different or something. But I think the point about chai becoming so intrinsic that I wanted to make was at some stage we decided it was a part of our identity. 100 years ago, that wasn't one. And so culture and identity evolved. We get so hung up on them sometimes and we forget spice. Indian food may be spicy, but it was never hot, red hot chili pepper spicy because chili peppers were brought in by the Portuguese. you know, they didn't reach North India till much later, till 1850. So we got hung up on it. So now I want to tie that to the fact that suddenly, and I do feel from when you were little now, that you're seeing a lot of Indian culture in mainstream media just mainstream culture, whether it's fashion shows runways, whether it's Sabhyasachi Sachi doing a pop-up somewhere in New York or ⁓ Deepika Padukone has her own line in Pottery Barn, things that are very visible that weren't 20 years ago. But I think the second generation Indians have done a lot to bring these things mainstream and even when it comes to food. And at the same time, Indians from India are trying to represent their culture the same way. It's leading to a bit of a debate about Indians from India carrying some of the baggage that they themselves need to deal with in their culture, right? About representing darker skin versus lighter skin, what kind of food, or I don't like the fashion. They don't, you know, at Coachella. How do you feel? Like, you know, I'm saying Indian culture as it sees itself in India, Indian culture as the second generation wants to represent in the West and blend it. They are taking their own lives, separate sort of channels.

Arya Singh: Yeah.

Neha Lamba Grover: How do you see it as somebody born and raised here?

Arya Singh: I think this is definitely the biggest, the debate or thing that people in my generation who grew up here as Indian, know, my parents, their concern was about making enough money to support their families, immigrate, like figuring all that out. It was more about like survival than identity. And I think our biggest generations from, which is definitely a privilege is figuring out.

Neha Lamba Grover: We're not. Yeah

Arya Singh: identity and how it relates to, you know, my cousins who are in India and ⁓ culture and then my Indian culture based on growing up in America, which are very different things. ⁓ know, I think when I was younger, I wanted to pretend that they weren't because ⁓ you're when you grow up in America and ⁓ know that you're not, you know, a white Christian, ⁓ you're already a little bit others so you feel like you need to be like, no, I'm Indian, you know, I'm tied to my Indian culture. But in reality, I only understand language, I can't speak it very well. I don't know all the trends and cultural things going on in India because I don't live there, I live here. So I think there's this new, a different culture that is created in America with many different immigrants, whether it's Indians, Asians, you know, like the ⁓ diaspora where

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah.

Arya Singh: If you grow up here, you have your ties to India. I have my ties to India. But if I speak to my cousins in India, they're like, you listen to the Doom 2 soundtrack still. But if you ask of the Indian Americans here who grew up here, that's like for some reason our big thing, know, like Doom 2 and just different. It's a very different. There we have different touch points.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah.

Arya Singh: in art cultures that speak to us. And I think that becomes the controversial thing when you start making art or fashion or pieces, films ⁓ Indian culture, Indian people from different mindsets about what that even means. Because, you know, somebody who's growing up in Bhadna and it might see my chai film and think it's silly because it's just their experience. but I'm calling it Indian, you know? So it's, there's definitely that disconnect, but with, I think the bigger issue right now that a lot of people are trying to deal with is American culture loves to have trends of different culture that come in and out. You know, it was Korean culture for a very long time. In the early 2000s, we had a boom of pop stars wearing bindi's and...

Neha Lamba Grover: Thank you. Yeah.

Arya Singh: you know, singing in Indian styles and it was a good thing to be connected to Indian culture, whereas now it feels like they're trying to remove Indian people and South Asian people from the conversation and then rebrand things as ⁓

Neha Lamba Grover: As Prada and Ralph Lauren have just, and Ralph Lauren is still, I don't know if they've acknowledged the bandhani skirt when I saw it for the first time, I was like, that was a uniform for my nani. You know, I used to to the village in Rajasthan, she wore that every day, every day. That was a part of, was literally how Rajasthani Jatwomen in that part of Rajasthan dressed up. And I see this bandhani thing with no mention. It just does irritate, right?

Arya Singh: Exactly. Thank I'm just gonna sleep. It is strange because it's, I think it also comes from the idea of there's already degree of removal when somebody who grew up here is, ⁓ know, like representing ⁓ but a lot more obviously merit to that, you know, their family came from there or they, but now it's moved into a space where we're not even debating about that. We're debating about companies and ⁓ white people like just mass producing things that are from our culture, from our families and calling them Scandinavian or calling them you know like beaded sets when and

Neha Lamba Grover: And then Scandinavian is giving some credit to someone, just not the right, like you are calling it Scandinavian. You're not calling it anything, but you know, it's interesting.

Arya Singh: Yeah, exactly. Coachella was like the breeding ground for that because, you know, I think there's always been this boho that oftentimes takes ⁓ African Asian, South Asian and then rebrands it as boho and then urban. ⁓

Neha Lamba Grover: It beats up. It beats up tops. My I was in India last month and my daughter said, can you get me an Ibiza top? I said, you should be getting it from Ibiza And she's like, Mom, that's from India. This is what it looks like. And I was, you know, it Ibiza up from India. OK, I'll get it from India, from the craftspeople. So what was was the food at home very different from the food you ate at Indian restaurants in the US growing up? Did you find that, hey, this is not what we eat at home?

Arya Singh: ⁓ Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think there's always there was always Indian food that we went out to eat, you know, of course, you know, like I'm not we weren't eating naan with meals. Yeah, no, like butter chicken was a once in a while dish that sometimes we would make for like special occasions like it was not an everyday.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah, which is very important from what you eat at home. Yeah, or making butter chicken all the time. Yeah. Yeah.

Arya Singh: I think a lot of people don't know what everyday Indian meals are because of restaurants. think that's true of most cultures in the US, know, I eat Korean barbecue. That's not what they're eating in Korea at home. But it's, yeah, to me, they're just two different things. You know, either I want to go home and eat mama's cooking or I want to go to an Indian restaurant in New York and have...

Neha Lamba Grover: who does. Yeah.

Arya Singh: you know, like a different style.

Neha Lamba Grover: And there is a history to why the typical Indian restaurant menu looks the way it is. while I won't go into it right now, but I mean, I've covered it in another podcast. had Lizzie Cullingham, who's a PhD from Cambridge on that topic, had talked a lot about how they evolved, why the menu evolved the way it did. And when I came 20 years ago and I was missing Indian food and it didn't taste so good in New York, even in the restaurants, I would hear people crib and say, because there are Bangladeshi owners to Indian restaurants. The truth is those were silhati sailors from undivided India who jumped ship, came, learned some restaurant trade, picked a few recipes and started. And that's how these curry houses started much later in the US, much later. US Immigration Act of 1965 had Indians start coming in and the first thing that they did were not restaurants, unlike UK.

Arya Singh: Mm-hmm.

Neha Lamba Grover: where they started in the hospitality industry and there's a relationship between, relationship between England and India, But very often the love for the food doesn't extend to the love of the people. Chicken Tikka is often called British national dish because it was created there. you know, to keep that, so the food at home is not, ⁓ that's one perception myth that I'd love to bust. But the second thing is that when you go to India, do you find the food there also very different or in different homes? What surprises you about the food there?

Arya Singh: Hmm. I think the biggest thing and I, my roommates also Indian, we always talk about when you go to India, the biggest thing really more so the ingredients ⁓ more so the, I mean, America, it's no surprise. Everybody knows, ⁓ know,

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. And I think parents have to struggle with less resources and time to try and create something convenient, but sort of carrying that culture. Yeah.

Arya Singh: Yeah, you have to find an Indian store that has all of things that you want. It's not just the grocery store, like it's not just available. And then also, you know, everything in America is pretty highly processed. It's things go bad very quickly. The fruit, the fruit is so different in India. But I think in terms of the food being

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Arya Singh: different. I think it's more my mom learned a lot from her mom. So when I'm and the cooks more so also the cooks that are there's a dedicated cooking. Yeah, which is also very different. I feel like people don't talk about that. You know, you think about homes home cooking is so important in America to like cultures like ⁓ my mom made this, you know, my grandma made this.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah, there's a dedicated cook in every home. We're happy to cook for you.

Arya Singh: And when I go to India, the cooks are the ones that are, you know, making the dishes and they're amazing because they know they, that is, you know.

Neha Lamba Grover: And they spend the entire day just cooking meals, right? So three meals a day and that's what everyone gets used to. Yeah.

Arya Singh: Exactly. Yeah, it's a very different of just eating and meals. That I think is the biggest difference. They sit down for breakfast and lunch and dinner. And ⁓ in US, it's ⁓ everything's the move. Everything is when you can. ⁓ There's a lot of time to be putting so much effort into these meals. So you find quicker ways to make them or faster recipes that you make more often versus in India. But I mean, when I think about it, it's just Indian food is going to be great. Yeah, it's just. Yeah.

Neha Lamba Grover: It's lot of time. no, it was more. It's also the if you when you go to India you will your tend to be from similar culture or subculture. If you're Punjabi, are that you've got Punjabi family members. And if not, you've maybe got two cultures you got exposed to.

Arya Singh: Yeah.

Neha Lamba Grover: and then they will have that extended family. get even living in India, I've not had so much exposure to regional cuisines as I would like to. Regional cuisines are now getting their own. I have gone back and eaten my first Bihari meal in Gurgaon because, and I have very close Bihari friends because I grew up in a boarding school like your mom, didn't go home to Bihar to eat their food and it was never available in Delhi. Even India, you know, regional cuisines are now starting to cross over and people are stepping out of their own cultural, you know, food. Some of it has to do with the caste system where they didn't eat things from each other or different castes or without being sure. Some of it is other. So you touched upon the cook. That is another dark side of the Indian cuisine story, right? Most of the cooks and health, the state of the health, is something that is suddenly now starting to get a little more focus. My kids get very, and they're very close to the help that are used to. They're very emotionally attached to the help in ⁓ grandparents' homes in India. They forward meeting them, but they just cannot avoid noticing. the disparity in lifestyles. And very often families will tell you about how well they are treated because they are treated better than somebody else's help or are paid more or something else or I take care of their health care or I take care of this. But it's still something. How do you react to that?

Arya Singh: So this is a good example of me to hold my tongue a little bit because I ⁓ know. I don't really know. ⁓ know when I go there, ⁓ is ⁓ once every two years or ⁓ I also notice these things and it's coming from obviously the fact that I grew up in a place that does not have that system.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah.

Arya Singh: immediately, you know, me and my siblings are pick up on it. And it's always they make, you know, it's a little bit funny because we're always like, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, you know, because you want to overcompensate for the fact that somebody is constantly, you know, taking care of you feeding you hospitality. It's just very different than it is here. But I don't know enough genuinely about the systems and how the

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah.

Arya Singh: they themselves feel about it, I ⁓ love to learn more about, you know, how does the help, how do these cooks feel about their circumstances? ⁓ there ways so that we can collectively give a better lifestyle? I don't know. And I'm sure that my grandparents, my uncles, my aunts who all live in India would have a to say about it and I can picture them like looking at me as I say, know, something where they're like, you don't even know what you're talking about. So I think that's like a good, yeah.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yeah, it's a deeper conversation for sure. ⁓ At a superficial level, think just yous, et cetera, are also something that you will notice are not given that often. ⁓ They tease you and joke about the fact that you're coming from America and you are constantly thanking people because you're not used to having somebody take care of you that much. So I won't go further into that, ⁓ but

Arya Singh: Yeah.

Neha Lamba Grover: Going back to chai and a little bit on some statements you made about your mom's cooking. know, food very intrinsic to South Asian culture. But another aspect which is tied to food is a phrase called atiti devabhav. Atiti Devo Bhav literally means your guest is your god. you know, hospitality, South Asians take a lot of pride in. also, in my house, you will be treated like this. So while the staff is helping, but even the family members. But isn't very

Arya Singh: Yeah.

Neha Lamba Grover: unconsciously the domain of the women. passing the culture down through recipes. It's your grandmother's recipe, your mom comes to cook and it's your mom's cooking and the men take pride in their house and the level of hospitality and the micro size it. That is another aspect of the exhaustion of stepping up to, you know, the level of food that we have at our house. We make everything from scratch is another thing we take pride in. The ingredients we take pride in, the hospitality we take pride in, which means the expectations are very high. And that expectation is carried from South Asia to New Jersey. And you still have to create that. And the burden of physical and emotional exhaustion, of planning, of cleaning, of is still on the woman. I ⁓ to hear your thoughts on that, because that's carrying along with those recipes and the menu in the other generation. ⁓

Arya Singh: Yep. Yep. Yeah, think 100 % I talk about it a lot with my dad actually now ⁓ because tease him but also we've had deeper conversations about the fact that for both of my parents are emergency room doctors and they both had ⁓ very,

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yes.

Arya Singh: crazy schedules growing up. You know, they had a kid after residency, they had the whole, the whole package and still somehow mama was cooking dinner for us every single night. We barely got. Yes.

Neha Lamba Grover: And she has another business, A creative, she's with scarves. Yeah.

Arya Singh: Yes, so they both, mom, both of them are doctors, but my mom paints was always an artist. So she ⁓ continued She was painting, she was ⁓ a and she had three kids, and every single night she was cooking a homemade meal for us, and we would sit down at dinner and she would serve it to us. You know, she'd pick up the little one, she'd give it.

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. Yes.

Arya Singh: And yeah, we all had our roles of setting the table and doing the dishes, but mama was the one that was doing the heavy work. it is, I cannot imagine it now, you know, that I'm older. I think when I was younger, it was just, that's just how it was. I didn't really think too deeply about it. But as I got older, I started to very much question the fact that my dad didn't know how to cook. He didn't know how to cook at all. if it was him, we were ordering pizza or, you know, and as a kid, that's really fun. know, you're like, yay, we're gonna get pizza. No, exactly. But as we got older, really questioned it because again, my grandma who's in New Jersey is his mother and then my mama's are in India. So I was learning recipes from my dad's mother and my mother and he just didn't know any of it. And I think it's...

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah, fun parent.

Arya Singh: It is an interesting company.

Neha Lamba Grover: He grew up here. mean, if he moved here when he was three, he's practically, you know.

Arya Singh: Yeah, he grew up here, but it is an interesting of even my sister and I are trying to learn the recipes of our grandmother and mother, whereas my dad didn't feel need to because he was like, well, ⁓ you know, he married my mom and my mom knew it all. And obviously it's changing ⁓ lot. My brother is, you he learned how to make masala and he's making chicken curry. And I think

Neha Lamba Grover: Thank

Arya Singh: that's a step in the right direction because it is a lot of a, it's a lot to be the only person who is responsible for passing down culture and passing down food and recipes and like religion. I think a lot of it oftentimes does fall on the woman in ⁓ family, no matter how busy they are. ⁓

Neha Lamba Grover: Yeah. And that and the struggle for that lunchbox continues because eventually even that lunchbox is her responsibility very often. And if she chooses to throw her hands up in the air, then you've lost a link. There's so much baggage on that, right? It's not just me feeling too tired to pack it. It really is me breaking a link, you know, responsible for that. And then there's the so for so many

Arya Singh: Mm-hmm. Yep, exactly. Yep.

Neha Lamba Grover: people there is also the pressure to figure out what you have to put in there. Your mother was creative about trying to blend the two so that your food was presented in a way that it didn't stand out but you could keep the flavors but everybody doesn't have that kind of exposure. ⁓

Arya Singh: Yeah, totally.

Neha Lamba Grover: And so you're getting or conscious, or your child is getting embarrassed and you're interpreting it as, in Shubh's film, the mother sort of is seen on the phone saying he's losing his Indian-ness Yeah, it was an interesting metaphor. So the baggage is again back to the women. it's, I think the conversation about food and identity has so many layers to it. I mean, it's not just about how we represent ourselves, but who has to carry the heavy weight. But it was really, really good talking to you. Thank you so much, Arya. I really learned a lot about. the experience that you've had, which my kids have gone through as well. They were both born and raised here. I also came in my late twenties like your mom. And always nice to hear what our kids are going through and lovely to talk to you. Thank you so much for joining me. Yeah.

Arya Singh: Thank you so much for having me. It was a lovely conversation.