ILLINOIS, U.S., May 2, 2016 (North by Northwesternby Gauri Rangrass): I remember the first time I wished I were white. I was four years old. My brownness was harder to hide. It was something I spent fifteen years of my life trying to like, and eventually, love. My internal battle with Hinduism was even more difficult. It was not long into my childhood before I started to reject my Hindu identity. I fought with my parents when they encouraged me to go to the temple. I never bothered to learn the significance of Hindu traditions, which were often the only way my mother could make her new home in Michigan feel familiar.
The first time I picked up and read a Hindu philosophy book, I was sixteen. I learned about Dharma and Hinduism. It made sense to me. It felt intrinsic. By the time I started my freshman year at Northwestern, I had finally reclaimed Hinduism as a part of my identity.
Maybe that’s why, as I sit on a yoga mat in Studio 2 in SPAC, anger rushes through my veins when a white instructor presses her hands together, leans over, and says, “Na-mah-staaay.” I’m the only brown person in the class and it seems that I’m also the only one who feels uncomfortable returning the gesture. Not once does the instructor reference the Indian and Hindu origins of yoga. Why can’t this trendy yoga persona also include a true understanding of yoga’s Hindu origins?
More of this interesting opinion piece at “source” above.