Bollywood Will Never Be Hollywood

         All of these artifacts symbolize Indian women’s spiritual and societal dedication of not adopting American ideals to replace their Indian heritage. Indian women cannot leave their traditions behind in an American society. This is seen from the way in which Indian women dress to the colorful spices that they use to cook curry and other Indian cuisines.  Older Indian women have a hard time adapting to a culture other than their own and they try to teach and impress upon their children and families the Indian culture that they hold dear. The photo of the Indian mother with her child symbolizes this idea that as a mother, the Indian woman cannot let her baby be influenced by any other culture. She is wearing an Indian dress, with a stone on her forehead, and as you can see, she has already placed a similar stone on her baby’s forehead to symbolize the absorbing and passing on of her culture. The spices help to illustrate this idea of an anti-culture changing mindset because most Indian women cook with these spices which cause a specific aroma to always settle in their houses and on their clothes. Indian women are comfortable staying in their known environment and they want this smell to linger around the house and on their families so their families do not stray from what is being taught in the household. Also the pictures of the Hindu gods and the Bollywood dancers help to illustrate the idea of community that Indian women appreciate so dearly. There is not just one God or just one dancer, but everything Indian is done as a group, with colors and smiles, to keep families together within the same cultural community. Also in these two pictures, either the dancers or the gods have their arms extended, inviting all those who are not a part of this culture to embrace it and be happy and colorful like the rest of the community. Finally, the clip on the call centers helps to support this single story of Indian women not wanting to let go of their Indian culture while living in America because Indian women are finding American jobs in India. Some American companies have moved their call centers to India to provide jobs for Indian women who want to stay within their culture, but also have the benefits of working for an American company.   

        This idea that Indian women won’t allow their culture to dissipate is very limiting. It states that Indian women always will be dressed in Indian dresses of all colors of the rainbow, even when they are walking to the grocery store. Granted, some Indian women do this, but most Indian women dress just like the average American. It is because of these traditional Indian women that all Indian women are being thrown under the same stereotype of not allowing their friends and families embrace the American culture. I am from Atlanta, Georgia and there were quite a few Indian girls in my high school, but I did not know that these girls were Indian because of how the dressed, danced, or smelt – I knew they were Indian because of their skin color and because some of them had Indian accents. I befriended lots of Indian students in my high school and to my surprise, because I was extremely naive, most of their mothers dressed, acted, and even talked just like mine. However, there were a few amount of mothers that matched the stereotype of a “typical” Indian woman, where she was dressed in a colorful shawl and flaunted a spec of a ruby on the middle of her forehead as she stirred a red, green, white, or whatever color curry.

     Each of the artifacts I chose helped to identify Indian women as protectors of their traditions and of their heritage. Each artifact showed how they care about the influence of their family, how they dress their children in their traditional apparel from infancy to Bollywood, how they work in call centers where everyone shares the same cultural traditions, and how they cook with spices that linger on skin, clothes, and couches for days. These artifacts demonstrate the stubbornness of Indian women refusing to embrace the American culture for not only themselves, but for every Indian person that they are able to influence, friend or family alike.