(Brammhi Balarajan / Emory Wheel)

Every morning at the crack of dawn, I wait for the all-too-familiar sign of a trisho slumbering down the street, filled with homemade, mouth-watering bread. The tune of Beethoven’s Fur Elise juxtaposes the sound of hurried footsteps. I don’t care if I just got off a 12-hour flight or if I spent the whole night watching old Disney movies. All I can think about is whether I’ll get a sugar bun or a fish bun, or go for the traditional loaf of bread that always makes me feel at home. 

Anyone who knows me can testify that I abhor waking up early. But there is one thing I’ll gladly wake up at 5 a.m. for: the “choon paan man in Sri Lanka. This tradition is native to Sri Lanka, and it’s one of my favorite memories from my childhood. This, and only this, rests untainted in my mind in the aftermath of the Sri Lankan Civil War.

 Many people in the U.S. don’t know much about South Asian history, let alone about Sri Lanka. Even among my South Asian friends, it’s rare to find someone who knows anything about Sri Lanka beyond its mere existence. 

The Eurocentric narrative espoused about Sri Lanka often reduces the decades-long Sri Lankan Civil War to tensions between the Sinhalese and Tamil ethnic groups. However, this ignores the reality of the roots of British imperialism. After British independence, Sinhalese largely regained power in Sri Lanka and continuously disempowered Tamils. For instance, the government enacted the Sinhala Only Act in 1956, which made Sinhala the official language and created systemic barriers to Tamils accessing services and education. Some Tamils advocated for the creation of Tamil Eelam, a separate state for Tamils to thrive. Among them was the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, also known as the Tamil Tigers. Decades of grueling violence between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan military account for the deaths of over 40,000 civilians. Along the way, innocent Tamils largely paid the price. 

But this snapshot of history fails to embody the immense pain my family experienced, nor does it adequately cover the lasting impact on Tamil individuals. Still, many Tamil families are left without the knowledge of what happened to family members and friends during the war. My family is lucky — or perhaps unlucky — to know the grueling close calls and deaths of friends and relatives. Yet too often, the closer you are to the margins, the more your story is left untold. 

 Take actress Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, for instance. She identifies as Tamil-Canadian, coming from a family that fled the war in Sri Lanka and sought refuge in Canada. Like many other Tamil refugees, Ramakrishanan does not identify as Sri Lankan because that means claiming a country that systematically oppressed and displaced Tamil people; a country that denied Tamil people their humanity. Despite not learning much about Sri Lankan politics and history until age 10, she’s been involved in protests raising awareness for the war crimes in Sri Lanka throughout her life.

 But how many people who raved over Ramakrishan’s appearance in the Netflix comedy series “Never Have I Ever” — particularly South Asian people — know her story? The mainstream narrative frames “Never Have I Ever” as a beacon for Indian representation, excluding the South Asian diaspora. She’s used as a prop for South Asian representation, yet carelessly reduced to a single story. 

In her TED Talk, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie talks about how the idea of a single story can define us. She recalls writing stories as a child with characters that were blue-eyed and drank ginger ale, or how her college roommate was shocked to learn that she could speak English. Likewise, brownness is clumped into a monolith through the narratives we tell. When storytellers define communities by the limited characteristics we know, we confine ourselves. We mark people as a single story. I don’t know whether I consider myself Sri Lankan, or what it even means to be Sri Lankan. But I’m not a single story. I’m not a prop, a token or a beacon for diversity. 

 So instead, I take it upon myself to make sure everyone knows my identity. My friends joke about how I make not being Indian a part of my personality. I write it as my clue for Secret Santa gifts and make it the title of group chat names. And it’s true, in a way. I get so tired of people who’ve known me for years mistakenly calling me Indian or joking that I’m basically Indian. There’s no one way to be brown, and maybe the South Asian community as a whole needs more introspection. Because right now, we’re too embroiled in hierarchical and exclusive standards to create the solidarity and community we need. 

I recall years ago, when my family and I went on a trip to see elephants in Sri Lanka. My parents had carefully instructed me to never voice that we are Tamil. When a tour guide turned to me and spoke in Sinhala, I was at a loss, scared that he would realize we weren’t Sinhalese. I was suddenly a writer who had lost the ability to find the correct words. My parents laughed it off, saying I only knew English, and the tour guide looked at me with judgment. Just another American girl who’d lost connection to her culture. At that moment, I knew the truth. I was a Tamil girl who didn’t know Tamil. 

 A year ago, I asked my only Tamil Sri Lankan friend in the U.S. — one of the only Tamil Sri Lankans my age that I know — whether she considered herself Sri Lankan. She told me, “Yes, of course. I’m not Indian.” 

Months later, she told me she’d changed her mind. “I don’t know if I can call myself Sri Lankan. Not after everything the government did.”

I thought her answer would give me clarity on whether I could call myself Sri Lankan. I still remember the hallowed words, more of a dejected surrender than a declaration. Sri Lanka didn’t feel like ours. But when the South Asian diaspora at large shuns us, ignores us and overwrites our identity, what was left to claim? 

Sometimes I feel like I’m begging, reaching for something that will never exist. An identity or community I can call my own. But I’m left constantly trying to fit into the next closest thing. The Indian Cultural Association, a raas-garba dance team. Some try to understand, but can never really understand my experience. Others never learned my identity or cared to ask. 

I don’t have very much that I can call mine, but there’s a few things. When I hear the twinkling bells of the paan choon man coming around the corner. When I skate through the sand, the faint wind echoing my name, I am a brown girl in Sri Lanka. And when the bolstering heat eases, when I dance in the waves, when I take my first bite into a fresh loaf of bread, just for a minute, I am home.  

Brammhi Balarajan (23C) is from Las Vegas. 

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Brammhi Balarajan (23C) is from Las Vegas, majoring in political science and English and creative writing. She is the Editor-in-Chief of The Emory Wheel. Previously, her column "Brammhi's Ballot" won first place nationally with the Society of Professional Journalists. She has also interned with the Georgia Voice.