Growing up Desi: the lunchbox years and after

Almost every Desi kid raised abroad has the same handful of memories, which is strange given how different their families were.

The lunchbox

You opened it and the smell arrived before the food did. Somebody said something. And the next week you asked for sandwiches — not because you preferred them, but because they were odourless.

The reversal comes later, usually around university, when the same food becomes the thing you miss and then the thing you're proud of. A lot of Desi adults are still slightly angry about the sandwich years, and the anger isn't really about lunch.

The name

Some shortened it. Some spent a decade correcting people and then stopped. Some had a "school name" and a home name and moved between them without thinking. What almost nobody had was a teacher who simply learned to say it — which is why hearing your name pronounced properly by a stranger still lands so hard.

Two selves

• 🚪The switch at the front door — language, volume, posture, how you talk to adults. Most people don't notice they're doing it.
• 🎭Editing both directions — leaving things out at school, and leaving different things out at home.
• 🧭Being the translator — for paperwork, phone calls and doctors, from about age nine. A strange amount of adult responsibility, carried casually.

What changes

Usually in your twenties: the food, the clothes and the music stop being embarrassing and start being yours. Often it's a trip back, or a friend's wedding, or simply meeting enough people with the same history to realise it was a shared experience rather than a personal failing.

See also: belonging to two places at once.

Last updated: 2026-08-11