One year ago, I was in my final months of high school, the excitement of college lingering along with the daunting fact that I would have to leave my closest friends behind. My expectations were already set for what I wanted in college. If somebody had told me I was going to rush a South Asian fraternity and be an active part of the Indian community in college, I would’ve laughed. My friends in high school were mostly white, and we all shared the assimilated American culture that helped us build extraordinary friendships. Why would I want or expect anything different from college?
During the fraternity rush process, I found myself at an unorganized rush event with 5 members who called themselves Beta Chi Theta. It was a laughable rush event compared to the other large fraternities, but something drew me to the people within this group and the people that came to rush. Most of them were second-generation South Asians who had grown up in the U.S., and I saw how closely I related to them. Beta Chi became my gateway to "brown-town", a South Asian community that embodied my social experiences in my freshman year at Purdue.
I picked up on the customs of the community as I went along, first learning that timeliness was certainly not an attribute of high priority. I was used to showing up for meetings at 6:45 if they started at 7:00 in high school, but I quickly learned the timings were inversely proportional in brown-town. If this is a South Asian organization event, I’ll see you at 7:15 for any event/meeting that starts at 7, and don’t bother showing up any earlier than that because productivity is at an all-time low in those first few minutes. My parents always mentioned something called I.S.T. (Indian Standard Time), but only now do I truly understand the joke.
Word also gets around quickly in brown-town, which usually means the drama is escalated. The more people know, the more people talk. Opinions are shared and gossip is passed along quickly, and college experiences (hookups, dislikings, and other college drama) generally don't go unnoticed. Every emotion is taken one notch up, which can bode well for some and poorly for others.
But what keeps brown-town a functional, fun community is the amazing culture everyone shares within it. This spring, for the first time in my life, I celebrated Holi, experiencing the invigorating holiday with color, mud, Hindi music, and friends. Holi was one among many South Asian events I participated in on campus, and every one of these events has furthered my belonging in this community. I have made strong friendships, with FOBs (stands for Fresh Off the Boat, generally a term for international students) and N.R.I.'s (Non-Residential Indians), and have found my personal dialect of the English language to adapt with both of them. Along with learning new terms, I have further gained an appreciation for an Indian lifestyle. "Brown-Town" is renowned for being dramatic, unorganized, and untimely, but has helped me find a sense of belonging in college, and brought me closer to my Indian roots.
