I was raised by two parents of Indian origin in a suburban town in New Jersey that includes many more people of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin.

Growing up I had friends of all different backgrounds, but the two main groups were my brown friends (in school) and my white friends (outside of school). For as long as I can remember I've hidden my Bollywood song playlist from my white friends and my (rather extensive) pop/EDM/rap/Broadway/anything else playlist from my brown friends. I used to bring Indian food to school up until the second grade because I was too embarrassed to take anything other than pasta for lunch. And up until recently I almost never EVER talked about the crush I had on Bollywood actor Sidharth Malhotra.

I say recently because the views of the western world on brown culture has changed dramatically in the last few years. Suddenly all the girls at Coachella are wearing bindis, suddenly tribal/elephant prints are the "in" thing, Indian food is more commercialized at places like food festivals, and Bollywood meets Hollywood with an FBI agent fighting terrorism on TV.

And look, I know with the way this is going you may think I'm averse to this sudden shift and I definitely am not. I'm very happy that brown culture is being given more representation in everyday life.

But it could be doing it in a better way. Ways that don't stereotype or make unrealistic situations.

Netflix shows such as "Orange is the New Black," "GLOW," "Sense8," and others show real people of desi origin living REAL lives, not just as scientists and cab drivers but as wrestlers, CEO's, or...just normal people. As an aspiring journalist, it brings me such joy seeing Indians reporting live, such as Sanjay Gupta on CNN. Even the Food Network has regular chefs on various shows of desi descent.

Recently, I discovered a new show that is very close to getting picked up called "Surina&Mel" starring Surina Jindal and Melanie Chandra as the titular characters. The show centers around the concept of "adulting" as American women of South Asian origin in New York City. In its description the show says that it is not about being "an Eat, Pray, Love fest, or about culture clashes," but instead just capture the very real lives of the children of brown parents trying to make it in the world like every other millennial today. It is very much a grassroots project that I am very excited for because of it's specific goal to normalize the existence of people like me without the fake accents or random dance breakouts.

For me personally, the tastes I have in music, movies, and so on are expressed with the same goal as "Surina&Mel"-to normalize my existence in American society today, but with the added intention of staying true to where I came from

I will listen to rap just as much as Bollywood, I will be as enthusiastic seeing "MAMMA MIA! 2" as I will seeing "Om Shanti Om," I will dress up for Halloween and then a few weeks later dress up again for Diwali. As I've gotten older and have come to accept myself I understand my relationship with my culture, even more so in this rapidly changing world, and I know that I am beyond how older TV shows and movies used to depict those of my background.

Seeing new media, new mindsets and new opinions give me hope that someday everyone will accept the stories of Indian-Americans as our own to write, and not theirs to stereotype. So long as more people are broad-minded and open to changed perspectives there is no assumption we can't rebuke, no glass ceiling we can't break, and no culture that we can't properly represent in society today.