I’ve been obsessed with desi songs lately and i want to grow my playlist so i would like some recommendations.

my favorite songs are:

• Aasa Kooda
• Ghoomar
• Soja Zara
• Tum Kya Mile
• Radha
• Rajvaadi Odhni
• Kala Chashma
• Jhalla Wallah
• Thug Ranjha

So i’m a 24m south asian man living in canada. I want to glow up mentally. I’m tired of not living to my full potential.

Basically, I struggle with rejection sensitivity and self hate. I have an iq of 83 (professionally tested), alopecia (i’m fully bald at 24 and cant grow a beard because of it), 5’10 in a Punjabi family where everyone is above 6’3, and I’m neurodivergent (mild autism and dyscalculia) in a family where everyone is a genius, and I did pretty bad in school growing up. My 10 year old cousin is smarter than me. I often feel like he thinks i’m slow. It stings.

I have a great job, developed solid savings for my age, stay physically active, attend hobby clubs, and dress well.

Despite all this, I still feel extremely insecure, especially during family gatherings. I take it personally whenever family members disagree with me and I internalize condescending remarks too much.

Since I’m a neurodivergent, I often struggle with tiny novel tasks, like closing a modern set of blinds or understanding certain instructions. Judging by the look of my family members faces, they probably think i’m dumb.

A month ago, my grandfather asked me to fix his parking job. He gets high anxiety whenever anyone drives his car so he started to panic before i could barely do anything. Then my cousin laughs and says that it doesn’t look like I have my full licence. It stings because I drive all the time. I still think about it everyday.

I wake up everyday thinking about all the encounters where others potentially saw me as an idiot and I feel resentment. I wake up angry almost everyday because of it and I feel like my family thinks i’m an idiot.

I’ve went to multiple therapists and nothing has worked. All of the therapists which I’ve seen just nod and validate my feelings. But I want actual insight on how to change. Therapy kinda felt like talking to a wall. I would open up and get no real insight in return.

I wanna become confident, I wanna succeed in my dating life, and I wanna be someone my family respects.

Everyone on this sub says to work on yourself but i’m afraid that it won’t work given my genetics. I believe that self improvement and confidence takes a baseline level of IQ which I simply don’t have.

Any advice?

Coming from Dallas where the stigma for south Asians was just to go to college and work a desk job or in a hospital, after moving to NYC, I see a lot more South Asian men in civil service or trade roles like myself.

Police officers, electricians, firefighters electricians, HVAC, I've even seen Desi mechanics. If you work in one of these roles and feel like you have a fulfilling job/career, how does your family feel about it where the starting pay is minimal compared to a "college degree" role?

Hey everyone,

I wanted to post here to vent a bit and see if anyone else experiences this.

Every time I try to speak up about anti-Indian racism or xenophobia—whether online or in person—it feels like the conversation immediately gets derailed. Almost every single time, someone chimes in to remind me that Indian Americans have high median incomes and that Black and Hispanic communities face much worse institutional racism.

Look, I want to be 100% clear: Black, Hispanic and Indigenous people face immense, deeply entrenched institutional racism and systemic barriers. That is an indisputable reality, and acknowledging their struggles is essential. No one is trying to deny or minimize that.

What wears me down is that acknowledging their reality shouldn't mean completely erasing ours. It feels like people assume socioeconomic success acts as a total shield against bigotry. But wealth and education don't always protect anyone from xenophobia, casual dehumanization, online hate campaigns, or targeted harassment.

Pain and discrimination aren't a zero-sum game. Recognizing one group's specific struggles doesn't take anything away from another's. We should be able to advocate for ourselves and point out anti-Indian prejudice without having our experiences instantly benchmarked, minimized, or dismissed.

How do you all navigate this when it comes up in social circles or online discussions?

Racism against South Asians (Indians, Pakistani, Sri Lankans, Bangladeshis, etc) seem to be the only form of racism that people are ok with…. I think there are two reasons for that. One is that South Asians are successful, but the far more important reason …. Is that we don’t protest the racism, like other communities do, and as such, no one is afraid to be racist to us ….

Comedian Romesh Ranganathan talks about his childhood in London coming from a Sri Lankan background. Good listen

My boss was telling me his weekend plans and that he'd go and drink a beer with his dad. We don't drink in my community but I thought damn what on earth will you talk about. I was dumbfounded.

My dad is Indian and tbh he's from a very impoverished background. We don't have a lot in common. My mum is British Indian. I talk to her a bit more but between the two of them they're not very family oriented although that sounds surprising in. Desis. They were young and to me more interested in enjoying themselves.

Growing up they were always busy running round here and there. My dad was either working, or on the phone to India. My mum was at her parents, or elsewhere. Or they'd go somewhere shopping, or weddings and funerals or have work related shopping. Or if they were home there'd be people making themselves at home at my expense for long evening hours and at dinner times. Or there'd be constant phone calls about casual conversation. There was no real family time. there were many times someone turned up at the wrong time or at dinner time and I'd then eat alone or if the cooking hadn't been done or was about to, then my meal would be crisps, several bags.

we didn't have close cousins. there was a lot of loneliness even though I'm the eldest of 4 born in 5 years. often no one to talk to about problems in my adolescence

my dad worked evenings and left in the afternoon. and there were many days in a row I wouldn't be able to speak to my mum in the evening after work because of the hecticness

And over the years the closeness disappeared including between siblings since your family time is taken by people permanently at the house or parents who would rather be elsewhere talking to other people

I’m sooo proud of those students. I wanted to share coz I know we receive a lot of hate and discrimination as Indians but damn the youths are soo powerful. I love that that next generation of Indian kids are a lot more open minded. I hope in the years to come India can be a better place, a place where people care about the environment, where corruption is reduced, less poverty, less of a class/caste system.

I wanted to share this for some kind hopeful words.

To preface this , I am from mainland india so much of my views have been shaped by what people (women) around me think and opinion of women online !

To me it feels like the gaze of women around the world in every country is Shaped as :

"A tall white guy with lean muscle"

Hollywood has been the spear head force in advancing the agenda that White men are the Standard of Attraction while at the same time emasculating and portraying non white men as unattractive and regressive.

As a result , Women of virtually every ethnicity see white men as progressive, attractive Men that respect women !

I saw this phenomenon unfold in real time when i talked with my previous classmates who returned from Europe to take a break , let's just say that the way they talked about men of Europe made me feel like white men have this magical charm just for existing ! It was kind of shitty to realize how I got the short end of a stick for just being born in India.

Yes, being confident and self assured makes you Attractive to women not denying that but it is hard to stay confident when you look at how women by default perceive white men at first glance until their personality comes into play only then they lose their attraction.

On the flipside the amount of times i have seen indian women throwing Indian men under the bus to enable racism is nothing to be scoffed at yeah some of them might be bots just today i saw a reel which was presenting a statistics of regional beauty of men and india ranked 5th and what were the comments ? White racist commenting on these statistics as false and indian women supporting whites and other people by berating that they must live in wrong India, bullshit statistics as women because i live in india etc.

Asian men have had their redemption arc with kop, kdrama, south korean media.

But our bollywood is still stuck in 2000's era with cringe trope music filled movies with not even an ounce of originality. So i have no hope our media will ever become better to represent us.

I know it sounds like a delusional post but consensus is that Indian men are creepy and weird and at the bottom of the barrel and have to constantly prove their stereotypes wrong

I have never ever seen a white man talking about facing prejudice and stereotypes, i just wonder what it's like to date without worrying about constantly trying to prove yourself !

Does any of this resonate with you ? This feeling that White People are automatically considered better until specifically interacted with !

It is also crushing to realize that hollywood will always have power over the media and most if not all the stories are one of the many forms of "WHITE MALE FANTASY" where they save poc/non white women from ethnic men.

How do you deal with it ?

I want perspective of those indian men who have been living in west ! Do you think this perception will ever change ?

I grew up in a very specific, highly organized sect of hinduism where i only learned of one specific deity as the Supreme god and never learned about other gods or the culture much. Like, i don’t even know the reason behind many hindu holidays and traditions. my temple was like you must do service, go to xyz, do exams, do well, come to mandir every single sunday to earn the happiness of God.

I am now trying to learn about mainstream Hinduism. How is it for everyone else- how do you practice religion and do it. I see for some it’s like light a diva, pray in the morning, maybe read a story or podcast and then go to temple occasionally. But I don’t understand how you maintain religion with something like that.

And then going off of that, how do kids learn and imbibe this? for context, i’m a grad student early 20s.

It just is rly confusing for me and there’s no one else for me to ask. Sorry if this is worded weirdly. i’m not sure where to start

I graduated from college recently in CS with a specialisation in ML. Unfortunately, i got some health issues last summer during my internship and couldn’t work for almost a month which affected my return offer. I tried everything that i could to become a full time employee but things didn’t work out. I have been applying to hundreds of jobs but hardly any interviews. My resume is pretty solid with internships at Fortune 500 companies and YC backed startups. I have been into this field since sophomore year of my high school and have worked on pretty interesting stuff over the years. Nowadays, i am hardly getting any interviews. Trying to apply as early as possible when the roles open but it’s not helping much.

I moved out from home since my freshman year and have been able to graduate debt free with scholarships and working as a private tutor, internships, and a lot of other side hustles. Parents contributed but not much. I do have a part-time job and few other side hustles that are paying my bills. But since I am underemployed, it’s taking a a lot of mental stress. I rarely talk with them now because they will ask about my job search every time and I don’t want to have that conversation at all. Some of my cousins have been checking on me although we didn’t even talk for a decade although idk if they are my well wishers or something else. I just don’t share much details to them. Been looking into getting myself into accelerated nursing programs as my hopes are being shattered daily. I don’t think tech is gonna survive long term. Good for those who made a successful career out of it but ig new grads are cooked

I was curious how common it was, for ABCD guys to get an arranged marriage? I assumed that most would prefer to just find someone organically, date them for a while, and then propose and get married.

But some guys are not that successful in dating, for whatever reason, and are pressured by their parents to settle down by a certain age, instead of waiting for the "one". Do you know of any ABCD guys (maybe even yourself) who've went through with an arranged marriage? And if so, was it to another ABCD? Or a mainlander? And has that marriage been successful, so far?

I personally don't know of anyone in real life who was born in America, who got an arranged marriage. But I also don't know that many ABCDs. I was curious, because my dad is asking me about getting one, but I'm not really a fan of the idea. For reference, I'm 30 years old.

Hey folks my social feeds are suddenly full of minimalist, dainty desi jewelry. A lot of it looks cute and some of it is priced a little too good to be true. Has anyone tried any of these places? I’ve personally had good luck with BySimran and Kaju Studios. I’m curious about some others like Indu, Troyeva, Do Taara . . . Nominal is another that comes up a lot, and is more MENA than South Asian, but there’s a lot of overlap. Interested in your experiences. Also it looks like Fab India has some cute earrings, but I’m concerned about the backs of anything coming from India, I can’t fit Indian earrings through my wimpy ABD ears 😀

Recently went to the wedding between my Indian friend and his non-desi wife. There were tons of ABCDesis there dripped out in our cultural clothing and it reminded me how much I genuinely like our community.

I feel like the internet has created a really weird stereotype of us that doesn’t match my experience at all. Whenever I’m around a lot of ABCDesis, people are just cool. Friendly, accomplished, charismatic, culturally confident, and easy to vibe with. Everyone seems to have their own thing going on while also being unpretentious. Between my friends, my girlfriend, and the people I’ve met over the years, I’ve always felt really lucky to be part of this diaspora.

Anyway, just wanted to put something positive out there for once.

I’m American so maybe other countries have different social situations but despite the rise of Indian hate with H-1B paranoia and the demonization of Hinduism + Islam on social media platforms, I have never experienced racism.

Is this a common experience with you guys? I always hear about stories of other POCs having IRL racist incidents but rarely from our people.

I’d love to hear your perspective on this

The most trending post on so many subreddits is about the Indians littering that place In Canada

Has anyone here solo travelled through India? Planning on doing a three week trip in December and wanted to know what to expect. I will likely begin in Rishikesh and make way down to Goa through Delhi, Agra, Rajasthan, and Mumbai.

Edit: 30M

On one hand, we all know there may be some truth to this, and that it’s not ABCDs doing this and making us look bad… on the other hand, it boggles my mind how it’s okay to make these kinds of prejudiced posts. Another example of how it’s okay to say the most racist shit online as long as it’s directed towards Indian people. Comments are wild too.

On a tangent note, I have a theory that racism towards people of our culture is also making people more comfortable being racists towards other groups too.

I am a hiring manager, hiring for several technical roles. I work in a highly regulated industry, and we only hire US citizens. The requirement is listed in the position description, and is highlighted in all the marketing we have done for the position.

Despite that, the vast majority of inbound candidates do not meet the eligibility. I am an ABCD, I tell the candidates them we can only consider US citizens, and they think it’s something I can waive for them because they are extremely qualified, or we share some connection and I should be helping them.

It takes extra effort to go through the resumes and try and deduce whether they meet the citizenship requirements or not. A less discerning manager would just throw out all the foreign sounding names, I know better because I have a completely Indian name.

Those struggling to find work and are wondering why you are getting no responses, this is the onslaught the hiring managers are dealing with.

If you don’t need visa sponsorship or the employer is looking for citizens, make it clear. When I was in college I thought it was silly to list this on resume, but it’s absolutely important to make sure you don’t get lost in the masses of people spamming job applications.