co-creating my culture, seeing beyond hyper masculinity

Part 3 of IN THE DRAFTS

Hello and welcome!

You’ve reached the end of my 3 part series. If you haven’t read the others, please do. This was so fun to share. This last one really got me laughing out loud. Thank you again for being here.

Presenting, part THREE of In The Drafts.

I wrote this after watching Coachella’s Live Stream in April 2023.

---

co-creating my culture, seeing beyond hyper masculinity

Ok, so I have to talk about what it felt like to see Dijit Dosanjh’s Coachella performance live from my laptop at home and where my thoughts went directly after.

My dad had coincidentally sent a picture of us with Diljit from over 10 years back, my smile is awkward, his is too. The photo was taken at the mela, a Panjabi festival my parents have been involved with since like 1995 (aka most of my life).

The theme of my life right now is reflecting on where I was 10 years ago, so this felt relevant.

Lately I’ve been thinking about pride (not lgbtqia pride but like pride), and having the audacity. How it can be a learned thing and how our environments cultivate that type behavior.

One thing about Panjabi culture is that it’s super prideful, something I don’t shy away from. You will rarely hear me say “I’m Indian” because no “I’m Panjabi”.  Everything about me is Panjabi, I know this for certain, but not my relationship to masculinity.

Back to Diljit’s performance, truthfully I was nervous for him. How was he going to engage with the audience and deliver a performance that was authentic to him and to his audience aka us?

He came out in an all black chadra with a vest, yellow gloves, face covered. One hand in the air. A bhangra team in all white with pops of color rolled in, the screens in the back were lucid pink, fog everywhere.

I jokingly texted my cousin that I felt my compulsive heterosexuality coming through. I imagined how I would’ve absorbed seeing someone like him on stage when I went to Coachella in 2014.

It was exhilarating, hearing the sounds just as I remember them being played at the mela.

The Panjabi side of the internet was going wild for Diljit, really excited for the first Panjabi singing act at Coachella. It was epic, especially hearing people yell jakare (kind of like our battle cry) on the live stream. My fam’s group chat was so so excited.

After the hype sort of fizzled down I decided to relive the experience by listening to some of his songs, realizing shortly after that the lyrics are grand displays of panjabi hyper masculinity, which my spirit truthfully can’t get behind. The colorism, the casteism, the alcoholism… I mean I really loved hearing my culture through his voice, the rhythm, tone etc, but this sort of plunged me into reflecting about the role and energy behind Panjabi masculinity.

I should be specific, Panjabi Jatt (upper caste) Masculinity.

The culture absolutely adores the trope of the Panjabi Jatt man. We LOVEEE our Panjabi men. Occasionally it will hit me every now and then, the compulsion, and i’ll feel a hint of approval echoing somewhere in the far distance of my brain.

And then I will get sucked right out. To the other other side.

What if I actually want to embody the elements of a Panjabi man? What if I am the Panjabi man i’ve always been looking for ?!?!

Also one more thing on loving our Panjabi men, when I say we LLOOoovE our men and go absolutely cookoo for them, I mean to say it goes so far back into my ancestry that for some reason all 10 gurus in Sikhism ended up being men ? Love them, but huh? So I hope you can understand why it would be so alluring for me to want to be a Panjabi man lol, perhaps just for the praise and adornment.

The problem solver in me wonders, what does healthy Panjabi upper caste masculine energy look like? Or at least where do I even fit into gender roles that feel so permanent in a culture I was brought up in.

I also wonder what it might’ve felt like for Diljit as an artist and brand to be one of the first to perform Panjabi hyper masculinity on a stage. Despite a few lyrics, the energy seemed really good and he should be proud of his performance. But am I being complicit by saying that? Am I just experiencing fomo for not being there IRL? Or am I just bummed that a moment of pride for Panjabi’s would only be legible if it was done by a man. If it were a queer or trans Panjabi singer, would the performance have a similar response? In my world, most likely because QTPanjabis are GLORIOUS period.

I think I’m just ready for the more fluid representations of my culture to be visible.

I want to be celebrated for being so unpredictable and inconsistent when it comes to filling in gender roles. Where is my applause?

I’m ending by sharing some art by a few Panjabi artists that make me feel proud and seen.

Baljit Singh who recently visited Panjabi and took photos that I really love.

bsinghh

A post shared by Baljit Singh (@bsinghh)

bsinghh

A post shared by Baljit Singh (@bsinghh)

This photo of the ghiddha group, Lok Rang Noor Art

Art by Jagdeep Reina

And a trans artist I recently discovered from london who’s music I love.

I will end with this sort of erotic video of Diplo and Diljit feeding each other sweets.

xx

Jakari Wing

latest work

venmo: @jakariwing (dont be shy hehehe)

Thank you so much for reading! If you like what i’m doing here, please let me know! My moon is in Leo I like the applause!

Thank you for the ride, see you in my next letter where I’ll be celebrating one year of substack!

P.S. If you don’t already have one, I HIGHLY encourage you to start a substack, i love reading people’s thoughts. Please let me read your thoughts.

P.S.S. thanks for being here I really needed to get this letter out of me for a good laugh.