EP.95 - It's Good To Gup Shup With Urmi and Kiran - "The White Girl Complex"

Grab your chai or favorite comfort snack and join me for our new segment, It’s Good to Gup Shup. In this edition, we’re embracing a new way to deepen our connections and explore personal stories, struggles, and insights. Gup Shup is a Punjabi term for gathering with friends and loved ones for real, honest conversations—sometimes light-hearted, sometimes deep, but always genuine. It’s also a chance to connect over things that bring joy and, yes, even the occasional bit of gossip.

As we near our 100th episode, I want to get into a topic close to my heart: the ‘white girl complex’—the pressure I felt to fit into a Western, ‘white’ mold to feel accepted. I’ll unpack how small actions, like changing the way I pronounced my name, lightening my skin, and straightening my hair, led to a larger struggle with my identity.

I’ll also revisit two key moments that have shaped this journey: how many of us, especially the younger generation, might feel that accepting racism as a norm is just part of life, and a personal experience where I tried to prove to a white manager that I was ‘different’ from other brown girls.

In future It’s Good to Gup Shup episodes, which are meant to be shorter and more focused, I’ll be sharing more personal thoughts and experiences directly. We’ll keep these conversations concise and impactful. This format has been suggested as a way to explore these topics more deeply and authentically. For now, I need your help in sharing and discussing these experiences together. Let’s gup shup about it!

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In the spirit of reconciliation, we acknowledge that we live, work and play on the traditional territories of the Blackfoot Confederacy (Siksika, Kainai, Piikani), the Tsuut’ina, the Îyâxe Nakoda Nations, the Métis Nation (Region 3), and all people who make their homes in the Treaty 7 region of Southern Alberta.