{"id":2632,"date":"2024-09-16T10:36:12","date_gmt":"2024-09-16T10:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.desiblitz.com\/literaturefestival\/?post_type=event&#038;p=2632"},"modified":"2024-10-18T12:51:17","modified_gmt":"2024-10-18T12:51:17","slug":"both-not-half-jassa-ahluwalia","status":"publish","type":"event","link":"https:\/\/www.desiblitz.com\/literaturefestival\/event\/both-not-half-jassa-ahluwalia\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Both Not Half&#8217; with Jassa Ahluwalia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2018This guy has better Punjabi than both of us and he\u2019s only half Punjabi.\u2019 <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Only. Half. I stared at those words. The intent behind the comment was in no way malicious, but it hurt. I felt diminished. I felt like I was being robbed of something essential to me. And as I stared at my screen, realisation dawned.<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2018#bothnothalf\u2019 <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I replied.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For over twenty-five years, actor Jassa Ahluwalia described himself as \u2018half Indian, half English\u2019. His fluent Punjabi always prompted bewilderment, medical staff questioned the legitimacy of his name, and the world of casting taught him he wasn\u2019t \u2018the right kind of mixed-race\u2019. Feeling caught between two worlds, it wasn\u2019t long before Jassa embarked on a call to action: we need to change how we think and talk about mixed identity.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By delving into the media we grew up consuming and the legacies of empire we have been taught, Ahluwalia asks: is there anything to be learnt from Rudyard Kipling? Why were movie stars urged to hide their mixed identities? To what extent did colonialism encourage or hinder mixed marriages? Is nationalism outdated? How can the politics of class and queer liberation inform our understanding of mixed identity?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Both Not Half <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is a rallying cry for a new and inclusive future. It\u2019s a journey of self-discovery that unearths the historical roots of modern mixed identity as we know it, braving to deconstruct the binaries we have inherited\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and the narratives we passively accept. Part-memoir, part-manifesto: this is a campaign for belonging in a divided world.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jassa Ahluwalia is a British actor, writer, filmmaker and trade unionist. Born in Coventry to a white English mum and a brown Punjabi dad in 1990, he attended school in Leicester and was raised in an extended family environment. He spoke English in the playground, Punjabi with his grandparents, and spent various summer holidays in India. He came to prominence as Rocky in the hit BBC Three series <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some Girls<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, followed by starring roles in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Unforgotten<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ripper Street<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Peaky Blinders<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jassa created the hashtag #BothNotHalf to explore mixed identity in light of his own British-Indian heritage. His TEDx talk on \u2018How Language Shapes Identity\u2019 has clocked up over 180k views and his BBC One documentary <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Am I English?<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> won an Asian Media Award in 2022.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u2018This guy has better Punjabi than both of us and he\u2019s only half Punjabi.\u2019 Only. Half. I stared at those words. The intent behind the comment was in no way malicious, but it hurt. I felt diminished. I felt like I was being robbed of something essential to me. And as I stared at my [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2633,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2632","event","type-event","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-literature-festival"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>&#039;Both Not Half&#039; with Jassa Ahluwalia - DESIblitz Literature Festival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This event is being held especially at Women\u2019s Enterprise and Community Hub in Sparkhill, Birmingham, giving women at the centre a wonderful opportunity to share and enjoy the experience of listening to Abda Khan giving an insight into her writing journey and reading her books.\u00a0\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.desiblitz.com\/literaturefestival\/event\/both-not-half-jassa-ahluwalia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"&#039;Both Not Half&#039; with Jassa Ahluwalia - 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