Devouring Sukhjit Kaur Khalsa’s debut book Fully Sikh: hot chips and turmeric stains (2025) within two hours is a testimony to Khalsa’s skilful hand at prose, poetry and mouth-watering recipes.
Khalsa’s storytelling is reminiscent of a television series that spans 34 episodes (chapters), exploring important themes of identity, racism, community, religion, feminism and family, with beloved characters such as Harjit and Manjit (Khalsa’s older brother and sister, respectively) making special appearances every few episodes.
The writer’s accounts of cultural identity speak to generally universal experiences in the South Asian community, simultaneously exploring what it means to be Australian while experiencing uncertainty about whether one belongs.
The short-form stories and poems all work together to depict different periods of Khalsa’s life, with each story unfurling the mystery of the writer’s “purpose in this world, and place in the family tree”. Readers are presented with small moments of Khalsa finding success on her journey of self-discovery, which allows them to gain an understanding of the struggle inherited by migrants as they straddle two or more cultures.
In various chapters such as ‘To Advance Australia Fair’, ‘Winner of Peace’, ‘The Grass is Always Whiter’, and ‘Collectables’, Khalsa highlights the implicit and explicit racism that is faced by most migrants not only out on the street, but within the playground, from one’s neighbours, in the workplace and at shopping centres.
Readers begin to see through Khalsa’s pushback against discriminatory labels of ‘terrorist’, ‘illegals’, ‘towelhead’, that Australian values of mateship and equality are, in theory, fantastic. Still, they are underpinned by an invisible criterion and ignorance that thrives on alienating others who do not look Aussie [read: blonde hair, blue eyes, fair skin]. In ‘The Grass Is Always Whiter’, Khalsa wonderfully harnesses and shows the childlike terror that accompanies the realisation of one’s skin tone being too dark, and hair too unruly:
‘Yeah, Towelhead, get a move on.’
My big fat Punjabi party pauses for a moment. My parents don’t react. I wanna morph into a tiny piece of popcorn. I feel a festering fire bubble in my belly – it burns, it stings.
The feeling of wanting to shrink into, disappear, become smaller is all too familiar. The writing here (and throughout) is a powerful lesson on how to show, not tell, which is essential when crossing cultural divides and inviting people to walk in others’ shoes.
And although, by the end of the book, readers are not given a clear-cut concept of what it means to be ‘fully Sikh’, they are given something much better. Khalsa opines that to be fully Sikh (or to be fully anything as migrants living on Stolen Land) is a complex experience that constitutes the interweaving of cultures at home and abroad, gender norms, colonial beauty standards passed down through the generations and traditional expectations of careers and growth. Some of these ideas are challenged, some are scrutinised and others are accepted.
Furthermore, food plays a central role in Khalsa’s narrative of identity and growth, with chapters in the book dedicated solely to recipes from Khalsa’s own and family kitchens. In fact, there are very few chapters where food is not mentioned or does not play a significant role in cultivating communication, fostering connection or building community.
Read: Book review: Outrageous Fortunes, Megan Brown and Lucy Sussex
Overall, Fully Sikh: hot chips and turmeric stains is a great read. Khalsa’s poetry and prose present a perfect blend of unserious episodes of growing up with a loud Indian family and profound pieces of scrutiny and wisdom that urge us to:
Join this kuri from Perth
On a mission to leave this earth
Better than she found it
At her birth.
Fully Sikh: hot chips and turmeric stains, Sukhjit Kaur Khalsa
Publisher: Upswell Publishing
ISBN: 9780645984064
Pages: 121pp
Publication date: 4 February 2025
RRP: $29.99
This review was made possible by Diversity Arts Australia’s StoryCasters program in partnership with Multicultural NSW and supported by Sweatshop.
