ALL POWERED UP

For a long time, South Asians limited themselves to careers in tech and finance in order to make a mark away from Indian soil. Now, they are not only taking over the creative scene but also finding new ways to proudly display the identity they once felt compelled to conceal

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RAYNA VALLANDINGHAM Taekwondo prodigy

By VAISHNAVI NAYEL TALAWADEKAR

'VALLANDINGHAM'HAS THE same ring as several surnames in southern India, and in the minute or so before Rayna Vallandingham appears on the screen, I make a mental note to ask which region it originates from. "It's Dutch," she says, moments after flickering to life, the morning sun in London haloing her heart-shaped face. "But don't worry, I get that a lot." The fourth-degree taekwondo black belt, as I will soon learn, is forgiving when it comes to questions about her ethnicity. The daughter of an Indian-origin mother and a Dutch-origin father, she has learnt to embrace the fact that she doesn't look fully Indian or fully Dutch.

What the 21-year-old also doesn't look like is someone who could take down a man twice her size. And yet, by the age of eight, Vallandingham was doing exactly that, having earned a black belt in taekwondo and being declared a bona fide world champion. "I think my parents just had really high expectations," jokes the Los Angeles-based combat queen, noting that those hopes initially centred on getting their two-year-old daughter to make eye contact with people without bursting into tears. "I was a shy kid, so they put me into martial arts to help me break out of my shell." The fact that she hid under a bench in the dojo for six months before taking her first class might explain why she was so prepared when a senior finally coaxed her out, lifting her gaze to face her opponents in combat, completely unarmed.