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Rajiv longs to connect with his Indianness, he wishes to connect with the language and culture of his ancestors. His desire to learn the language and songs from his Aji are positioned in direct contrast to his fathers wishes to have him completely assimilate - take up English names, adhere to Christianity and learn classical languages like Greek or Hebrew instead of Hindi which he views as impractical. Rajiv’s father repeatedly looks down on their Indo-Guyanese heritage and disapproves of Rajiv’s attempts to reconnect. In his view, assimilation is the only way to gain respect, he sees his Indianness as inferior and wishes to adopt the lifestyle of the white man in order to achieve upward mobility. Rajiv, being second-generation is at odds with this - he wishes to learn Hindi and Bhojpuri, to continue singing the songs his Aji had taught him. He has a deep desire to connect with his heritage as seen in his enrollment in the South Asian Summer Language Institute where he enrolled to learn Hindi as well as his desire to go to India to continue his lessons in Hindi and Bhojpuri.
Rajiv’s queerness is another factor that layers his identity and his connection to his heritage. He knows that he cannot reveal this detail to his family members for fear of disownment. This could lead to a divide between him and his family as he is unable to be his authentic self around them and thus cannot connect fully with them. He wants to be a part of the familial network which is why he keeps the queer aspect of his identity to himself despite it causing him great distress.
Loss of language can be seen as a loss of identity - it entails a loss of heritage and an inability to connect with those who still speak the language, this is a source of melancholia. This can be seen in Rajiv’s experience of trying to learn Hindi - although he had a formative knowledge of the language and of Bhojpuri, his instructor claimed that he was not a real Indian when he tried to speak it (furthering Rajiv’s disconnect from his heritage). Standardised Hindi is not the language of his ancestors, they speak Hindustani and Bhojpuri which is not really taught. So although Rajiv is making attempts to learn some aspect of his culture, it is not the part that is directly connected with his ancestry and heritage, rather the version that is most readily available, so there might be a lack of personal connection in the process.

Western countries throughout modern history have taken to systematically othering non-white peoples and cultures in order to subjugate them. By positioning themselves as “enlightened” and superior to these cultures, European nations have been able to justify the conquest and subjugation of non-Western countries and people. We can see this throughout pre-colonial and colonial history where non-Western groups have been labelled as savages and enemies of the state to rationalize their oppression. The Spanish did this to Muslims and Jews in their homeland, labelling them as perpetual outsiders and enemies and forcing them to give up their ways and convert to Christianity and subjecting them to tests of blood purity. This racism served as the basis for how the Spanish would racialize the Indigenous peoples of the Americas - seeing them as heathens and enemies of European ways of life. Indigenous peoples were often likened to Muslims by the racialization practices of the Spanish. This shows the connection between Islamophobia/Orientalism and anti-Indigenous racism - they were both based on Othering of Muslims and Indigenous people, labelling them as inferior so that Europeans could subjugate them.
Orientalism served to imagine a non-Western world that was unlike and even opposed to a Western one, with practices and people that were different from those in the West. The queering of Muslim/Indian men was one way they did this. By painting Muslim/Indian men as queer and/or effeminate they served to emasculate them and set them up against the masculine Western man. This categorization was not benign - as there was a clear hierarchy, the Eastern man was weak and effeminate and the Western man was perceived as dominant and strong, this justified the Western conquest of Eastern lands. Criminalizing queerness was also a tool used by Western colonizers to impose their sexual mores over non-Western cultures, where historically people had been more accepting of queer sexualities.