Who am I? Am I an
Andhrite because I speak Telugu or am I now a Telanganite as I was born in
Hyderabad? Or am I actually a North Indian because that's where I was raised?
And finally I identify myself as an INDIAN only when I crossed borders of my
mother land.
As a young South Indian
boy with a unique South Indian name, some part of me always felt out of place
during my growing up days in Central India ( in layman's terms North India,
considering anything above Andhra is North and below is South 😉). I would not
say I was ever discriminated or treated with bias, but I could sense that many
people are not able to relate to my background and were actually doubting me by asking questions like, " You can't be a South Indian as you are so fair.
And if you are a South Indian,then how come you speak such good Hindi".
After a point these questions became part of my life and for some weird reason, at times it used to make me
feel special.
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| Pic Courtesy: laughingcolours.com |
Fast forward few years,
and I ended up in the "Country Of Dreams" and to my surprise right
from the customs line at JFK (New York), I saw so many people who I could relate to. Their skin
color,dialect and everything about them was so familiar and unlike back
home these people were actually trying to help each other without even asking
one another which part of India they are from?
As I started to get my
things together in this new world, I met a middle aged Pakistani lady who works
at my office cafeteria and till date we never miss a chance to greet each other
and ask each other "Aur kaisa chal raha hai?" (How is it going?). We
are not friends and we don't even know each other's names. Only thing that we
relate to is that our origins are similar and we speak a common language. That's
when I realized we don't hate Pakistanis we only hate the "STATE"
Pakistan.
Of many other pleasant
surprises, one that stands out to me is how every Indian living outside India
is trying to speak a common language to connect to their country men (and women). I have
met Andhrites,Tamilians,Bengalies,Gujratis, all trying hard to learn and speak Hindi.
I ask myself why? We don't even try to do this back home. We beat people who
don't speak our language. We don't like to hang out with those who are not from
our part of the country, but as soon as we leave our borders we change? Do we
have some invisible switch? Answer is NO. We all like to be surrounded by people who we can relate to and sadly enough we realize we can relate to all
Indians alike ( for that matter even Pakistanis and Bangladeshis and Sri
Lankans) only after we leave India. I wish every Indian was lucky enough like
me to have this experience to learn how we are all the same and it is so much
more fun to live together without asking each other what is your caste,religion
or state.
JAI HIND!!
