I Became INDIAN Only After I Crossed My Country

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.

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!!