|
|
Ramblings
I for Indian?
by
Usha Kakkar
For the past
four days I have been enjoying the hospitality of the countryside.
Although the British would beg to differ that this doesn't qualify for
the countryside, but when you seek relief from World City London, even a
small town feels like the edge of nowhere. London is a fine city to live
in; swarming with Asians that it's almost like living in air conditioned
South Mumbai. Desis, desis everywhere and not a Brit to be seen. Apart
from the Asians, there are plenty of people from South East Asia, Middle
East and Eastern Europe. It is a city of the young and restless. Aah
what bliss to be away...
I am in Scarborough. It is a small University town 40 miles north of
Hull, a North Yorkshire tiny seaside settlement about three hours from
Loud London. The city of Hull itself is situated in East Yorkshire, 200
miles from London.
When I reached Hull on Sunday morning I was the only Asian on entire
train. Now nothing odd about that but considering that Asians constitute
almost 30% of London's visible population, this was quite a change. At
the train station, as I waited for my friend to pick me up, Curious Fat
Pink Lady selling the Daily Mail asked me if I was a Paykee! 'No, I am
from India', I replied. 'Ooh India!' was the excited response as she
rolled her eyes. I was about to head to the nearest Ladbrokes outlet to
bet that she was thinking of elephants, snakes and the Raj, precisely in
that order!
Now I have often been taken to be a Parsi courtesy the ghastly set of
incisors I have inherited from my mother's side of the family and the
sharp nose form my paternal grandfather. I have also been mistaken to be
a Malaysian because I have unflattering small eyes and a rather pale
complexion. I have been mistaken to be anything but a well fed Punjabi
that I am.
And here was this woman asking me if I was from Pakistan. Well that was
close enough - I smiled to myself.
Let's fast forward to day 3 in Scarborough. I venture to the supermarket
to buy food. Now living with two single men isn't recommended at all if
you enjoy three square meals a day. Their cupboards boast of every kind
of breakfast cereal imaginable and nothing else. I doubt if the kitchen
has ever been used for cooking. All I can see in the pantry is crates
upon crates of Carlsberg. I can no longer survive on a liquid diet of
beer and more beer. I need food. I think let me return the hospitality
by cooking them a surprise Indian meal.
So in the afternoon, I walked to the supermarket. I could see that
people here do not often see Asians. But I am certain there doesn't
exist a supermarket in the UK which doesn't boast of an Asian. And lo
behold there is an Old Asian Uncle Types at the checkout. 'And where in
India are you from', asks Old Uncle Types. Yahoo! Finally someone has
called me an Indian. I almost dropped the cherry tomatoes for the
rajma-chawal in ecstasy and did a small jig. 'Delhi', I grinned.
'And where are you from', I asked trying to be polite.
'I am British. British Asian!'
Identity is not as simple and transparent as we think it is; although it
looks like the representation of the self on a one-dimensional scale.
However we function from a plane in time and space and thus our identity
is produced in that particular time and space, relative to others.
It is easier to project the similarity than to expose the various points
of differences that make us what we really are. Our cultural identities
are fashioned through a shared past and centuries of collective past;
history made up of stories, symbols and memories and myths. Our
individual identity comes from our experiences which are unique to the
me and the I.
Is there an 'authentic' identity for displaced people like me? Is there
an identity I can safely lay claim to without continually clinging to
safe ways out like I do. I know that I hide behind being 'an Indian from
Delhi' whenever people ask me where I am from. The complexity of the
identity far exceeds what we confront and accept. It reminds us of the
friction between the 'us' and 'them', the past and the now.
Hence to that British Asian, I was a 'them', a desi possibly just off
the boat. And to me he was a British desi. Because it is easier to
classify, compartmentalize and stereotype people than to unravel the
distinctions that we carry.
What makes me an Indian? My brown skin? My Indian passport that I hold
on to steadfastly even after all these years? My name? My childhood was
spent in Europe but I too have a few precious stories of blazing summer
afternoons spent climbing mango trees in summers with my cousins. I went
back to India for a couple of years as a young adult and was always told
I am too Western. My liberal views were considered radical and I was
secretly glad when I left India. When I was back home in Europe, I was
an Indian. What am I and where do I belong? Am I an Indian - I go 'home'
every six months, I love my aloo parathas and I watch every film
that Bollywood dishes out.
Many of you reading this today might share this emotion of belonging to
a no-man's land. Some of you may not. We are traveling further and
further away from the land of our ancestors. Some of us hold onto the
history and traditions, some move on, and some try to finely balance
both the past and the future. Some of us identify ourselves as Indians,
some with their adopted homelands.
What
makes you Indian?
March 29,
2006
Top
|
Ramblings
The Week of March 26, 2006
Bury the
Congress : It Has Outlived Its Historical Role by Rajinder Puri
Stand Up and Be Counted by Naagesh
Padmanaban
And the Ms Morality Title Goes To.... by Usha
Kakkar
Myanmar's Strategic Significance for India
by Dr. Subhash Kapila
US History - Lesser Known
Facts, Analogies & Surmises Part 7 by Gaurang Bhatt, MD
The Capacitor Theory by Jack Bischke
The World of Advertising by Jack Bischke
Malayalam's Own Monsoon by Dr. V. Sankaran
Nair
The Romance that is Kolkata by Dr. Amitabh Mitra
I for Indian? by Usha Kakkar
The Making of a Poetic Anthology by
Rajender Krishan
We are All Cracked Pots ... A fable retold by
Shaily Dhingra
Aparna Sen's 15 Park Avenue by Dr. Amitabh
Mitra
|
|
