Last for now...

Don't know where this one came from--I'm none of these things. However, most of it is borrowed from real-life and moulded to suit my purpose. I would like to thank the numerous people I have known who have been an inspiration for all of my writing!

A pinch of Bengal. A dash of Iran. A cup-full of Punjab. A smattering of Kashmir. A sprinkling of France. All mixed in a quart of Lucknow and Delhi. Add to this blend the rift between the Shia’as and Sunnis. This is the perfect recipe for producing a very confused person who is at home everywhere yet never fully at home anywhere. I am such a person.

I was born in Karachi to parents of mixed origin themselves. They had ended up together by an almost comical twist of fate. That can be the topic of discussion some other day. For now we must discuss the fate that awaited the only child their union brought forth into this world—me.

What is really funny is the fact that I grew up feeling very comfortable around my friends at school. Nobody ever pointed at me and laughed so I figured I was just as abnormal as the rest of them. I figured I had just as many eccentricities as them. Living in a metropolitan city and attending a rather prestigious school meant that a number of my peers were from a multi-ethnic background. In our differences, we found a uniting common bond which has lasted to this day.

My first real apprehensions surfaced not in front of others as you would expect, but at home with my own family. I refused to speak in the Punjabi of my father although I could understand it well enough. I even refused to speak in my mother’s native Persian—which I never even learnt to comprehend. Instead, I chose for myself the language of the Lords: English.

This was probably a choice born out of rebellion more then anything else since I knew that neither one of my parents were conversant in English. I also knew that speaking in a language that they did not understand would set me apart from them. I justified this to myself by thinking that it was just a way of nullifying the concoction that was my ethnicity.

Religious conflict was another issue all-together. My mother was Shia’a; my father Sunni. At my maternal grandparents’ house, I adopted the Shia’a method of prayer. At home, in front of my father and his parents, I chose to follow the Sunni way. This was never a conscious choice. It was a habit that developed as I grew up. For the longest time, I didn’t give it a second thought.

It was odd that I never really felt estranged or alienated from my friends who did not know me. They were comforting because they did not have expectations. I felt more distanced from my family because they expected me to conform to their rules. Instead of being ground down in between the conflicting identities, I decided to pave my own path. Somewhere along the line, I became my own person.

Now, as a joke I call myself a “Shunni”. I’ve learnt little bits of Punjabi and Persian as well as bits of other languages that build up my diverse identity further. Among friends, I can boast of being descended from the great rulers of each land my forefathers inhabited. I am a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual person and I am my own identity.