A Question of Identity

 

Now Playing: Belle and Sebastian – Cassaco Marron

 

I haven't always had identity issues. When I was young, it never occurred to me to question what I was. I was Indian, my parents were malayalee though my mother's family were settled in Bombay, and that was that.

 

Things began to change when I was in grade four. That was a strange year; in IV-C, there were, by some administrative stroke of genius, three Sharons. With myself, Sharon Fonseca & Sharon Pereira in one class, teachers were forced to resort to, "Sharon! No, I mean you!" to identify us. Attempts to call us by our middle names died quick deaths; I refused to answer to Maria and the other Sharons were similarly fond of our common first name. That was probably when I realised – at a subconscious level – that I was no longer as special or as unique as I had thought myself to be hitherto.

 

One day, my mother said to me, "Sherrie, you must do well in maths and science. All malayalees are good at maths and science." I've since come to realise that this was a particularly fallacious piece of racial stereotyping – some of the most profoundly stupid people I have ever met have been malayalee – but I suppose it was my mother's way of telling me not to let the side down. Anyway, it was then I really recognized that I was apparently part of a larger, sub-national collective – I had a state team of my own, and it was Kerala. I belonged somewhere!

 

It made sense, I thought, to try and become a part of whatever malayalee cultural life I could. So, the next time I heard a fragment of an announcement on the school PA system about events at the local Kerala Samajam (a sort of malayalee social club), I went on full alert. The Kerala Samajam was, in theory, my own personal clubhouse, if only I knew exactly what they were doing there. Off I went to ask a malayalee classmate (MC) exactly what that might be.

 

Me: Did you hear what they said about the Kerala Samajam?

MC: Why do you want to know?

Me: Well – I'm malayalee, right?

MC: What, really?

Me: Um, yeah?

MC: No way, I thought you were Goan.

Me : N-no, why would you think that?

MC: You just don't seem malayalee.

 

Huh, I thought.

 

Me: So what was that announcement?

MC: Oh, some Bharat Natyam recital at the Kerala Samajam. You don't do Bharat Natyam, do you?

Me: No-

MC: So it's not meant for you, don't worry.

Me: Okay…

 

I was dumbfounded. These were my own tribesmen (tribesgirls?) and apparently they didn't even recognize me. Was I doing something wrong?

 

Me: Mama, the malayalee girls at school thought I was goan!

Ma: That's because they're stupid.

Me: …

 

I resolved to try again to reconnect with my peeps (not that that particular bit of slang was in vogue yet, but if it had been, it would have been absolutely apropos.) This time, the conversation got off to a more auspicious start.

 

MC: So, where are you from?

 

Safe ground, I thought. Isn't that the first thing one malayalee asks another when they meet for the first time? Nadu Evede?

 

Me: Oh, my Dad is from Kannur and my Mom's family is from Trichur originally, but they're settled in Bombay.

MC: Chee! Bombay is so dirty!

 

Huh?

 

MC: And there are beggars everywhere!

 

Wha-?

 

Apparently, my malayalee bonafides had been examined and found wanting. While I might have been totally malayalee in terms of parentage, spiritually, I suppose, I had been contaminated with Bombayness – after all, was the city not a centre of fast living, loose morals and God alone knew what else? To top it all off, I didn't even speak the mother tongue! I could see the judgement crystallize into being: Not a Proper Malayalee, Polysyllabic House Name Notwithstanding.

 

I was incensed. Who were these, these people to call Bombay dirty? To hell with it, I thought. I can always say I'm from Bombay. It was, in a quite literal way, true – I had been born there, as had been my mother and brother. That would be my new tribe, I thought; after all, the malayalees clearly didn't see me as one of them.

 

This was easier said than done. Bombay is to India what New York or Los Angeles is to the USA and Toronto is to Canada – the Big Bad City. Having been brought up in the safer, slower UAE, it was made abundantly clear to me by all my Bombay relatives – especially my mother – that I was an especially easy target for someone to rob, kidnap and perpetrate any manner of crime upon. Bombay people, I was told, were fast in thought and action, and I was quite the opposite. Too, I spoke no marathi and my hindi was halting and hesitant. And, in the background, there was the Shiv Sena and its various attendant subsidiaries and spinoffs trumpeting, "Maharashtra for Marathis!" Considering all these facts, could I really claim to be a mumbaikar?

 

This whole Question Of Identity was made a moot point when the Family packed up and moved to Toronto, Canada. Faced with the prospect of going from an all-Indian school to a multi-cultural Don Mills school, regional identity faded into the background – I was an Indian, adrift and friendless in this snowy wasteland. For the first time in my life, I had a sense of a wider South Asian identity as it dawned on me that most of the 'brown' people at my high school weren't Indian; they were far more likely to be of Sri Lankan or West Indian origin.

 

For those first few months, I clung obsessively to everything Indian I could find. I played my few hindi CDs over and over again (alack, one of those was the soundtrack to Mohabbatein, ew) and watched our small library of VCDs till I knew the movies line by line and scene by scene. I was terribly homesick; even the sound of an Indian accent in a bus shelter reminded me of 'home' – a place where my accent wasn't strange and somehow English and I didn't constantly feel self-conscious and out of place.

 

Slowly, though, Canada - more specifically Toronto – became less foreign. It became second nature to talk of loonies & toonies and – surprisingly – to append 'eh' to one's sentences. This is not to say that the key to Canadian-ness lay in currency denominations or in linguistic pecularities; I felt, I really felt that Canadians generally were friendly, helpful and genuinely welcoming. Gradually, that us vs them divide began to dissolve; we were really quite a nice bunch, we were the first nation of hockey and we had the best French-fries-related concoction ever invented.

 

Before we moved to Canada, some of our family friends told my parents to think twice. "Your children will become Canadian!" they hissed. And we had done (though not in the way often seen in hindi movies – where the anglicized children drink, smoke and sleep around while their parents weep and think of the old country.) To me, Canada was now home; no matter where I went, home would still be waiting for me. After a lifetime of not knowing exactly where home was, it was a relief to finally find out.

 

Then, a month or so ago, I was introduced to a fellow Canadian by two very good friends. "He's one of yours," they said, "so now you can go on about Tom Hortons all you like to him instead." "Tim Hortons," I murmured, as introductions were made. Afer the usual small talk was done with, the other Canuck turns to me.

 

"So, they tell me you're Canadian?" says he.

"Yeah, you too, right?"

"As in, you're an actual Canadian citizen?"

 

Huh, I thought, and walked away.