Where are you from?
It happens quite often that when you meet people one of the most probable questions is "Where are you from ?" This question often makes me think where am I from, because I just can't attribute a single place or culture to which I belong.
I was born in Jamshedpur(then Bihar, now Jharkhand), in a Marwari family and grew up in a Bengali neighbourhood. I am a mix of Marwari(because of the family connection), Bengali( because of the neighbourhood connection) and Bihari( because of surroundings) cultures. I can speak Marwari, Bengali fluently and manageable Bhojpuri.I relish Dal-Batti, Churma(Marwari dishes) , Misti-Doi, Kalakand(Bengali dishes), Litti, Chokha(Bihari dishes) equally. I celebrate Diwali,Durga Pooja,Chaatt,Holi with equal fervour. I came down to Bangalore for my undergrad studies and thereafter have settled here. Bangalore is like a melting pot of cultures, I have been exposed to almost all the South Indian cultures, Anglo-Indian culture, West Indian culture here in varying proportion.
To sum it all, I think I have an effect of almost all the major Indian cultures though in varying proportions. I am a pot pourri of all these mixes. That makes it all the more difficult for me to answer somebody's question that "Where are you from?"
Well that dilemma was on a lighter note, when I think hard about this question it really worries me. What is the reason of my worry you must be pondering? Well when I look around me I get a cold feet, reason being most of the people I know have almost the same mix of cultures in their upbringings and what they finally emerged is into a "Sophisticated phislistine face", pretty much as I am. I am so disconnected with the pulse of this country that I dont care what would be the outcome of this reservation brouhaha or what would be the fate of the killers of Jessica Lal. I am so smugly immersed in my own "Sophisticated" life that I am immune to what is happening outside. Is the urban middle class who are the "Sophisticated people" turning into "Burgeois" which Lenin referred as the actual enemy of Socialism.
I was born in Jamshedpur(then Bihar, now Jharkhand), in a Marwari family and grew up in a Bengali neighbourhood. I am a mix of Marwari(because of the family connection), Bengali( because of the neighbourhood connection) and Bihari( because of surroundings) cultures. I can speak Marwari, Bengali fluently and manageable Bhojpuri.I relish Dal-Batti, Churma(Marwari dishes) , Misti-Doi, Kalakand(Bengali dishes), Litti, Chokha(Bihari dishes) equally. I celebrate Diwali,Durga Pooja,Chaatt,Holi with equal fervour. I came down to Bangalore for my undergrad studies and thereafter have settled here. Bangalore is like a melting pot of cultures, I have been exposed to almost all the South Indian cultures, Anglo-Indian culture, West Indian culture here in varying proportion.
To sum it all, I think I have an effect of almost all the major Indian cultures though in varying proportions. I am a pot pourri of all these mixes. That makes it all the more difficult for me to answer somebody's question that "Where are you from?"
Well that dilemma was on a lighter note, when I think hard about this question it really worries me. What is the reason of my worry you must be pondering? Well when I look around me I get a cold feet, reason being most of the people I know have almost the same mix of cultures in their upbringings and what they finally emerged is into a "Sophisticated phislistine face", pretty much as I am. I am so disconnected with the pulse of this country that I dont care what would be the outcome of this reservation brouhaha or what would be the fate of the killers of Jessica Lal. I am so smugly immersed in my own "Sophisticated" life that I am immune to what is happening outside. Is the urban middle class who are the "Sophisticated people" turning into "Burgeois" which Lenin referred as the actual enemy of Socialism.
posted by sandeepmoonka at 9:22 PM
1 Comments:
pretty much the dillema i face..being a north indian..but never lived in north..:)
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