A Question of Identity

"I'm nobody!
Who are you?"
- Emily Dickinson

It is past two in the morning
But sleep eludes me, albeit not completely
Gently, it hovers over my eyelids
Taking care not to walk right into my eyes
Making my mind go foggy, ever so slowly...
So, a foggy mind struggles
To lose itself to sleep
But elusive, sleep doesn't come
As has been wont to occur
For some time now.
This time, the culprit is a bit hard to nail down
Literally, I mean
Figuratively, it takes the form
Of a singular matter
That persistently tickles my sleep- deprived brain
And consequently fuels a channel of thoughts
That float around like cottony clouds
In the deepest recesses of my mind.

"You are a Mallu!", he'd said with a smile lacking warmth
"No. You are." I'd replied defensively, weakly
"We are Keralites.", came the prompt and emphatic response
He'd not been alone
There was another 'he'
And together they had become 'We'
"You are Mallus!", he repeated
The slight deprecating,
Almost mocking tone was unmistakable
The other 'he' , who mattered to me, did not say anything
His silence, to me, seemed an acquiescence.
Whether willing or otherwise, I will never know

The fact that the speaker belonged to a larger group
Comprising the so called 'voices of the clan'
And that he was merely 'voicing'
The general opinion
Regarding an 'outsider' 
Was the first impression that pierced my mind
What I had long felt
But hadn't given much thought to
Suddenly assumed a hitherto unknown significance
As half-forgotten memories of events and people
Started making a homogenized recovery
Conjuring up meanings where,
Disconnected, none of them had made sense before!
That incongruous word itself
Has seeped right in
And blended itself with the synapses in my brain
Defiant and obdurate, it refuses to budge
Harmless it may seem to an observer
But those at the receiving end
Are only too well aware of the power it holds
To give a handful of folks
The seeming right to freely label and patronize as they wish!

The word is a slang,
 A corruption of the word 'Malayali'
On its own, it might not necessarily give offence
After all, it is only indicative of the times we live in
And so, it has become part of a culture of convenience
Where a native of say, Gujarat, Bengal, Punjab etc
Is also spoken of by similar contractions of words
Descriptive of their State-wise origin
Think about the texts of E-mails, Internet chats
Or more specifically, SMSs
Where it's sufficient to convey the essence of the message
Without strictly abiding by rules of Grammar, punctuation, Spelling and so on.

Without digressing further, let me say
I found that I was not bothered by the term itself
That had so casually been used to typify me
It was more of a culmination
Of a process long begun, although unknowingly, many years back,
Ever since I could remember visiting my native State.
The word had given me a perspective
A clearing away of layers of cobwebs
That had somehow lain upon
Some intrinsic part of my being
And had made it dormant
Somewhat like hibernating, 
However, without really being aware of it.
And the cobwebs had done their bit
Causing confusion aplenty
And sufficient mental stuttering and stammering
To make me ask myself
"Who am I?"
"What is my identity?"
Especially with regard to a society that prides itself 
On being able to dispense labels freely
To individuals and entire communities
Sometimes solely on the basis of their behavior, culinary tastes
Or something as trifling as their conversing abilities!

"I am me!", came the astonishing answer
Loud and clear, it resonated through every fiber of my being
And to the dispensers of labels,
A question was shot back in return:
Born in Kerala - am I a 'Keralite'?
Brought up in a metro - am I a 'Mallu'?
But which metro - Delhi - so, am I a 'Delhi-ite'?
And there it was - a 'Which of the above three is correct?' question
Requiring a 'Choose the correct option' answer!
Or could it also become a multiple choice question?
Hmm, I wonder...

Coming back, the group of natives to which 'he' belonged
Had been born and brought up within a geographical demarcation
That is named a State within our Constitution
So, understandably they identified themselves by that place's name
As people belonging to that particular State
But, hey what of people who have the seeming 'misfortune'
Of having grown up outside that State?
After all, States are what make up our great Nation, ultimately
And no one really cares to identify themselves
With the Nation, except when there is a war or a cricket match! (IPL excluded)
So, what of 'outsiders' who are labelled
And treated as 'different' from the natives, by the natives
Purely on the basis of the following:
(This list is indicative only and not exhaustive.)
That they have not mastered the native language,
That they look and tend to attire differently,
Have markedly different culinary tastes,
Feel comfortable speaking either in the National language or in the Colonial one,
And above all, because their social milieu
Would never quite be the same as those from the 'State' 
How could it? Society in multiple locations even within a State is never the same!

So, I was pleasantly surprised
When the answer presented itself in such a lucid form
And to realize that it had been staring me in the face
All this while!
"I am not a 'Mallu' or a 'Keralite' or even a 'Delhi-ite',
At least not in my entirety, though my life has elements of all three;
I am just 'Me'!"
And if an identity is required
Then I'd rather say
That I am fortunate to have been born in Kerala,
And brought up in Delhi - the national capital
But like it says in my passport
The only thing that really matters is that
"I am an Indian, and nothing more or less!"