Often in the early stages of my interactions with someone new, I'm asked the question, "So, where do you belong to?", "Where are you from?", or any other variant of this tidbit of information.
So I thought it only apt, in my first real post (granted, more than three weeks after my first enthusiastic paragraph-of-a-post) to explore the question to which I rarely, if at all, have an answer.
In my years of blissful child-ignorance, if ever asked where I belong, I'd rattle off the combination of my complicated Punjabi-Sidhi-Multani "roots", going so far as to enthusiastically explain my 1/2 Punjabi, 1/4 Sindhi and 1/4 Multani heritage.
And of course, whoever was listening would be suitably confused. But I never was, I was proud of being a hybrid, you see?
I don't know if it was growing up that had something to do with it, but somewhere that definition of belonging lost its appeal. I began to answer with evasive Umms, What do you means, or, my personal favourite, Avoidance: *coughs and pretends not to hear the question* So, where are You from?
The free online dictionary, or any dictionary for that matter, will tell you that to "belong", is to fit naturally into an environment, or to be a part of something else. But that's about it.
Of course I knew instantly that such an approach is only going to go so far as to enlighten me that blades belong to a food processor. Gee, I didn't know!
It's actually good to know the Internet doesn't have an answer for Everything.
So now I'm back to the memory of me at age nine, bowling over people(?) with my varied heritage, yet now leaving my nine years later self utterly dissatisfied.
.
But that's an approach most people I've ever known have taken. Our notion of belonging, is often tied to the place where we've grown up, lived a part of our early lives, lived all our lives. I hear more often a confident "I'm from Delhi", or "I belong to Arkansas", than my own confused responses to the question. And I wonder how they do it.
I don't know though, if it's the result of conviction that comes from giving the matter some thought, or just simply the ease of answering without much thought.
I suppose it's because the notion of belonging, unconscious and somewhat abstract, is so closely tied to one's sense of identity, and one's identity in turn builds from our experience, and our experience, is often irreversibly tied to the circumstances of our existence, which finally in turn, are tied to the places and times we live in. It's a complicated progression, and, like almost everything to do with the the processes of the mind, it's influenced by more things than we can hope to ever list.
But thinking about it like this helps me understand why people's response to the question of belonging is often a statement of where they live. And also why for me, no clear answer is ever in sight.
As someone who's moved from place to place all her life, my memories, my experiences, my identity, they're all tied in some measure, to all of the places I've ever lived. From my first few days in the big bad world in the blistering heat of Delhi, to year one and two in the humid climes of Bombay and Visakhapatnam, to what Piaget would call my 'formative' years back in Bombay, to a whirlwind year of travel and awe in Paris, to the wonder of teenage and middle school in Delhi again, you could say I've never really stayed put. But then who does?
Because it isn't as simple as it looks, or as simple as our sometimes too tired to think minds pass it off as being.
I belong as much in the house I took my first few breaths in (which is where I happen to be sitting and writing this from), as I do sitting by the seaside, taking in Bombay's indecisive, humid air of freedom.
I belong as much to the place I took my first little steps to school, as I do to the place where I have spent many a lunch breaks playing lemon wars and trying to avoid a hail of foil-fire.
I belong, when I'm in a room filled with my perennially-affected-by-chaos family, struggling to keep my neices entertained while the aunts and uncles chatter on, oblivious.
I belong, when I'm roaming the streets of the city where I first learnt to ride my bike, learnt to swim, learnt to read, learnt to write, learnt what friendship feels like, but also to the place I took my first nervous drive at the wheel of daddy's car, and learnt what friendship really is.
I belong to this maddening, infuriating city, to this wondrous, awe inspiring country, to the world, to the universe, but somehow I also belong, like I do nowhere else, when I'm standing enveloped in the arms of the boy I love.
Now I'm feeling a little introspective, and my mind's a cramped yet familiar tunnel into the past- long, blurry, passing by memories at lightspeed, and it strikes me that no matter what people tell me about roots, or heritage, or descendancy, I could never be satisfied saying I belong to Punjab, Multan, Sindh, Delhi, Bombay, or even India.
Because Where I'm from, isn't a city, or a place, or even the two square feet of area where I was born, where I'm from, is who I Am, it's every place that I've ever been, and every experience that's made me Me. Where I'm from helps me remember where I'm going.
I could never really choose one, nor could I explain all, and That is why, I'll never really have an answer for where I belong.
I suppose for all practical purposes you could say that still leaves me in need of an answer.
Because if You asked me Where I'm from, I'd have to say,
I'm as much from Everywhere, as I am from Nowhere.
