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Where do I belong? Do I belong in the cities that I adopt or to my own adventurous spirit?
A beautiful, evocative piece about a woman’s quest to find her identity amidst all her migrations to different countries and cultures.
My parents hail from a beautiful beach place on the Goa-Karnataka border called Karwar. It is a divine place with very simple people and of course a lot of fish and coastal fruits. By this connection, my mother tongue is Konkani and I have that coastal spirit within me.
I got married and was packed away to a Bengali family. This was a phase in my life where I started learning the Bengali language. I am not an expert in the language but I can converse today quite fluently with Bengalis. Also, I understand what they say even if sometimes I may not be able to reply to them in Bengali. I started blending in the Bengali tinge, slowly and steadily liking the bland river fish and learning Bengali cuisine and rituals. Getting used to mustard pastes and mustard oil took a little longer. I have come so far today being a Bengali that it is me who reminds my husband about Bengali New Year and Durga Pujo dates. This was the first time I started questioning to myself, “Where do I really belong?”
For more than 25 years of my life, I thought I belonged to Pune. I thought the mandai vegetable market, the small town bazaar called tulshibaug, the hep F.C Road, the cosmopolitan Camp and my homely Kothrud area defined me.
The BIG transformation. We went to the U.S. The initial 6 months were a horrible nightmare and I was so sure that I didn’t belong here. It took time for me to settle down and last 2 years have been very eventful and fruitful. And I now think I belong here to some extent. I belong to a culture where good work is appreciated and praised, I belong to the small circle of my good friends away from home, I belong to the Papa Johns and Pizza Huts, I belong to Chipotle, I belong to the library here, I belong to the vast horizons and clear blue skies, I belong to the evening walks I take without fail.
In the U.S., I belong to the Papa Johns and Pizza Huts, I belong to Chipotle, I belong to the library here, I belong to the vast horizons and clear blue skies, I belong to the evening walks I take without fail.
But you know what? Over the past few days I realised that I was looking at the question in a wrong way till now. Why do I have to belong to a place? Why should a place define who I am? It will definitely influence my personality but will it really define my real self?
I think the person that I have become today, I belong to myself. I belong to my positive nature, I belong to my spiritual side, I belong to my rooted to my family attitude, I belong to my ‘open to new ideas’ perspective, I belong to my obsessive instructions to others, I belong to my fight against wrong sword, I belong to the self created by me over all these years! I simply belong to myself.
So where do you belong?
Image via Shutterstock.
Hi! I am a certified holistic life coach from the University of Wellness, West Virginia. I am also a certified angel card reader, an energy healer, a spiritual teacher, an avid reader, a natural writer read more...
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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