Friday, February 29, 2008

My Identity

Around three weeks back I went to my village to attend my cousin sister's wedding. And what can I say it was an eye-opening experience for me. Since my childhood whenever anyone used to ask me, "son where are you from?" my standard reply used to be Garhwal, and after we got statehood it used to be Uttarakhand. This despite the fact that I was born and brought up here in Delhi and that I rarely visited that place. For me going to my village always I always used to be a hassle, I went only when I was forced to. I used to feel like a pseudo sometimes but mostly i was confused. My identity was torn between my roots and the metropolitan city that is Delhi. It was like the surreal world in which all hill people live, a world in which we can talk to our Gods through human instruments that live between us, a world where Gods roam between us. But this time when i went to my village I finally got the sense of belonging I was looking for. The traditions that were supposed to be a part of my life, I finally came face to face with them. Whether it be the Gods that entered my relatives when the groom arrived, or whether it be the funny spectacle of the village girls hurling abuses at the groom and his party all night for taking their friend away, or whether it be the doli in which my sister was taken away to the groom's village. All this and the love people gave me made me realize that I elong to this place and this place only. Magical realism is the word that best describes the existence of the people of the hills and going back there made me realize that, the things that Garcia marquez writes about in his books do happen, and that places like that do exisat and I belong to one of those magical places on the face of this earth. In the end I would say that when I heard a Garhwali song which talked about the doli of the gods dancing on its own I used to think 'it can't happen', now it is a phenomenon that is both logical and magical. And even though i have never spent much time with my cousin who got married I thank her because its her marriage that got me my Identity. My love for that place is her gift to me.