Where do i belong....... ?

Having traveled ,studied and lived across the length and breadth of the nation like a gypsy there are times when I feel that there is no place that I can call mine . I cherish every moment of my stay in that particular place but I am amused at  how  every time I manage to move to a different place with a sense of detachment, I guess all bankers’ children are hardwired like that. 

Chennai (AH(after hinduja) to 1999) : This is where it all started ,the place gave birth to the Masketeer in the scorching heat during the mid summers(duh!!! wat an unpleasant beginning !!!! ). My family was usually referred to as “andha telungu karanga”(those telugu ppl)  in the neighborhood. Tamil was the first non mother tongue that was found playing on my tongue, which was later only to be discouraged by a convent school named ‘rosary Matriculation’ .  Mass prayers ,singing hymns along with the nuns during Christmas celebrations had become an integral part of my living .   Dressed in a chic short blue color uniform I would go talking to everyone(even with my family at times and my mother’s amused expression at that !!!)  in my broken English, but made sure that I never really lost grounds with Tamil by regularly watching tamil songs and dancing tapanguttu( a local folk dance form in T.N) to it.

Neyveli (2000-2002): You must be wondering what big difference this place would have made ,as it was just another place in the same state. Neyveli is a different world in itself ,truly diverse in its culture with only plantations and greenery everywhere accompanied by a rare sight of human habitation sparsely spread here and there. My class constituted of children from both the Aryan and the Dravidian race and this is where I came across hindi being spoken (trust me it sounded very different from the hindi I learnt from the text books !!!) “tum kya kar rahen ho balak” changed to “saale kya kar rahan h bey” My close knit gang had telugu ,malyali Bengali and rajasthani speaking kids. Yet again it was  English that I had to speak but thanks to vadivel ,vivek(tamil cinema’s famous comedians) they made sure I never really distance myself from tamil.  

Delhi (2002-2012): Ohk I totally agree with what neil Armstrong once said “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind “.  One small step to a place 2000 miles away created a gaint leap in my life and persona. The heart of the nation played the major role in shaping me into what I am today. I was put in a DAV school dominated by the elite class  Punjabis. “Silent night holy night” was replaced by “om bhur bhuva swaha” .I was mocked at practically every attempt to speak the local lingo, as at the age of 13 it is language that creates the barrier and I had to break it. It was one of those most distressing years of my life ( 12^th grade being the most !!!) ,friendless and at times bullied ,once or twice I volunteered to play hide and seek with my class girls only to find myself hiding in my hideout for the entire lunch break and the girls would apologize sarcastically saying that they forgot to search for me . I felt like a tropical forest orangutan stuck in the land of polar bears . The year passed I picked up the local hindi  lingo that had a huge Punjabi touch to it, socialized and I finally met the right people made friends worth a lifetime  , went hanging around in every nuke and corner galli of the city. The place made me bold ,confident, induced a modern outlook(no I never had a boyfriend ,never went to a pub,never wore a backless or a micro mini…. Its so disappointing the non delhities have this cliché notion about delhi girls) .It made me modern enough to stand for the idea that homosexuals and  transgenders  deserve their equal share of rights in this society plagued with preconceived notions. I had come to love this city ,the culture (except for a few aspects about which I will right sometime in the future). I had truly become the proverbial “Dilli ke dilwaale”

Warangal (2012-current ): Finally I got an opportunity to be in the state which everyone said was supposed to be my home ,Andhra Pradesh the land of gongura(a type of pickle) eating ,telugu speaking gultis (a slang referring to telugu ppl just like bongs and mallus). No matter where I went I was proud  to be a gulti and was all praises about my fellow telugudians ,but to my surprise I felt foreigner even to this place. I was way too outgoing for the otherwise docile ,shy chudidhar cladded clan . Right from the guard bhaiyya to the mess bahiyaa everyone spoke to me in hindi despite my repeated attempts at conveying the fact that I was well versed with telugu(I guess they never were really convinced  with that idea listening to my telugu) . My classmates tried their level best to make me feel at home and I have pretty well adapted myself to it ,but there are times when I feel I was not one amongst them ,those never ending discussions on telugu cinema ,comedy and punch dialogues sound like greek and latin to me. Nevertheless by the time I leave this place I am sure I would blend myself in the shadows of this culture.

Bangalore (current shuttling between Warangal and Bangalore): This place is more of a holidaying spot for me so I can’t really give an unbiased and transparent feedback about how the traffic, public transport etc etc treats you on a day to day basis. But there is one striking thing about this wonderful place ,not for a moment I felt alienated here. Hinduja is bangalore personified!!! . Just like me the place was so cosmopolitan in nature.Standing on MG road for 20 mins will give you the privilege to hear at least 80% of the languages   spoken in our nation. It is inhabited by  people from as far as the north east to the ones from the backwaters of kerala,predominantly the youth.

When I reflect back on those nomadic years that I spent all this while, it all sums up to the fact that in people’s eyes I belong nowhere but my  perspective on this is that I can appreciate the flavor and feel the pulse of places which are such a contrast to each other ,thereby making me feel that “I belong everywhere “