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ShareWill my children and others of their kind face an identity crisis? My son had asked me one day a while ago, "Who am I?" It was a question that needed no answer and I asked him what he meant.
"Well, mom," he enunciated carefully with all the earnestness of the 12-year-old he was then, "You are a Maharashtrian... dad is from the north, so what does that make me?" I did not laugh but took his question seriously and replied, "A good Indian and proud to be one. And, I hope a very good boy at school and home."
Today, when such a hullabaloo is being made about the region we belong to, I wonder if I would have posed a similar question to my parents. For dad, who moved to Mumbai (or Bombay as it was called) around six decades earlier, was born and brought up in Bijapur and mom is a Bombay girl and a Maharashtrian by birth. But at that stage, the question of region was not an issue, so I never raised it, the way my kids do now.
I flaunt my double-barrelled surname (with both surnames indicating different regions) with pride. But what made me ponder on this issue recently was Chetan Bhagat's novel, 2 States -- The Story of My Marriage. It could be my tale with differences of details, of course. In fact, annually as we celebrate festivals, there are minor differences and degrees of importance given to different rituals in both families.
To illustrate: in my in-laws' home, unmarried girls do not touch the feet of elders. However in my maternal home, you pay obeisance to all elders -- irrespective of your gender! So, at 'mixed' gatherings, my daughter and I exchange glances about the right thing to do. Till now, we have fared quite well. So, if we happily observe hartalika, karva chauth is also celebrated with aplomb. And on the lighter side, my son had once joked -- getting his best part of both the worlds -- "Mom, I am a Maharastrian because I am born, brought up here and because of you... and if I do well in Marathi, people are surprised because I am a Saxena."
Incidentally, my parental home is a veritable littleIndia --with members having married spouses who are Gujarati, Bengali, Tamilian, Punjabi...and, why region alone? I have an aunt of Parsi origin who has seamlessly blended with the rest of the family without losing sight of her own roots. And, as I tell my kids, no matter where a family member hails from, it is important to respect the relationships we are tied to and which go beyond all other issues. "Mom, chill," came my elder one's trademark retort: "It's a non issue for us. We are all Indians and belong together!" More power to them...
