Glorified Evil

The other day I was talking to Didi and she said, "Ayush, tor English ‘ta eto accented keno hoye gechche?" [Why have you picked up an accent?]. She wanted her old Ayush, not this Americanized version. The seemingly innocent question, posed even in a loving way, sparked an identity war in my head.

Moving away from the places where we grew up, taking in the wide experiences as we come in contact with other cultures, other peoples is it possible for us to retain the same old character? Is it even healthy to hold onto that past and refuse to grow organically, to adapt, to change in response to the new experiences?

So who am I?
Am I the Ayush who grew up in Calcutta in a small locality, who was too afraid to leave Ma for even a little while?
Am I the Ayush who was steeped in religion and eastern mysticism?
Am I the Ayush who went to Kharagpur and questioned all that he held sacred?
Am I the Ayush who then wept for hours on the flight to USA as he felt torn away from all that was dear?
Was that the same Ayush who now calls home once a week for 10 minutes?
Am I the Ayush who wept the whole night when he drank a tiny amount of alcohol when tricked by friends, or the one who danced drunk on 17th Street?
Am I the Ayush who hated this inscrutable America or am I the one who now has an American boyfriend and who sometimes also finds the Indian culture inscrutable?
Am I the ayush who does not believe in bowing down before a stone idol to seek good fortune and blessings or the one who was a Hanuman-devotee?
Am I the Delhi-born Ayush who had been told multiple times by his marwari friends that he speaks English with a Bangla accent, or the one who used to speak Bangla from a Hindi perspective, or the one who now was accused of having an American accent?
Am I from Delhi, from Calcutta or from Maryland?

Maybe I am all of them. As new colors are added on new hues emerge. They do
not kill the older shades but add to them, and in the words of Shyam Selvadurai the identity gets hyphenated. We who are of the diaspora, develop a unique culture that is neither fully ‘here’ nor ‘there’. Grey can be darker or lighter but it is neither black, nor white. Who is to say what color the shade is? And I feel it is healthy that way. I do not hold sacred, infallible or unchanging the traditions and lifestyle of my stay in India. I could stop my time, and stay with that identity which I brought out of the lands of my origin but that would mean (to me, at least) a stagnation, almost a death.

So I think the colors of different experiences, the childhood in Lake Gardens, the years at South Point, the experiences of Kharagur, the last few momentous years in USA are all mixed in me…. I refuse to be defined by any one of them or to be bound by any single one! But if you look closely, you will find a strand of Kolkata, a streak of Kharagpur, the imprints of India and an evolving Ayush who is merging all that was past with all that is present.

Just read a great post about social Symbols
in India. I think we can see it everywhere, be it India or USA. The
Spirit of an action/emotion is first bound in a Symbol — almost as an
honor, as a proclaimation. The Symbol serves the beautiful purpose of
reminding us of the Spirit that was first embodied in it. initially,
the Symbol is one that is self-imposed, and granted authority by free
will. But over ages the Spirit is often forgotten while the hollow
Symbol remains, no longer serving as a reminder of the lost Spirit.
Often, the Symbol, in trying to preserve its own glory, even perverts
the Spirit and becomes a gesture of oppression and submission as it
begins to be socially imposed rather than being a personal expression. While the Spirit of an emotion/action evolves
with different individuals and changing times, the Symbols get set in
stone (sometimes literally) and unable to change, they rot. The dominance of select social identities (e.g. male, white, heterosexual, higher caste) adds an extra factor by gradually eroding the
Symbols into equations of power. So it is with the Symbols like mangalsutra, the
sindoor, the Karwa-Chauth, the sati, the dowry, the joint family, and
the heterosexual marriage among countless others.