I was born in India, went to Elementary School in Texas, went to Middle School, and currently attend, High School in Georgia. When people ask me where I am from, what (or where) on earth do I say?! We hear of identity theft everyday. Well what if you don't have an identity to begin with?
Last summer, I was lucky enough to reacquaint myself with my past by going to visit family and friends in India. Finally I would have a chance to see if India was where I belonged. Eight years away from the land that was probably my home. Probably. Well I would find out soon, wouldn’t I? Although I was tingling all over with excitement, a part of me was, expectedly, anxious. How was I going to behave around everyone? As an indifferent vacationist with no care for new customs? As an enthusiastic culture-hungry interloper with a lively exposition that almost seems... fake? Bottom line: I was feeling like a foreigner. Did I belong to India, my birthplace or to America, the place of my upbringing?
When I got to India, things felt the same... yet different. Somewhere along the lines of a familiar stranger. I wanted to dive right into the people and wanted to immediately feel like I was a part of the crowd, but something inside me held me back. A part of me kept me inside myself no matter how much I wanted to let go and talk to my uncles, my aunts, my cousins, my grandparents, my old best friends, my old neighbors. Of course, I'm not one to immediately break the silence in a crowded room; I am somewhat of an introvert, but I speak my mind when I feel strongly about something. I was not uncomfortable in India but I could not make myself let go. I couldn’t change myself, in a sense, to enjoy what I didn’t feel like I could enjoy, but I saw India with open eyes and an open mind, and fell in love with the country I knew I had always been in love with. Days drifted away in the warm haze of a monsoon summer, and before I knew it, it was time to go back.
On the flight back, I had an interesting thought. We were waiting for the plane to take off and my mother had just gotten done with a long lecture about how she was going to make it a point to go back home as soon as she could. Home. Weren’t we on our way home already? I mean, we were on a plane heading back to America; wasn’t that home? I thought about that the entire flight and came to no conclusion. But I did make a few realizations about myself. One was the fact that I could not speak up even in India, as if that was new. The second was that even though I was in India, I could still keep my mindset and could still let people know what I liked and did not like without feeling like I had to apologize for who I was. I was about to conjure up a third theory when it hit me. The one thing that had not changed in the midst of the chaos of the shifting aspects of my life was me. I had stayed true to myself. I belonged to me. And wherever I could be myself was where I belonged. My home was inside of me.
The flight landed. The passengers were scrambling to get off of the plane. Chaos complimented the frazzled airhostesses with the thumps of the overhead baggage falling to the ground due to a bumpy flight. My mother started to get our things together. I just sat there watching everybody rush to get off the plane, into a taxi, and get back home. I was in no hurry. I was home.