A question of Identity. I go to the Dhaba near our office for lunch. This afternoon I'd been to the Dhaba for lunch. I was talking with Salman, the attendant and he asked me whether I was from UP. A post about this question of identities.
I'm tall, I speak good Hindi, I eat in a typically North Indian way, spicy food, dal, rotis, lassi, pyaaj etc. So, it becomes very difficult for people to make out that I'm from Pune, Maharashtra or that I'm a Gujarati. This is so because people have stereotyped notions of communities. Gujjus means they don't eat spicy, Maharashtrians means they have a different way of speaking Hindi and so on. In a way, its good for me. I've been mistaken for a Bengali, a Sindhi. People have told me that I'm from Delhi, from Haryana, from Bihar. It feels good. You can be what you want to be. That has also to do with how people perceive you in a certain situation.