Somewhere I belong

This is a post about me. About something that has been rankling for sometime. Apologies to my readers (both of you), if the mood of this essay is not conformant with my previous pieces(both of them).

I belong to a Malayalee family, which, like millions of other families left Kerala in search of a new life elsewhere. My parents came to Chennai in the eighties,found their respective jobs and have remained in the city ever since. As a result, my sister and me have been brought up in a cross-cultural environment encompassing two states and four languages. I speak a combination of English and Malayalam at home. I spoke a combination of English and Tamil at school. I answered Hindi(my second language at school) answer papers in a combination of all three languages(which is probably why my Hindi teachers were not at their most polite best while in conversation with me).

The outcome of this has been that I cannot, in all honesty, confidently say that I feel completely accepted by any of the above mentioned groups. My Tamil classmates although extremely friendly, know that somewhere, deep down I am a 'Mallu'. Any true-blue Malayalees who I chance upon, regard me suspiciously because of my fluent Tamil. In college, I have been called 'Peter' ( a slightly derogatory Chennai term used to describe an English speaking person).When a Malayalee introduces me to another Malayalee he always does so with a disclaimer - "This is Ashwat, he is a Malayalee, but has lived in Chennai all his life." The other Malayalee immediately starts talking to me in English, assuming that there is no way in hell a person who has lived in Chennai all his life can ever speak passable Malayalam.

Another disturbing aspect is the pride of position given to the colour of your skin. Disregarding the fact that all Indians are coloured varying shades of brown, we have a tendency to slot people into 'black', 'white' and for some obscure reason 'wheatish'. I, and some friends, have been called 'Vellakara'(white man) owing to a combination of our English skills and fair skin. When a friend of mine retaliated by calling the person who had given him this sobriquet a 'Karuppukaara'(black man), he was accused of being derogatory and insulting.
Funnily, several North Indians labour under the delusion that anybody who is fair skinned is from the North. Many of them come and address me in Hindi confident that I would reply in their language.

It is therefore no surprise that most of my closest friends are people who primariy speak English as well. This is often percieved as being elitist or snobbish. I beg to differ; although I speak good English, I belong to this country and perhaps have a greater understanding of its diversity than the people who stick to their vernacular.

So am I a true global citizen or do I belong nowhere? I prefer to believe the former.