On site visits I usually prefer wearing my jeans with a comfortable t-shirt, my floaters and pull the hair outta my face with a treasured bandanna from the U. S of A. I've decided that might not be a good idea from now. The attire coupled with a digi camera for documentation purposes, plus sketchpad and a zillion different pens and pencils puts me on the 'videshi' league, especially when the site in question is an actual village. Chi-chi has already been termed 'england wala ladka' thanks to his red cap that proclaims 'GREAT BRITAIN' in bold letters, and Coolio's goatee and small eyes have earned him the nickname 'China se aaya ladka'.
Today I happened to spend time in the village walking from chowk to chowk, smiling politely at people who happened to be staring their eyeballs at this foreign looking apparition who haunts their galis (i actually had kids passing by me screaming bhoot! bhoot!!).
At one particular chowk, a bunch of old ladies sitting on their string cots outside of their houses stopped me and asked me something in Gujarati. After I told them my usual line (Mujhe Gujarati nahin aati and all that), they embarked on a conversation about my other classmates who'd also roamed around in the same area.
At one awkward point in the conversation, one old lady remarked, "Aap Hindu to nahin hain naa...?"
Now that put me in a funny position. (For the record people, my pseudonum Zoe Jane is religionless. She believes in the SuperPower, and affixes no names or emotions to it. However, the person behind this pseudonym was born Hindu, and practises the religion only in the form of prayer reciting and temple visiting, and nothing more..) My attire suggested nothing of my so called 'religion'. I don't usually wear a bindi with t-shirts; and the pendant that dangles on my neck carries stones shaped to form a flower. No obvious sign like a Shri Krishna or Ayyappa Swami or a Goddess Lakshmi or Saraswati. Except for the fact that I'd be more at ease in a temple than anything else. My surname might be another give-away. However, it's not too familiar with most non-Keralites. In fact, its so misleading, i've been mistaken for Christian because of my surname!
"Jee nahin.. main to Hindu hi hoon!", I exclaimed. Only to get suspicious looks from top to bottom.
So why does it matter so much? The incident left me wondering whether it really is a good thing or not to roam around with identities of your faith that has been instilled in you only because you are born into it. In the movee Mr. and Mrs. Iyer, Hindu extremists check men for circumcision as a sign of being Muslim, before killing them.
I think it is important in the sense that it gives you an identity to move around with. A sign of uniqueness in a sea of anonymity. But where does that leave place for individual expression?
Your turn, people.
