Cinnamon is known as a place where people have interesting conversations and trigger thoughts. Our guest blogger Sujata is one such person who went on a train of thought while chatting with hosts Manish and Shilpi. Sujata is a senior Montessori trainer and teacher from Bangalore. She
visits Gurgaon regularly on work and for the past two times has been
staying at Cinnamon homestay.She loves travel and long chats over the dinner table. And when last her
sister asked if she was getting bored in Gurgaon, she said she is afraid
she now might get bored when back in Bangalore :)
We bring to you a direct "dil se" post that she so thoughtfully shared with us. Thank you Sujata!
Now
that I am back in Gurgaon for long periods, each thing reminds me of what was part
of my life long years ago. The colour of the soil-same as my Delhi home. The
accent. The air. The people- I can see the characteristic features of the sub
communities of North, who now wear clothes very foreign to what they used to
wear those 30 long years ago.. That just made me realise how much I had
absorbed and knew.
Now
I am in a phase of life where I gladly welcome and embrace both the heritage
and own both in my mind. That makes me unique and interesting as people
struggle to slot me into some region of India. I realised it was made all the
more difficult by my schooling in Kendriya Vidyalaya. That is a great leveller
and laid the foundation of accepting people as themselves rather than Where
they come from.
We bring to you a direct "dil se" post that she so thoughtfully shared with us. Thank you Sujata!
Hi
friends, I'm sharing the gist of what transpired in 'Cinnamon Stays', my home
away from home at Gurgaon. Manish and Shilpi make the guests so comfortable
that we forget that we are the guests. In the post dinner chat one night(That
may go on to more than an hour, without me noticing the passage of time) even as we were chatting, some
of my random thoughts fell into place and here it is.....
A
very common thing that we do when we meet someone is to try to place where
their origin is, as in 'Where are you from?'
When
people meet me for the first time, they try to guess, and the answer ranges
from- are you Gujrati? A Marwari? to Are you 'Madras brahmin(First time i heard
the term) And often people say, 'I can't place from where you are;-)'
All
these set off the question- in fact reminded me of the question that would dog
me- 'Which state do I belong to?' You see, I am born to Kannadiga(from
Karnataka) parents, born and brought up in New Delhi.... And married and
settled in Bangalore(the place of my parents origin)
There
were enough of south Indian practices at home and at family friends place, that
was a part of me. As also was the north indian practices with friends and their
homes at young age ensured that I absorbed that too.
It
is an interesting journey that I have had. In my early life, I had no such
question in my mind, till Geography lessons differentiated me from my friends,
as I was from Karnataka, living in Delhi (as someone put it, 'My Madrosi
friend..'.) Then came marriage and move to Bagalore- one that I hated. First
ten years I was still pining for Delhi till time healed the wounds and I
settled into being a Bangalorean( truly so when I realised my chaste Hindi had
acquired a south Indian and I wanted to have curds at the end of my meal) There
followed a phase of protest in my mind, then feeling lost as I felt I could not
own both the identities and then graceful acceptance- of the accent as well as
the fact that I am a Kannadiga.
Now
that I am back in Gurgaon for long periods, each thing reminds me of what was part
of my life long years ago. The colour of the soil-same as my Delhi home. The
accent. The air. The people- I can see the characteristic features of the sub
communities of North, who now wear clothes very foreign to what they used to
wear those 30 long years ago.. That just made me realise how much I had
absorbed and knew.
At
the end, still, Main, dil se, Dilli wali hoon!
(Picture courtesy - Sujata R Kumar)
