The beauty of being yourself

It's been such a long time since I last blogged. I'd promised myself that I'd make sure never to take such a long break but school work always gets in the way of my promises. So anyways, I'm back to blogging! I'd watched a video a month ago. It was a short film that spoke about how Tamils living both in India and abroad do not encourage their children to speak in Tamil, as a consequence of which the language would disappear in a few years. As someone who strongly believes in maintaining one's identity and regularly speaking in one's native language, this film touched me and haunted me for days to come. Then I decided that I'd blog about it.

A few years ago, when I was in high school, I was asked to write a short essay on my thoughts on "What should one do on moving to a new country? Should they change to suit their surroundings or else strictly stick to their identity?" I didn't need time to think. I straightaway went on to write that no matter what, there is nothing that stops you from maintaining your own identity. Looking back, I realize that at that point of time, life was all black and white. Now, I can see the grey areas as well. But, that hasn't changed my opinion on the matter one bit. I still believe that no matter where you live or who you live with, you can keep your identity and always be proud of your culture and heritage. I'm not sure where or how I picked up that stand but I've had it for as long as I can remember. Though I'm Indian, I've spent most of my life in Saudi Arabia and a few years in the United States. For the last 13 years or so that I've spent outside India, every time someone asked me who I was, I would proudly say "I'm Indian, from the southern state of Tamil Nadu." I'm asked that question almost on a daily basis and my answer remains the same.

I've always taken pride in my mother tongue Tamil, in it being one of the classical Indian languages, in its centuries old heritage, in how beautiful it sounds, in coming from a country with such a rich cultural background, in our languages, our colors, our clothes, our cuisines. Having lived in three countries, each one as different from the other as possible, I only added on to myself what i liked about the people there. Those additions never took away from me what I already was. This might have been because of my confidence in who I am or else the fear of losing myself in the crowd. I strongly believe that taking pride in your culture and individuality brings you more respect in the new place than if you'd tried to blend in. Now let me add the grey to that high school essay. Blending in is necessary. But, blending in to such an extent that you might lose your identity is dangerous. I've always felt that when I look back at life, i want to be all that I was a few years ago. I don't want to lose myself anywhere along the way.

We can find something beautiful about every culture, every country. There is only the issue of identifying the beautiful things about your background and beginning to love them. On moving to any country, you can still be yourself. It is all about being yourself. You've got no one to impress and forgetting your identity is certainly not going to impress anyone. If you come to think of it, certain countries are well known for their multicultural population. What would happen if we erased those cultural differences? Would the earth be the same if we all began to look and act the same? There is nothing more beautiful than people maintaining their individual identities and still living together in harmony. The identity of our planet is in all those different cultures. Remember that. Spend some time every now and then, reminding yourself of who you are. I do that too. I tell myself that I'm an Indian Tamil Muslim and I couldn't be any prouder.