Identities Without A Home

Aren’t we all migrants, journeying from one place to another, holding tight to one strand of culture while living according to the ethos of another? Isn’t it for me to decide how I choose to identify my being?

- Priyanka Borpujari

Lucknow, Kanpur, Allahabad, Delhi and after hundreds of kilometres on the odometre, my father arrived in Bombay in the early 80s. Or maybe it was late 70s. He would mention the dates, but given the way History in school is emphasised on remembering the dates, we ignored it. Early 1984, he met my mother at a formal setup in Guwahati, and four months later, they were married. A brief honeymoon in Calcutta was also the stop en route to their newly married life in Bombay, and exactly a year since they entered into matrimony, I was born.

When people ask me where am I from, I like to detail it thus: I was conceived in Bombay, delivered in Jorhat, and raised in Bombay. But it took me years to figure out who am I. I have always identified Jorhat as being my birthplace; my mother observed her last trimester there and I was ushered into the world under the loving care of my Khura and Khuri (my father’s brother and his wife). At five months, I was brought to Bombay; Papa would joke that I began to fly high since such a young age. Three years later, my brother was conceived, delivered and raised in Bombay. Is he less Assamese than I am because of the technicality of the location of birth?

Of the Many Tongues I Speak…