> Like thousands of Indians, i too have been witnessing and anguishing on the Mumbai carnage and the outrage and outpourings that is flowing non stop. much as i like to think of myself as a open minded, liberal, rational human being, to whom, communalism is associated only with the likes of fundamentalists of all kinds, the inner voice told some other tale. This came up during a discussion with a dear friend who confronted me with the issue that one can not be anchored on one’s own heritage and convictions unless one explores, understands and accepts both the primal and the socialised parts of the heritage, in its particularised context. This pushed me to look at the number of communities that i emotionally connect to; and i came up with the following in order of psychological priority: 1. Bengali 2. Hindu 3. woman 4. middle class and this list can go on and on. however, it is during the
Author: Sarbari
>encounters with identities
>I had a very interesting day recently. it started with a petty fight with A over a very petty thing but we brought out the worst in each other. was not very pleasant way to start a day, but ….. 😦 i went out of the house, went to my work space, vowed to myself to be “absolutely and completely” self sufficient (as though there can exist a reality like that) but i think i gave it a good try! i finished lots of odd things that were just pending. i vowed to start driving again; i guess it was my way of putting myself in the driver’s seat again! then the strange things started happening – i started meeting various facets of my identity or shall i say, various facets of women’s identities, all of them on the same day. came the first encounter. some one who i did not know from before, came to meet me. the
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