The Identity

" I have no desires, save the desire to express myself in defiance of all the world's muteness" - Vladimir Nabokov

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Part 1: The Identity

Who am I? A question so simple yet so philosophical that it has soothed souls as well as provoked numerous wounds.. In search of belonging, everybody strives to find an identity: an adjective or a noun which is so dangerous that it ends up causing limitless chaos, both individually and socially. I am a Muslim or a Christian, an American or a Chinese, a lawyer or a doctor, a wife or a mother, an introvert or an extrovert and so on. A label, you see, is that dangerous simplistic social identity we assume which not only makes us lose our individual identity but also gives us a collective identity for us to own, defend and demarcate. All of these actions ultimately cause relativity and thus the root of this volatile and complex world.

Part 2: The Lock down

He looked at the elegant watch he had not worn since long. The lockdown had lasted long now and he was not sure when would things go back to normal. He knew things wouldn't be the same and it should not be. The consumption economy had caused enough harm to people but while his heart was optimistic, his brain knew that the consumption economy would be back or rather further causing more harm.

In a random webinar he was once shown a video where a monk was briefly passing by the topic- "Who am I". In simple and brief words, he said that our identity is a sum function of all the people/ideas/things we love. People/ideas/things we love give us our identity and love is the supreme emotion which defines us who we are. According to him, when somebody goes through a breakup he/she basically remorses over the loss of his identity. Even the death of somebody closer gives us a feeling of hollowness for the loss of our identity. When somebody betrays us or breaches our trust, it actually leads to loss of our identity. Every feeling he said : a feeling of happiness or sadness was a byproduct of this identity strengthening or identity crisis and this identity was a by product of love. When asked by the audience, how to escape this identity, his answer was to love God. When we attach ourselves to God (infinite) or zero (Buddha way), the identity crisis would not happen.


Part 3: The migrant labour

He had just returned home after walking and hitchhiking several kilometers of distance from the fields of Punjab to his village in UP. It was a long run away from those arduous fields where everyday he had to plough yards of land for his rich master just for some pittance of money. Back in his rickety home, he could notice the conspicuous discomfort in the eyes of his four other brothers for one more brother had arrived to share the resources left by their deceased father. In contrast, the mother was happy on the occasion of her eldest son coming back and that too in the holy month of Ramadan. Probably, the virus causing mayhem in the world had become an Eid gift sent by Allah for her eldest son was with her after fifteen long years.

The entire family broke the evening fast together, the mother chose to give some of her iftar food to her eldest son who himself had taken less of the potion to ease the discomfort of his younger brothers. In the night, he went and sat by his mother's cot massaging her feet to help her sleep. The mother asked him about how had he spent his last fifteen years and commented him on his heavy Punjabi accent. She switched on to sharing tales of his underrated father (who had died when he was just twelve) as to how talented a musician (a qawwaal) he was. His qawwaali performances used to mesmerise everyone and was once blessed by the maestro shehnai player late Bismillah Khan himself.

In the night, he slept on the ground beside his mothers cot and saw (it was a dream or an imagination, he wasn't sure) Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan performing for a large audience in Punjabi and when he looked closely he realised it was his father's face singing the hymns of love in a language he would never have understood...

"Nitt khair mangaa soneya main teri, dua naa koi hor mang di
tere pairan ch akhir hove meri, dua na koi aur mang di"
(Forever I ask God for your well being, I don't ask anything else from Him
May I live at your feet till I die, I don't ask anything else from Him)