" I am originally a Bengali, born and brought up in Patna, graduated from Delhi and presently doing my PG from Bangalore"....this is my usual introductory line when my friends ask me where am i from.
For my cousins in Calcutta though, I am not a Bengali. .... I can neither write in Bengali, don't even understand the meaning of most of the "shuddho" Bengali words and even my vovab in Bengali abuses is very limited.
For my friends in Patna I am not a Bihari either...I speak Bengali at home, my mom's culinary expertise is in a cuisine that is somewhat alien to their's and I manage to get ten set of new clothes for Durga Puja when they can hardly manage two or three.
Who am I then...a Bengali, a Bihari, neither or both? The more i try to answer this question, the more I get confused..."confused" we all are in this modern, globalized world. The more we move away from our sense of 'home', our sense of our 'roots', the more we feel nostalgic about it. We try to convince ourselves that we no longer need these parameters to define our sense of self but at the same time no Bengali can hide his pride when Saurav scores a century, no Bihari can hide his pride when a fellow Bihari tops an IAS exam.
Our roots though overlooked, are still there with us and will be there with us. The need of the hour is not to forget them but to move on from their. A Bengali is a Bengali because there is a Bihari as the "other". If the 'other' ceases to exist the 'self' ceases to exist too. So we need to appreciate the 'other' in order to understand the 'self' better. Only when we try to do so, an Assamese can co-exist with a Bihari, a Maharashtrian can accomodate North Indians, an Hindu can live with a Christian.
... an Indian would not kill another Indian
...a human being would not kill another human being.
and coming back to the point where I started .. as long as I get to enjoy my "chochchori" and my "litti-chokha" Am Happy.. am not ready for a trade-off yet!