Adrift Identities

The term 'ethnicity' has always been a murky concept for me. It would not be a stretch to claim that I have always felt considerably estranged from culture itself, like a balloon left adrift in the air, floating in limbo, unknowing of its origin and destination.

- Aafreen Hoda is a final year Sociology student and writer exploring questions of identity and lived experiences

This peculiar and persistent sense of being 'in-between' (known or unknown objects) is what sociologists describe as liminality.

My father hails from a small village named Kalyanpur in Darbhanga district of Bihar. The hamlet is greatly isolated, geographically and also culturally. He left Bihar to pursue his higher studies in Delhi very early on, and, after securing a stable bureaucratic job, was transferred to Tamil Nadu where he has lived since. My mother was born and raised in Patna, Bihar. Growing up, she had no plans or desire of leaving the North, but had to relocate to where my father was stationed after marriage.

My upbringing was, in all respects, geographically and culturally tumultuous. I lived with my maternal grandparents in Manipur (a state situated in the far North-Eastern hills of India) till I was three years old. My infancy notwithstanding, those early years in the mountainous terrains left a deep imprint upon my mind and identity. Early exposure to any culture is bound to leave potent cultural traces, and it produces a pre-reflective belonging. Moreover, the mere awareness that I was once surrounded and cared for by members of a particular ethnicity strengthens this affinity. To this day, I feel elated when I come across Manipuris, experiencing a strange sense of connection to them, almost like recognition.