JOURNEY(FINDING THE HIDDEN GEMS)

Indian but not Indians Part 2

"You're Indian?"

"Yes I am."

"No, you don't look like an Indian."

"Well, I am an Indian."

This kind of conversation is one of the most common conversations I come across every time I go out of my state, Nagaland. Be it South India, North India, or Central India, or even in other countries, this is the most common question or conversation I have when I meet people for the first time.

When I was at school we went to Goa for an excursion. Travelling out of Nagaland for the first time, and going to Goa of all places, meant my excitement and expectations were high. I imagined having the opportunity to talk to some white people and obviously having some photos taken with the tourists near the beach, and I couldn't wait to see the sea for the first time, having spent my entire life surrounded by mountains. As we disembarked from the train in Goa, in the second week of January 2000, we were surrounded by a bunch of children begging us for money. We gave them a few rupees and expected them to be satisfied with that and walk away, but instead they started asking us for our own currency, not Indian currency. So, we tried to explain to them that we were from Nagaland in North East India, to which they replied, "Oh, China." It took a while to explain that we really were from India.

Since that day I've heard the same question repeatedly "You are Indian?" whenever I tell someone I'm from India.

I take this identity issue as a blessing as well a curse. I'm proud that the looks of my people are unique and gives us our own identity, but at the same time, it can sometimes make me feel like a foreigner in my own land. It can be particularly frustrating and irritating when someone calls me Chinese or a Chinky in my own country, or even Tibetan sometimes.

Questions about being Indian became very common when I went to Germany. I was going to study there and people at my school were expecting an Indian to join them. When I arrived, many of the other students (who are now my friends) found it hard to believe that I was the person from India. In one incident, one of my friends asked me "I know you are from India but genetically from which country do you belong?" It was hilarious. In another incident we were having dinner with a group of visiting students when one of the girls asked one of my friends "I heard there is an Indian in the school, but I can't find him, where is he?"

My friend pointed at me and said "That's him."

The lady replied "Oh, nice" before continuing to eat her food. Later, on a more serious note, she asked the same question again, so again my friend pointed at me and told her that it's me. When she received the same answer she stared at me for a little while in amazement, before directing the next questions at me. "Are you serious?" and "Is your mum from another Asian country or did your family migrate to India or something?"

The worst experience I had was when I visited Brazil. As I stepped out of the airport I saw a lot of people that looked like my own people and thought that maybe they were tourists like me. It took me a while to realise they were actually Brazilian and I had a hard time trying to explain to them that I wasn't Brazilian, I was Indian, and then why I looked so different to the "normal" Indian person that people usually imagined. Carrying an Indian passport but looking more Asian was another challenging but funny experience every time I went through Immigration as I visited each country.

As a result of my identity issue as Indian (both in India as well as abroad) I came up with a good way of explaining where I am from. "I come from a place where the people look Asian; they dress like Europeans; they sing like Nightingales; most people mistake us for being Chinese; the place looks like the Amazon rainforest; if you drive on the highway it feels like you're having an off-road experience; by country we're Indian; by religion we're Head Hunters converted to Christianity and all that combined describes my place known as Nagaland. That's why I say we're "Indian but not Indians."