Searching for Identity

Last week, I went to Darjeeling with family. No need to mention anything more about Darjeeling. It's a great colonial town made by British government, the signs of which can be seen today also. We hired a cab for local sight seeing. The cab driver was gorkha. First, he started to behave badly with us, and stopped the car even before going uphill to the peace pagoda and told us to walk upto the pagoda. It was a long walk uphill, and other vehicles were going upwards to a certain point about 500 meters from where we were standing. So we got into the car and requested him to move further upto that point. He said that if you have come to hills, then you must have to walk. But we remained silent as he was moving the car forwards. He rode to the hill and we visited peace pagoda.





After that we went to the Barbotey rock garden, situated at a distance of about 10 kms from Darjeeling. We did not talk to him in between, because we were very irritated with him for his behaviour. This time also he left us a bit before the destination, but we did not argue with him because this road was walkable and not so high. 
                                                                                   

Barbotey rock garden

We visited other two places with him, and at that time he started to talk to us, may be he felt that we were not bad people. He asked where we were from, and told us about his family members. We also started to talk to him as he was not behaving badly anymore.Then suddenly he said- " Madamji, you people are behaving good with me, but you know sometimes i feel very bad with some people. Tell me one thing, you speak Bengali, and i speak Gorkha, does that make any difference between us ? Am I not a resident of West Bengal ?"

I told him- "You are a resident of West Bengal as I am, speaking different language does not make you an outsider."

Then he said-  "Then why some people think differently ? You know, it is OK in West Bengal, but when I went to some another state, the people there asked me where I am from. I said Darjeeling. And they said- "Oh! you are from Nepal or China then.'' The same thing happens every time. Can you tell me why? I am a voter of West Bengal, my ancestors have been living here,then why I am not considered to be from West Bengal ? The leaders fight for their own agenda, but we, the common people, suffer for this, and no one cares about our problems. Can you tell me when we will find our own identity?"

I really had no words to console him. I could only say- "don't feel bad, everyone is not like them, we feel your problem." I could somehow understand why he was misbehaving. He was probably thinking that we are like those people who often hurt them.

 I know, my words could not heal his wounds, and it is the same problem with some other states of India. We call them by ridiculous names, but do we ever feel what they feel ? Have we ever thought how it feels when you live in a country, or a state, but other people there does not consider you to be a part of it ? They feel lonely, segregated and very often suffer from identity crisis. The politicians only exploit them by focusing on their weak point, and use them for their own purpose. But are not we somehow responsible for that ? We should really rethink about this, and should consider all those people who are the citizens of India as only Indians, and not by their community.

Darjeeling