Naya Saal aur Naye Sawaal... New Year and new questions

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Last Year, Karwa Chauth was full of questions for me. Each one wanted to know why I was fasting when I am not a Punjabi. Mumbaikars can be so weird at times. I should not be generalising but right from the fabric shop owner to the Yoga mates to the school Moms to the neighbours , all asked why was I practicing this ritual since I did not belong to that particular community. Strange but just Mehendi/ Henna on my hands got a barrage of questions even from all my household help. I just got some vague, some puzzled and some sympathetic looks. Some even stated that their husbands do not expect them to fast and their families are liberal. Some years back, I was getting into the groove of Karwa Chauth and putting Mehendi on my hands. Friends thought I was making fun of them. This time, I played smart. I did not give any explanations. I just heard people and their views and the way some women express their feminism.  People can't figure out that if I am a Gujarati then why wasn't I born in Gujarat or why don't I have relatives there or have an ancestral home there?  If I am married to a Maharashtrian, why don't we visit our native place and why I don't even know the place from where both my in-laws originated. Why is my Hindi different from the Bambaiyya Hindi? Why do I feel so passionately about Bihar and Jharkhand? Why do I connect well with the Hindi speaking Bhaiyya cabbies, vegetable vendors etc? What is it about UP and Bihar that gets me so excited? Why do I understand Bangla and love Kolkata and Bengalis? Why do I have an affinity for south India and the vegetarian South Indian cuisine? If I am such a staunch and Pucca vegetarian, how can I know and order good non vegetarian food in restaurants? How, since I belong to Dhanbad and a business community, could I work for a five star hotel chain? How come I was not a receptionist when I worked in a hotel? 

What I could hear is all the boundaries we grow up with and actually start believing them to be real. I could see how we judge people by the communities they belong to. I realised I judge people by the cities they belong to. Delhiites are aggressive. Bombay wallahs are so loud. Chennai and Bengaluru for me are classy, subtle and quiet. I see people judging by if your husband belongs to business family or a service class family. People tell me since it is their own business, they just cannot take a holiday and nothing can be ever preplanned. I have friends who always reach an hour late for a lunch. I am scared to think what time they reach for dinners. I walk into my own house and I am judging how it looks and how it smells. I am constantly seeing who amongst the staff has done their job well. I am not even going to the obvious ones like judging people by their looks, language and the way they speak. I am judging the children's hunger by the amount they eat and the cook's cooking by the leftovers in the fridge. Always judging young Mommies and what they do wrong with their children. 
Sometimes I wonder, when do I live?  

This New Year, I was determined that I will not write  my 'holier than thou' posts. I will not sit and say the world is a bad place to live and I am such a great human being. I will try not to project myself as 'almost perfect' . I will not talk about trees being constantly chopped in my area. Though they just cut off all the branches in the abandoned and encroached park where my Yog class is located.  I will be okay with things the way they are and the way they are not. I will turn a new leaf in the New Year. And then I remembered a saying which says "The more things change, the more they remain the same". What change am I looking at? What do I want to to become? Who do I want to become like? What is it that I think I am so unique or different from others? Why don't I want to merge in the crowd? What is it about wanting to stand apart in a crowd? Why do I want to compete even if it is with myself? These and more questions to ponder. Will I discover something new about myself in the New Year? Will I break my self made shackles and set myself free? 

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