Person of Indian origin

  

Who am I? Which country do I belong to? Which group of people do I belong to? Which system do I follow? Which rules do I follow? Who do I agree with (of course my wife)? What is my place in which society?

Some of the questions can be answered with facts and some with circumstantial evidence. The rest you figure out on a day-to-day basis and the answers change everyday  depending  on ones mood, state of mind and the amount whiskey.

I was born in India. Most of my life I have lived in India, so I am Indian. But I have moved around in India while I was growing up. India being India is a large country with its states, cultures and numerous languages. It’s like each state is a different country. My home state, Punjab - or where my parents come from - is as big as Norway (where I live now).

I was not born in Punjab; I was born in UP and now that state has been further broken up into other states. So am I Punjabi because my parents come from Punjab, or am I from UP where I was born? Oh, maybe I have missed out on the bigger picture here – it’s not really that I am Indian but I am no longer Indian, but that I am British and I have a English wife.

I don’t feel English but I do feel British and European, HELL (although I don’t believe in hell or heaven) YES!  I feel British and European and I even voted for the first time in England to try and get my MPs and MEPs elected. Whereas in India, I could not even get a voting ID. One time the address was wrong, the other time they put in the wrong photo and then sent my voting ID to someone else.

All this is not helped by the Indian media, which keep reporting news of what people of Indian origin have done in other countries. It’s like India does not let you go even when you denounce the Indian nationality. There are two kinds of news in the media: (1) somebody died or got beaten up in other countries then it’s an Indian or Indian student but (2) if someone has achieved something and it’s by a person of Indian origin (I guess these people don’t want to be called Indian), is it not time to let it go and just say so and so did great in so and so country?

I don’t know what point I trying to make here - have they asked that person how he feels, whether he wants to be referred to as Indian or a person of Indian origin? On what basis has he chosen to be non-Indian? Did he really want to leave the country? How did he feel about it and how has he been treated in his country? Why is the person of Indian origin so important (person of Indian origin maybe a citizen of another country)? Are there not enough Indians, being Indian citizens, who have done great things to get a mention in the news? Believe me, there are loads of Indians who deserve recognition but it seems that persons of Indian origin over shadow those who are indeed Indian.

My friend Harpreet Singh Padam was not happy man when I told him I took up British citizenship, but I think he understands in a way why. Like I said, I was born in Uttar Pradesh in India to a set of parents who were born in Punjab, in a unified India. I married and English/British woman, moved to Alesund, Norway, where our first child was born. Just for fun and to make his life a little complicated, we gave him a Russian second name. Who knows what my son is going to make of all of this.

Sometimes it’s not easy to explain it to people or I don’t know if I want to explain it. People ask where are you really from. You land at Delhi airport and you get asked at immigration: so you are British, why do you have a Norwegian address? Oh! You were born in India! You speak very good Hindi.

I am a Norwegian resident, a British citizen, and an overseas citizen of India  living on planet earth, floating in the milky way. The point is that when you feel like a citizen, when you feel you belong to a place, where your loyalties lie, that is where your heart is and where you can sing you are “500 miles away from home”.