Let me tell you about myself, an anomaly of ethnicity. For a long time, I didn’t acknowledge my cultural identity. I disregarded any notion of it in childhood, dismissing it from my mind. I could be whoever I wanted. Identity was irrelevant to me; it meant nothing. Maturity, however, compelled me to define myself within the context of culture. Still, while I sought to understand myself, it remained behind most of my concerns.
At 17, when I decided to be a writer, a storm of ambiguity struck me. The writer needs to know the nature of his/her identity. His/her work is derived directly from his/her understanding of himself/herself. Naturally, he/she will write about things that concern him/her, and these can only be interpreted through his/her lens of the world. It was then a great dilemma for me, because I did not know who I was.
Who am I? I was born in a small town in Kerala at the dawn of the 21st century. A few weeks later, I was christened Greg, after Geevarghese Gregorios, who ranks among the patron saints of my church. Who would have thought? But it did not help to have our saint’s title reduced to a popular monosyllabic nickname. At first, my grandparents raised me in Kerala. As any other Malayali child, I spoke perfect Malayalam, knew of our traditions, and played out in the rain. I was content.
As a boy, I moved out of Kerala, and my parents acquainted me with English. I don’t remember when I gave up speaking Malayalam, but language is the soul of a culture; in relinquishing my speech in Malayalam, I was also, unwittingly, cutting ties to my tradition. Another assumes the place where one is gone, and modern western culture promptly replaced my centuries-old South Indian heritage. Severed from its source, instances of my culture that I had previously possessed began to die out. I forgot about myself.
As before, I remained content. I listened to The Beatles, watched Classic Hollywood, and read British authors growing up. I didn’t yearn for the person I had killed, engaging in the slow death of a culture, much less remember it. I, rather, came to know and admire western culture, believing even that it was superior to my own. I asked myself why I hadn’t been born in America or Britain, why a small, unassuming town in central Kerala?
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I dreamt of travelling abroad and settling in the west, fulfilling western ideas of life and living. I suppose I was not alone, as I was raised in a gated community, where most people spoke English and constituted a westernised section of Indian society. I knew still that several of my friends and even my parents rested well with their Indian cultural identities. I, however, couldn’t accommodate both. It had to be either of them, I told myself.
When I began writing, I assumed a different voice, writing fiction that mirrored that in the west. It emulated certain styles, particularly the economy, that is now ubiquitous in western literature. I didn’t see the artistry of Indian literature, how it drew upon all forms of vocabulary and utilised various strong narratives, the beauty of it coming from its ambivalence. It was symbolic in that it would allow me to possess more than a singular identity.
At 16, I was on a trek in Sikkim, in the Himalayas, and I remember reading on a signboard, “Every man is a carrier to his ancestral legacy.” It didn’t seem profound then. It, in fact, felt serpentine: shedding my skin to reveal a hidden character within me. I couldn’t bring myself to do it, but the words stuck with me, obliging me to accept it, to recognise myself. It presented the idea that generations of people existed within me. Even today, those words echo in my mind as I continue to fortify my sense of identity.
The more I wrote, the more I found it impossible to ignore the truth of my personality: it would naturally reveal itself in my writing. I must also mention the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, whose advice was decisive in influencing one of my first stories that utilised a native setting. Rilke writes of literary inspiration in one of his letters, “And even if you found yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the world’s sounds—wouldn’t you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that treasure house of memories?”
I was eventually able to inspect my childhood ruins and produce a story set within my cultural sphere. It was conclusive of my conforming with my identity. The story itself is a piece of pride for me, having created work that honoured my person. Writing allowed me to reconcile with my culture. I may have been raised under a western umbrella, but I can no longer deny my Indian heritage.
I can also happily tell of the fulfilment that I gained in writing such fiction. In portraying myself honestly, I found the work that I produced to be of better quality and more satisfying. I aim to create more work of this nature. As such, I realise that I have to forge new bonds with my cultural heritage. At present, I am seeking to fulfil this. I am just a young Indian man at the start of a long journey.
Greg Aby is an 18-year-old writer studying English in Vancouver, British Columbia. He enjoys reading, writing, and playing music. You can contact him at gregaby2495@gmail.com.
Featured image: Nareeta Martin / Unsplash